Strange Times 91: Frilly Net Guimpes

Today brings a single story of murder most baffling, and a sampling of all-too-real advertisements from a long-ago April Fool’s Day. Crack open a cold case for…

April 1, 1921

• Fra Ciavolino, the murderous Italian friar (first introduced way back in “Strange Times 4”!) is reported to be near death after attempting suicide by swallowing a jar of ink.

• A fire at the Winter Garden theater “provides thrills” as witnesses watch a flaming man dragged back from a ledge and rescued before he can leap to his probable death.

• The Weather: Fair and colder today; Saturday fair and warmer; fresh northwest winds.

This is a compact little mystery in the classic mold, shared here partly because I like the idea that former governors can turn detective whenever they feel like it. The Elwell killing was quite famous, and is said to have inspired mystery authors Ellery Queen and S.S. Van Dine. Whitman never did solve the case, which means, I suppose, that it’s up to you. Can you tell who killed the headshot horseman?

The mystery of who killed Joseph B. Elwell, the whist expert and horseman, whose murder in his home at 244 West Seventieth Street in the early morning of June 11, 1920, remains one of the most puzzling crimes in recent years, is about to be reopened. District Attorney Swann has turned over all of the papers in the case to ex-Governor Whitman, who has been acting as a special assistant in his office.

Mr. Swann, John T. Dooling, one of his chief assistants, and others in the District Attorney’s office, with many of the best men in the Detective Bureau, worked on the Elwell case for weeks, only to confess that they were baffled.…

Mr. Swann said that no new evidence had been presented to his office and that the authorities had no inkling as to who killed Elwell. “If anybody can get to the bottom of this case, Governor Whitman can; he is an expert in these matters,” said Mr. Swann.

It is believed that Mr. Whitman will spend some time going over every detail of the case in the hope that a clue which may have escaped those who wrestled with the intricacies of the case for weeks will be disclosed to him. He then will make up his mind whether to recall any of the witnesses.

Elwell was found in a reception room on the ground floor of his home the morning after a dinner and theatre party by his housekeeper, Mrs. Marie Larsen, between 8:15 and 8:30, when she entered the house. Elwell, dressed in his pajamas, reclined in an arm chair with a bullet wound in his forehead. He was still alive but died in Bellevue Hospital.

On the table beside the chair in which Elwell was sitting were three letters, and on the floor, stained with blood, another letter which had fallen from his hand. An empty chair stood about four feet in front of him, and to the left of it in the rear was an ejected pistol shell which had been thrown out by the person who sat there during the night visit, and the one who probably killed Elwell. On a mantelpiece was a half-smoked cigarette.

Who this person was that called on Elwell in the early morning, what his motive was, how he entered or left the house, what connection he had, if any, with Elwell’s affairs, whether the slayer was man or woman—none of these questions have the police been able to solve. As soon as they delved into the case they found so many conflicting suggestions, so many clues which seemed to lead to persons who might have had a motive to kill Elwell, that they were baffled by the very multiplicity of the enemies he might have made.

Elwell’s bed had not been slept in the night of the killing. On it were found his money, jewelry and watch. In a closet of his room the police also found a box containing a woman’s pink silk kimono, morning cap and slippers. These Mrs. Larsen tried to hide, and later identified as belonging to “Miss Wilson,” whose identity never was revealed.

The further the police and the District Attorney went and the more they learned about Elwell the greater became their confusion over his many affairs, rumors of his connection with bootleggers and stories of men with whom he had quarreled. They ran down clue after clue that seemed promising, unearthed telephone calls which suggested a connection with the crime, only to find that they ran up against a blank wall. This is the mass of contradictions to which Mr. Whitman will now turn his attention in the hope that he may be able to solve a famous case.