He was christened Donald Robert Perry Marquis and he was born in Walnut, Bureau Co., Ill., in 1878, but he soon dropped half of his first name and all of the next two, and left his native State to consort with Archie and Hermione and the Old Soak, famous characters of his own creation. (It seems auspiciously appropriate that any one born during the reign of Rutherford B. Hayes should see the light of day at Walnut, Bureau Co., especially if Marble, Washstand Co., is not available.)

Don Marquis became a newspaper man and then a columnist. He kept "The Lantern" in the New York Herald Tribune burning brightly until a few years ago, when he ceased his journalistic work. His first book was published in 1912. "The Old Soak" appeared in 1921, as did "Noah an' Jonah an' Cap'n John Smith."

"A Keeper of Tradition" is Don Marquis's second appearance in SCRIBNER'S within a few months, and we are glad to announce that another story of his, "The Flea, the Pup, and the Millennium," will appear in an early number. New Yorkers will doubtless recognize The Painters Club, the scene of "A Keeper of Tradition."

It is gratifying to have such an excellent runningmate for Mr. Marquis in this number as Wilbur Daniel Steele. Mr. Marquis first appeared in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE with a poem in 1907, Mr. Steele with one of his first stories in 1914, and since Mr. Steele is a few years younger than the genial Marquis that makes it about even.

Mr. Steele is recognized as a master of the shortstory form, and has won so many O. Henry prize awards that he isn't eligible any more. "New Deal" is a gay, swift-moving story, showing how this generation is more nearly related to our gambling grandfathers than to our thrifty parents.

We were unsuccessful in our attempts to secure a photograph of Mr. Steele, who wonders if it won't be sufficient to state that he is tall, dark, and handsome. He is living now in Westport, Conn.

Michael Pupin enunciates in his article in this

number the doctrine of creative co-ordination. Science leads to religion and not to atheism, he declares. He sees science, religion, and art co-ordinated through the human soul. This co-ordination goes all through all forms of life and energy, and is the ultimate scientific proof of a creator, he asserts. At the same time Doctor Pupin attacks certain theological attitudes and shows that the real conflict is between science and man-made theology. It is a remarkable document from one of our greatest scientists. He vies with Herbert Hoover as the holder of honorary degrees. His latest were received from the University of Rochester and Brown University, bringing his total up to a score.

"The Brain that Lived Again" is a unique story by a man who promises to be one of our most talkedof contemporary playwrights. George S. Brooks was born at Pearl Creek, N. Y., thirty-two years ago. After newspaper work in various sections of the country, he served as enlisted man during the World War. He was a police reporter in Rochester when SCRIBNER's first bought a story from him. He came to New York to work on McClure's Magazine, and later went to The Shrine Magazine for a time. Then he cut loose from all ties and began writing plays. The first was produced several months ago and caused a stir. "Spread Eagle" is a satirical melodrama which sounds a new note in the theatre. It shoots holes into a patrioteering attitude and has caused certain professionally patriotic organizations no end of worry. Two other plays by Mr. Brooks will be produced this fall. "Spread Eagle" was published a few days ago in book form. If you didn't see the play, read the book. It's like an invigorating cold shower. Rightly enough, Brooks himself is of Revolutionary stock, hence his splendid uniform in the photograph.

We introduce three new authors to our audience with this number. Brooke Hanlon has done an excellent job with "Baby Girl," a beautiful picture of a coddled wife and a surprising revelation of what she was before the coddling began. Miss Hanlon lives in Haddonfield, N. J., and is a graduate of the

University of Pittsburgh. She did advertising writing for three years and has been writing short stories for about two.

Hilda Mauck gives us a hilarious story in "Leah Turns Lowbrow." She graduated from Grinnell College in 1925. She was the first of her sex to be editor of the college newspaper of that institution. We are glad to be the means of introducing her gay talent to the magazine public, for this is her first effort in the short-story field. She lives in Kansas City.

Eleanor E. Harris is a resident of Elmira, N. Y. She taught school there for several years and also worked on the local morning newspaper. She is now devoting herself entirely to writing. She has published in various magazines.

At last you will discover who killed Margaret Odell by reading this month's instalment of "The 'Canary' Murder Case." But that mystery is not the only one. Critics have ferreted out the fact that S. S. Van Dine is a nom de plume, and have attempted to discover the identity of the author. Harry Hansen, literary editor of the New York World, confessed to devoting three hours to tracing the author. He discussed the two mysteries for a column on May 31. Burton Rascoe has also been interested. One of them accused us of deliberately misleading them by the information furnished in these columns. We may say that we have not been at all misleading. All we have said about the author is true. On June 20 Hansen wrote:

The latest news about "The Canary Murder Case," the excellent mystery story now appearing in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, is that it is being made into a play by Bartlett Cormack, who has just dramatized "Tampico." "The Canary Murder Case" is by S. S. Van Dine, and readers of this column will recall the mystery surrounding that author. Apparently he is a distinguished scholar who has hidden himself under an impenetrable nom de plume.

Cormack tells me that his meetings with Van Dine are always held in a dark room with one small candle throwing a faint gleam from the mantel-shelf. Van Dine wears a beard for disguise. In the discussions between author and dramatist nothing is touched on but the actual story, all personal refer

ences to college, club memberships, the weather, and state of health being barred.

Such men are rare. I'd like to meet one like him myself.

K. S., of the Boston Transcript, and R. H. L., of the "Line o' Type or Two" column of the Chicago Tribune, have both been excited about the story, and William Allen White says: "It ought to sell a million." Some of the comment is in the adjoining department.

Mr. Van Dine, incidentally, is keeping his real name a secret, because he has done important work in another field scarcely associated with detective stories, and believes it best to keep his two identities separate.

Two very interesting glimpses of Robert Louis Stevenson are given in this number by Edward W. Bok and James B. Carrington. Mr. Bok was writing book advertisements for the house, and Mr. Carrington was associate editor of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE at the time when Stevenson was a valued contributor. Their experiences with the man throw interesting light upon him. Mr. Carrington's other bits of shop talk have a delightful mellow flavor to them. He has recently retired after more than forty years in an editorial chair as associate editor of SCRIBNER'S and editor of Architecture. Mr. Bok is too well introduced by his own writings and achievements to need further accolade here.

The Reverend U. R. Bell is pastor of the First Christian Church of Paducah, Ky. Mr. Bell reveals a most interesting point of view in "The Beneficent Barrier of Sects." He shows that the much-deplored schisms have their virtues.

Eudora Ramsay Richardson is a resident of Richmond, Va. "A Little Learning" is written from her own experience in trying to understand children by reading books.

This number is graced by Struthers Burt's fine poem, "Burial." To show Mr. Burt's versatility,

He verified what SCRIBNER'S had disclosed, that he was not a writer of detective stories but had done serious work in another field. "As a matter of fact," he said, "we decided to keep the two identities apart for the reason that a man who is working in other subjects would hardly be expected to write a mystery story." He had not intended to make capital of it; in fact, my inquiry was the first suggestion he had that some one suspected a nom de plume.

"It has been a most unusual experience," continued Van Dine. "I had no idea mystery stories were read by the class of people that does read them. I hear from men of culture who tell me they have enjoyed "The Benson Murder Case.' My biggest surprise came when that book was published in England. A don of Oxford wrote me how much he had liked the story."

I suggested that the handling of psychology in the story would appeal to well-read people. Van Dine said that he had done work in that general direction. "I had an idea you might be in law," I remarked, but his reply was non-committal. I became certain that he was not a novelist.

Tracing an author behind his nom de plume is a fascinating game, but is often muddled by the publishing house itself, for invariably some one wise with knowledge gives the snap away. Most of the pseudonyms are fairly well known, despite the fact that about half a dozen appear every year.

SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE said that Van Dine was "an expert in criminal psychology and in Continental methods of crime detection," a student of the literature of crime, both historical and fictional. That he had contributed to magazines for fifteen years, was a Harvard man who had studied law and medicine and was in his thirties. In the June magazine it is said that he is now in New York and "know he city intimately through years of journalistic work." These claims are generous and suggest a man of parts.

I thereupon set to work on the stories themselves with the enthusiasm that Poe put into his cryptograms. I hoped nobody would divulge the author's name to me until I had set down certain deductions of my own. There were, of course, the author's reading, his languages and his style. And behind that was the thing that made Philo Vance so interesting as a detective-his mental twist.

All of which gave me three lovely hours. But if I say that I am confident that I now know the author, I must also add that all my internal evidence availed me nothing and that I relied solely on a hunch. That hunch upset the SCRIBNER clues, led me direct to two lovely books in French history and proved to me that my author was as familiar with the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Ambrosiana Library as with the Elwell, Borden and Rosenthal murders.

Who is S. S. Van Dine? Make your own guess. Somewhere, not many miles from here, he writes far into the night. But no one suspects him, for he has always worked far into the night. And ever and anon he produces a work of scholarship. If he can keep his identity secret for ten years more he will have a story to tell rivalling by far the mystery of the "Canary."

"NO WORK THIS AFTERNOON"

A few days later, K. S. of the Boston Transcript

wrote:

Readers of this column who like good mystery stories and who by any chance missed the first installment of "The 'Canary' Murder Case," a Philo Vance detective novel by S. S. Van Dine, should immediately go out and procure a May copy of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, in which it began. The second long installment is in the June issue, which is just now on the stands. We have read the first few chapters in last month's number and are looking forward to a thrilling time of it this afternoon, when we will absolutely refuse to do any work until we have read the June chapters! Others have spoken to us about this thrilling yarn, which is admirably well written. "It has Fletcher trimmed a thousand ways,' is one report we have heard. Three cheers for SCRIBNER's, a magazine which is showing an earnest effort to keep up the strenuous pace which seems to have been set for all of the "better" monthly magazines. It is SCRIBNER'S, you know, where Ernest Hemingway's stories have lately appeared. With his short efforts and Van Dine's mystery, SCRIBNER'S is a magazine worth following.

In the June number we also recommend "The Necessity for Capital Punishment," by George W. Hays, former governor of Arkansas, and "The Problem of the Alumni," by Wilfred B. Shaw, general secretary of the alumni association of the University of Michigan.

متد

Then R. H. L. of "A Line O' Type or Two" in the Chicago Tribune joined in:

You won't have much time for a few days to read anything except about Lindy-and you couldn't read anything more worth while-but when you get around to it there's a perfectly ripping (Dinny King has got us to talking that way) detective story running in SCRIBNER'S (my word! fancy a detective story in jolly old SCRIBNER'S!) This story began last month, but you get a good summary of the yarn in the back of the magazine. It's a gripping (may we borrow the word, Miss Butcher?) story splendidly written by S. S. Van Dine. And who is S. S. Van Dine? Ah, that's as big a mystery as is the identity of the villain who killed beautiful Margaret Odell and brought about "The 'Canary' Murder Case."

And a few days later he added:

We've told you about "The 'Canary' Murder Case," now running in SCRIBNER'S. It intrigues us mightily and it probably will you. But why? That's the great question. Ordinarily detective stories give us a pain in the neck. But here is a detective story, full of mystery and with suspicion thrown on everybody except the editor of SCRIBNER'S and the proofreader, and we simply can't wait until the next installment. We have come to the conclusion that we like it because it isn't cast in the argot of the ordinary detective story or underworld play. Nobody says, "Say, it's a cinch, the broad croaked that guy an' she's a-going to squawk." In "The 'Canary' Murder Case" the chief character, Vance, seems to run the whole gamut of literature in his quotations and he uses words that we have to see Mr. Webster about, and when we find out we think they are lovely words we hasten to add them to our vocabulary.

But the crowning touch came when there appeared on the front page of the New York Evening Post this headline:

N. Y. POLICE SOLVE A MAGAZINE PLOT

SET ON TRAIL OF GIRL'S MURDER BY TOLEDO CHIEFS, THEY WORK TEN DAYS

THEN FIND IT'S A STORY

The story in part is as follows:

Two weeks ago Inspector Carey received a short, excited note from his confrere, Chief Jennings. A public-spirited

citizen in Toledo had picked up a torn card from the city's streets.

One glance at the card told the citizen that it was something for Chief Jennings's eye.

And the eye of Jennings did the trick. He instantly recognized the torn card as one from the files of the New York Police Department. And the name on the card-Margaret Odell was the name of a woman who had been missing from Toledo for several months. Her disappearance had kept Toledo police guessing for months. According to the card, the woman had been murdered, apparently in New York City, by strangulation. Chief Jennings saw a chance to clear up one of Toledo's prominent mysteries. With practically no help from any one but a stenographer, he sat down and wrote to Inspector Carey.

The reporter then relates how the inspector set two of his best detectives on the trail.

All their leads had proved blind alleys. There was no such address as 184 on West Seventy-first Street. Precinct 9A had been opened only two years ago, and yet Sergeant Heath, who, according to the card, was in charge of the body when the murder became known, had retired from the department in 1903. The mystery looked more mysterious than ever. All that the detectives had been able to do, they said, was to identify the typewriter which had printed the card. Printer Explains It

But the great detective was not to be baffled. Inspector Carey summoned the police printer to his office and gave him the torn card. One glance at the card was enough for the printer.

"Inspector," said the printer, known as Connolly among his mates, "that card was never printed by us. We don't put 'New York Police Department' on any of the D. D. 10 cards. Besides, this report was printed; not typewritten, on the card."

The detectives were flabbergasted, for they had found the typewriter which had been used to make out the card. But their flabbergasting had only begun.

Some one in the Homicide Bureau who had fallen into the habit of reading in his spare time suddenly recalled that SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE started running a mystery_serial in its May number called "The 'Canary' Murder Case," by S. S. Van Dine. After another period of protracted thinking he remembered that the murdered person in the story was Margaret Odell.

The great detective snapped into action. A visit to the office of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE cleared up the mystery. By close questioning he discovered that the enterprising adver