[3] Elwell's other social connections included his auction bridge partner Harold Stirling Vanderbilt.
[4] Such connections provided him with affluent students and with gambling opportunities; he became wealthy enough ultimately to own property in Palm Beach, Florida, twenty horses, five cars, and a yacht.
[2] In the early morning hours of June 11, 1920, Elwell was murdered with a gunshot to the head from a .45 automatic in his locked house in New York City.
[2] The crime generated considerable publicity: The New York Times covered it almost daily until the end of July, the Chicago Tribune published eighteen articles, and the Los Angeles Times published twelve.
"Goodman's conclusion can only remain a supposition in a case that is still important largely as the seedbed for the detective novels of both S.S. Van Dine and Ellery Queen, who realized that the popular taste for such urban mysteries could be tapped in fiction.