It was considered a roman à clef because the circumstances under which Elwell's body was found—he was shot to death in a room in his home which was found to be locked from the inside, and he was not wearing his toupee—are duplicated in the novel.

Modern knowledge of ballistics reveals that one of the central premises of the novel is fanciful, because the reconstruction of the height of the murderer is impossible (Dashiell Hammett had said as much at the time, in a 1927 book review).

"[1] "Vance spots the murderer almost immediately but doesn't reveal him, allowing Markham and Sergeant Heath to fix the guilt on five successive persons by circumstantial evidence.

"[2] Paramount Pictures released The Benson Murder Case (1930) a film version directed by Frank Tuttle and starring William Powell as Philo Vance.

Paramount also released a Spanish-language version, El Cuerpo del Delito, written by Catalan writer Josep Carner Ribalta (1898–1988), and co-directed by Cyril Gardner and A. Washington Pezet.