Philo Vance - Vance, The Man

Vance, The Man

As Van Dine described the character in the first of the novels, The Benson Murder Case:

Vance was what many would call a dilettante, but the designation does him an injustice. He was a man of unusual culture and brilliance. An aristocrat by birth and instinct, he held himself severely aloof from the common world of men. In his manner there was an indefinable contempt for inferiority of all kinds.

In the same book, Van Dine detailed Vance's physical features:

He was unusually good-looking, although his mouth was ascetic and cruel...there was a slightly derisive hauteur in the lift of his eyebrows...His forehead was full and sloping--it was the artist's, rather than the scholar's, brow. His cold grey eyes were widely spaced. His nose was straight and slender, and his chin narrow but prominent, with an unusually deep cleft...Vance was slightly under six feet, graceful, and giving the impression of sinewy strength and nervous endurance.

In the second adventure, The Canary Murder Case (set in 1927), Van Dine tells that Vance was "not yet thirty-five." He goes on to say, "His face was slender and mobile; but there was a stern, sardonic expression to his features, which acted as a barrier between him and his fellows."

Vance was highly skilled at many things: an "expert fencer," a golfer with a three handicap, a breeder and shower of thoroughbred dogs, a talented polo player, a master poker player, a winning handicapper of race horses, experience in archery ("a bit of potting at Oxford," as he referred to it), a patron of classical music, a connoisseur of fine food and drink, knowledgeable of chess and of several foreign languages. He was also an expert on Chinese ceramics, psychology, the history of crime, ancient Egypt, Renaissance art and a host of other recondite subjects.

Van Dine describes Vance's "one passion" as art. "He was something of an authority on Japanese and Chinese prints; he knew tapestries and ceramics: and once I heard him give an impromptu causerie to a few guests on Tanagra figurines..." (The Benson Murder Case)

His interest in dogs is featured in The Kennel Murder Case (his polo playing is also mentioned in that case), his skill at poker in The Canary Murder Case, his ability to handicap race horses in The Garden Murder Case, his knowledge of chess and archery in The Bishop Murder Case and of Egyptology in The Scarab Murder Case. His skills at golf and at fencing do not figure in any of the cases.

Vance often wore a monocle, dressed impeccably (usually going out with chamois gloves), and his speech frequently tended to be quaint:

• "Why the haste, old dear?" Vance asked, yawning. "The chap's, dead, don't y' know; he can't possibly run away." (The Benson Murder Case)

• "Really, y' know, Markham, old thing, " he added, "you should study the cranial indications of your fellow man more carefully--vultus est index animi..." (The Canary Murder Case)

• "And now I think I'll erase the Greenes from my mind pro tempore, and dip into the 'Satyricon.' The fusty historians pother frightfully about the reasons for the fall of Rome..." (The Greene Murder Case)

He was also a heavy smoker, lighting up and puffing on his Regies throughout the stories.

According to some contemporary critics, these mannerisms of Vance were affectations, which made him look like a foppish dandy, a poseur. (See below for criticisms.) There is some indication that Van Dine wished the reader to question Vance's sexuality. In The Benson Murder Case, Vance is called a "sissy" by another character, and early in the book, as he is dressing, his friend Markham asks if he is planning to wear a green carnation, the symbol of homosexuality during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.