Murder at the World's Fair - Mary Plum

THE STORY: Charles Graham makes a visit to Chicago's Century of Progress exposition and while passing through the Belgravian Pavilion he sees a man open a doorway. The man's hand is covered with blood and he immediately closes the door. Charles follows him into the room and sees another man stabbed lying on the floor. He is clearly dead. A shattered vase is nearby. Charles says they must call the police. The bloody-handed man, Paul Melitti, refuses and instead calls the expo's security chief, Gordon Taylor. While Melitti leaves the room for a brief time Charles calls his friend John Smith, a private detective. And the chase is on to solve the crime!THE CHARACTERS: John Smith appears in four of Mary Plum's detective novels; this was his last appearance. Within a few sentences it's clear he is yet another in a long line of Philo Vance imitations -- flippant, arrogant, insensitive, dispassionate and ridiculously knowledgeable about all sorts of minutiae. Around the midpoint his snooty…