Investigations leading to hundreds of interviews have been clueless. Here is a new snapshot, exclusive to the Evening Herald, of piquant Beryl Cohen, found strangled ten days ago, the latest victim in this worst list of sex crimes since Jack the Ripper. Superintendent Alleyn (inset) refuses to make a statement, but says the police will welcome information about Beryl’s movements during her last hours (see page 6, 2nd column).

Miss Abbott waited for the owner of the newspaper to turn to page 6 but he neglected to do so. She stared greedily at the enlarged snapshot of piquant Beryl Cohen and derisively at the inset. Superintendent Alleyn, grossly disfigured by the exigencies of reproduction in newsprint, stared dimly back at her.

The owner of the paper began to fidget. Suddenly he turned his head, obliging Miss Abbott to throw back her own and stare vaguely at the luggage rack, where she immediately spotted his suitcase with a dangling label: “P. Merryman, Passenger, S.S. Cape Farewell.” She had an uncomfortable notion that Mr. Merryman knew she had been reading over his shoulder and in this she was perfectly right.

Mr. Philip Merryman was fifty years old and a bachelor. He was a man of learning and taught English in one of the less distinguished of the smaller public schools. His general appearance, which was highly deceptive, corresponded closely with the popular idea of a schoolmaster, while a habit of looking over the tops of his spectacles and ruffling his hair filled in the outlines of this over-familiar picture. To the casual observer Mr. Merryman was a perfect Chips. To his intimates he could be hell.

He was fond of reading about crime, whether fictitious or actual, and had dwelt at some length on the Evening Herald’s piece about the Flower Murderer, as in its slipshod way it called this undetected killer.