“We often hear screaming and shouting and take no notice of it,” said a woman in an office building at the junction of High Holborn and New Oxford Street, London. But in this case the screams came from Daisy Wallis, known as Dorothy, the 36-year-old owner of the Adelphi Secretarial Agency on the top floor of the building, as she was being murdered

Her body was found on Monday, August 15th, 1949, by her assistant. Dorothy had been stabbed repeatedly with a stiletto-type knife and had bled so much that the pathologist needing a blood sample had difficulty in obtaining one.

A man “of Italian appearance” was seen running away from the building after the screams were heard. He was clean-shaven, fairly thick set, with dark hair brushed straight back from his forehead. He was believed to have been seen previously in Dorothy’s company.

Dorothy kept no fewer than 11 diaries, one of which contained shorthand details of her sex life. None of her reminiscences, though, led to the discovery of the “Italian man.”