Boston newspapers like eight-column banner headlines and frequent extras, with the result that they, perhaps more than newspapers in other cities, have to concentrate on crime to produce the headlines. Some of the best reporters in Boston are on the police beat. Starting last Wednesday those reporters (and the CRIMSON) got a fine two-day work-out when Sergeant Furness A. Brown of the Los Angeles Police Department checked in at the Hotel Statler.

Sergeant Brown had worked off and on for four years on the "Black Dahlia" case, the killing of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles on January 15, 1947. Miss Short had been beaten, raped, sliced up, and deposited in a vacant lot, leaving in her wake what the newspaper euphemistically called "a lot of boyfriends" and a little black book containing the names of more than a hundred of those boy-friends, Immediately after the crime there had been a wave of confessions; apparently people seeking attention had been inspired by the intensity of the violence. Sergeant Brown methodically tracked down and threw out each confession. He was left with a stack of photographs of the Dahlia and her friends, and the little black book.

The case had a strong appeal for the local papers. Miss Short had been a Medford girl; she had worked behind the counter in a Harvard Square restaurant before heading west for Hollywood and a hacking. When Sergeant Brown walked into Boston police head quarters on Wednesday the men on the police beat remembered exactly who he was.

Police reporters get many of their stories from what they call sources at headquarters," a broad category which can include anybody from a janitor to a captain. The Traveler's source was quick at producing a reason for Brown's trip to Boston. Wednesday night's Blue Streak edition of the Traveler led with DAHLIA MURDER HUNT SHIFTS TO HARVARD.

The story said the Dahlia's little black book had led Brown to a suspect "who is now a student at Harvard." It was a good story and a clear news beat. The Traveler sold out at House dining hall newsstands that night.

First word of Brown's appearance at Harvard reached the CRIMSON when a Boston paper phoned its Harvard correspondent and told him to follow up the Traveler story. After a quick check of University offices revealed that Brown had indeed been out to the Business School. The Crime decided to get the story from the one source the Boston papers had apparently ignored--Sergeant Brown. Wednesday night this writer and another CRIMSON reporter, Richard B. Kline '53, drove into Boston and located Brown at police headquarters.

Brown was busy in Homicide's second-floor office when we arrived at the Berkeley Street headquarters. The desk sergeant told us to wait. Brown would be glad to see us in a first floor waiting room. He walked out of the elevator about ten minutes later, a stocky, sandy-haired man in a neat brown business suit. He knew about the Traveler story and he was indignant: "Nobody ever saw me about this," he said. "It is absolutely untrue . . . it has no basis in fact." He told us that he was working on an extradition from Jersey City and checking on some people in the Boston area. We asked if he was working on the Dahlia case. "I'm always interested in it," said Brown. "I know more about that case than any other man alive, but it's not why I'm here." Had he been to Harvard? "Yes," he said, "I checked records there." Had they any connection with the Dahlia? "None whatever." Thursday morning's CRIMSON said DETECTIVE CLAIMS NO 'BLACK DAHLIA' KILLER HUNT HERE.

So did the Boston papers--for one edition. Brown had finally met up with the police reporters and given them substantially the same story. But by noon Thursday there was a new angle. The Traveler's Home Edition ran a six-column streamer saying QUIZ 2 AT HARVARD IN DAHLIA CASE; The Globe played the story smaller, but in greater detail. It said:

"Boston Police headquarters sources today . . . stated that Brown last night quizzed two Harvard students about another Harvard man who was named in the slain girl's diary . . . Brown's questioning . . . was not conducted on the second floor, the customary procedure . . . but the Detective was closed for some time with the students in a first floor office."

The sources had slipped up. The only Harvard men on the first floor of police headquarters Wednesday night had been two CRIMSON reporters and we had done the quizzing. For a comfortable two hours the Boston newspaper looked silly.

The true story blew up in time for the late Thursday editions; Boston papers and the CRIMSON had independently checked with the Los Angeles police and come up with the same surprising results. Brown was indeed in Boston to check on the Dahlia case, although he was also working on the Jersey City extradition, and a Harvard man was involved. The Berkeley Street sources produced again (Brown was steadfastly sticking to his original story) and came up with what eventually turned out to be the first solid facts on Brown's doings. He had questioned a Business School graduate, not as a suspect, but simply as a name in the little black book, and he had also tried to locate a former waitress who had roomed with the Dahlia when she worker in the Square. The Record finally tracked down Brown who promptly reversed himself and confirmed the Los Angeles reports. He left for Jersey City without explaining the reasons for his first story, although there is some evidence that he was trying to avoid another wave of eager confessions. He also left a group of somewhat embarrassed newspapers--including the CRIMSON--floundering wildly to keep up with his fast and shifty trail. The Sergeant's story had thrown off everybody but the Berkeley Street sources, and they had tripped him up. As one police reporter explained it all when the first calls went through to Los Angeles: "No cop comes to Boston to look at the Bunker Hill monument."