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It was the sensational Washington, D.C., death case that punctuated the end of the Roaring Twenties. The victim was an attractive young nurse found semi-nude in her apartment with a pajama cord around her neck. Detectives said it was a suicide, but a maverick patrolman thought otherwise and took on the entire metropolitan police force to try and prove it. The death case of Virginia McPherson became a cause clbre in the Capital City, where it occupied the headlines for weeks. The turmoil caused by the stormy petrel of the police department, Robert Allen, overturned the coroner's verdict, saw the police investigation criticized on the floor of the Senate, and sent the case before a grand jury, which indicted the husband, a debonair ladies man and semipro football player.