The businessman, Augusto Gomes, saw her potential as a star and hired her for his company, A Portugália, with which she toured Spain, France, Morocco and Brazil.

Back in Lisbon she would build on her touring success and become the lead performer in variety shows at the Parque Mayer.

Oscar Ribeiro, director of the Teatro Águia d'Ouro, had promised her a large sum for three months of performances.

Initially, the police concluded that she had been the victim of a robbery but Reinaldo Ferreira, a journalist with the newspaper O Século, who knew her well, thought otherwise.

Meanwhile, another journalist, Antonio Ferro, who worked for the Diário de Notícias, and would later go on to be chief of propaganda for the Estado Novo dictatorship in Portugal, began to make his own investigations.

Ferro discovered that the two were lovers, that Alves had complained about his fits of jealousy and that he had previously assaulted her.

As there were few taxis of this make in Lisbon at that time, it was easy to identify the driver, who turned out to be an acquaintance of Gomes.