A Plot for Murder by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

JEWELER SLAIN IN HOTEL ROOM

That might be it. That was it. Tracy caught a glimpse of the name of the jeweler near the top of the minion type. He took a deep breath and read the article carefully.

One Walther Mueller, a wholesale jeweler, just arrived in New York from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, had been murdered and robbed in his room at the Jarvis Hotel on Sixth Avenue. He had just disembarked from the Bermuda Clipper plane at La Guardia Field, and had taken a cab from the airport to the hotel. He had been in his room less than an hour when the crime occurred; it was discovered an hour and a half after he had checked in, and apparently he had been dead about an hour.

Tracy looked back to see what edition he was reading and calculated that the discovery had been made only half an hour or so before deadline for that edition. That accounted for the paucity of detail, and undoubtedly the next day's paper would have more about it.

It did. The story was buried back on the sixth page this time, because nothing new had happened, but additional details, such as they were, were there.

Mueller was a Belgian by birth, but a citizen of Brazil. He had been in Rio de Janeiro for many years—since 1928—-and had been in business for himself as a jeweler for the last ten years. A week before, he had finished the task of closing out his business there. It was his intention to retire, and he had come to the United States for that purpose—on a visitor's visa, but with the expressed intention of acquiring citizenship here if the authorities would grant it.

He had sold his stock before leaving Brazil, except for one necklace of matched pearls which was in the hands of the customs officers awaiting appraisal, and a few items of personal jewelry. The latter, known (from the customs report) to have included a watch valued at two hundred dollars and a half-carat diamond ring valued at three hundred, had been taken by the murderer. Whatever money had been contained in his wallet was also taken, although a twenty-thousand-dollar bank draft —not negotiable—was not stolen.

From all indications, robbery was the motive. Police believed he had been followed from the airport by someone who knew his identity and—perhaps—knew that he was bringing the matched pearl necklace with him to sell in this country. It was valued at approximately fifteen thousand dollars, a worth-while haul for any jewel thief.

The cause of death had been a blunt instrument, probably a blackjack. Police believed the killer had obtained access to Mueller's hotel room under a pretext—possibly the pretense of being an employee of the hotel—and had struck him down.

Police believed also that the murder had been incidental to the robbery and, in fact, had probably been unintentional. The blow had not been hard enough to have killed an ordinary man, but had been fatal to Mueller, who as the result of a previous severe skull fracture was peculiarly susceptible to head injuries.

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