The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1922-03-29
SUICIDES S226,OOO
CHERISHED RUBBISH
wealth Left in Bag by Elder
~ Messenger Only Stocks of
Civil War Days.
MOURNED HIS EMPLOYER
George r. Reiners Leaped to
Death in Building Where
His Memories Lived.

For few minutes yesterday George
r. Reiners. an elderly process server
who committed suicide on Sunday morn
ing by leaping from the eleventh floor
of the Pulitzer Building, was regarded
as having been man OF great wealth,
the mysterious possessor OF fortune ~
almost a quarter OF million dollars.
Then the dream faded, and he was lust
an old messenger. boy. who had killed
himself because ofs grief over the death
of his benefactor.
For twenty years Reiners plodded
back and forth on errands for Clark A
Wick. lawyer who occupied an office
in Room 1928. Nobody on the eleventh
floor knew Reiners's name-he was 10.
so important as to command that much
interest-but everybody knew his stock,.
slightly bent figure, his mild blue eyes
and sandy mustache. and few knew
that he was an unusually intelligent
man for his position, well read and for
merly the proprietor of some kind of a
store He came and went during The
day. and at night frequently returned to
sit reading in the Office of Mr.. Wick.
Mourned His Employer.
on March 10 Mr.. Wick died in the
Swedish Hospital in Brooklyn Reiners
was inconsolable. He wandered through
the corridors of the building. buffeted by
busy people. He haunted the Office of
his dead friend and only intimate. He
spent hours at his desk in Room 1928,
motionless, with his head in his hands.
A few days after Mr.. Wick's death
his widow and her attorney went to the
office to look into matters connected
with his estate. 1t was then that Rel
ners apparently came to realize that his
friend was indeed gone forever.
Soon after that Reiners went to George
Strate, a young bookkeeper employed in
the office of the Editor aud Publisher,
on the same floor as Mr.. Wicks office.
Young Strate was one of the few who
had known and talked to the man.
I'm going away for a little while"
Reiners told the young man. Il want
TO forget. / am going perhaps to Al
bany up the river. May | leave with
you this valise of mine?''
Certainly" Strate answered, and took
shabby little bag,
Died in Familiar Spot.
Reiners did not go away, or il he did.
he did not go far On Sunday morning
he returned and let himself into Mr..
Wick's office with his key. That was
all any one in the building knew of him
until a cleaning woman on the ground
floor heard a sudden crash on the sec
ond floor. She ran upstairs and found
the body of Reiners lying under the
staircase well. He was dead.
Yesterday Strate opened the bag.
wealth of securities met his eye-stocks,
bonds, coupons. notes, most OF them old
and much handled. One packet alone
contained 1870 shares of road in
Indiana. The par value of the securi-
ties was reckoned to be s226. 900. a
will was also in the valise. disposing
of the property among several rela-
tives. including a sister, Mary Reiners
of Jersey City. Strate Immediately dis
patched kilograms to two addresses
mentioned by Reiners in his carefully
drawn up will. One was returned as
unbelievable and nothing was heard of
the other.
When others in the office OF the Edi-
tor and Publisher went to reckon up
Reinerss wealth, they found nothing to
help them. The securities were all of
companies about which no one could
discover anything. companies which
probably passed away during the civil
war. Reners may have been worth
something. but those who examined the
bag shook their heads and said the man
simply had conjured up fictitious for
tune TO take the place of the one he
may have had when he was younger and
people knew his name.
At the morgue the body was identified
as that Of George II. Reiners. SIS, a ma
tive of Germany. but Richard Marsch-
hauser of 274 Henry street, Brooklyn.
who made the identification. said he had
no idea where Reiners had lived.