"Sometimes I Think He's Really Alien to This World at Heart"

"Murder from the Moon."
By Robert Bloch (1917-94).
First appearance: Amazing Stories, November 1942.
Reprinted in Amazing Stories Quarterly, Summer 1943; Science Fiction Adventures, January 1973; and The Fear Planet and Other Unusual Destinations (2005).
Short story (14 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).
(Note: Text is faded but legible.)

"Murder can be committed with two hands very well, but with four, it gives the killer quite a decided advantage indeed"

Chapter I: "Warm Welcome"
Chapter II: "The Strangler from the Sky"
Chapter III: "The Lunatic"

Interplanetary relations take a hit when Earth's first visitor from the Moon dies unexpectedly at a reception. Was it murder? And if it was, could the killer be one of these people . . .

~ Changara Dass:
   "Only Changara Dass, here, believed. He was my father's friend. He fought to keep Solar Foundation legally in my father's name."
~ Stephen Bennet:
   "Yes, I was born there in space—when my father locked my mother into the compartments and set the controls to chart the voyage back to earth."
~ Lila Valery:
   "Stephen, dear, you're talking too much. Let's get on with the reception."
~ Bill Stone:
   "It's my business to go after news. Something tells me there's plenty of it right in this room."
~ Professor Champion:
   ". . . I'll see to it that you get your story. I'm interested in going to the bottom of this affair myself. You'll get your story, I promise you, and shortly."
~ The lunar visitor:
   "I must see you at once. I have an urgent message for you. I cannot delay any longer. I had thought to humor you by attending this—reception, you call it?—and then leave."

. . . or could the cause of death be someone—or something—else entirely?

Typo: "Dou you think"

Resources:
- A review of The Fear Planet and Other Unusual Destinations (2005) is (HERE).

- Last August (HERE) we encountered Robert Bloch hiding behind another name.

The bottom line: "We all know interspecies romance is weird."
— Tim Burton