The Loudwater Tragedy

by T. W. Speight

So unwilling was Mr. Layland to dispense with Phil's services that on his return from America he offered him an influential position in his counting-house at a liberal salary to start with, and with a promise of promotion before he should be much older. But tempting as the offer was in some ways, Phil, feeling that he had neither liking nor aptitude for a commercial career, found himself compelled to decline it. As the next best thing the merchant could do for his protégé, he recommended him to his friend Mr. Robert Melray, who just then happened to be in need of the services of a secretary and amanuensis.

Mr. Melray had lately returned from an expedition into the interior of Borneo, and Winslade's duties consisted chiefly in transcribing his diary, together with a miscellaneous collection of notes written in all sorts of places and under all sorts of circumstances, and in working up the whole into a connected narrative of travel with a view to its proximate publication in volume form.

Winslade, working at his employer's rooms in London, had only been engaged a few weeks at his new duties when news came to hand of the tragic and mysterious death of Mr. James Melray. Robert Melray at once hurried down to Merehampton, and Phil was left to go on with his task alone.

One day, about a month later, Robert Melray being up in town for the first time since his brother's death, seized the opportunity to call on his friend Mr. Layland. Naturally their talk gravitated to the strange circumstances connected with the death of the elder Mr. Melray, the younger brother deploring in forcible terms the fact that, despite his offer of a reward of five hundred pounds, so far not the slightest clue to the perpetrator of the crime was forthcoming. Then it was that Mr. Layland brought Winslade's name on the carpet, instancing the able way in which he had succeeded in tracking down the criminals in the case of the bond robbery, as also in the second case he had taken in hand, and strongly advising his friend to induce Phil to take up the affair sub rosâ and see what he could make of it. Robert Melray, who was ready to catch at the slightest straw in his burning desire to bring his brother's murderer to justice, did not fail to act on the merchant's advice. He went direct to Winslade, told him what he had heard with reference to his abilities in a certain line, and begged of him, as a great favour, to take the Loudwater Case in hand and bring all his efforts to bear on its unravelment.

It was not without reluctance that Phil acceded to his employer's request. He had a strong objection to being regarded in the light of a private detective, but the circumstances of the affair being such as they were, it would have seemed a very ungracious act on his part to refuse his aid, whether it might prove worth much or little, in the elucidation of the mystery of James Melray's death.

Accordingly, a few hours later found him at Merehampton duly installed in Loudwater House in the position of Mr. Robert Melray's amanuensis. Not a syllable was breathed to anyone that any ulterior motive was at the bottom of his sojourn under the roof of the old mansion.

But, as we have already seen, all Winslade's efforts proved, as those of the police had already done, wholly unavailing to trace the assassin of James Melray. The mystery baffled him as it had baffled them, and at the end of a month he went back to London no wiser in one respect than he had left it. A month or two later his services with Mr. Melray came to an end.

While he was taking a brief holiday and considering in what way he could best put to account such talents and experience as he possessed, a communication reached him from Mr. Layland. That gentleman was the chief promoter, financially, of a new weekly newspaper which was on the eve of making its appearance, and he was good enough to offer Phil an appointment on the staff. It was an offer which was gratefully accepted. The new venture proved to be a success from every point of view. Phil was still engaged on it, and was likely to be so for an indefinite time to come. He had at length found the métier which seemed best suited to his tastes and abilities, and that of itself ought to afford a large measure of content to any reasonable being.

A close correspondence had been kept up all this time between himself and Miss Sudlow. Only twice had they met, and that for an hour only on each occasion. Miss Mawby, the semi-invalid to whom Fanny filled the office of companion, as a rule detested London, but there were times when she was seized by an irresistible longing to do a day's shopping at the West-end, on which occasions she would rush up to town from wherever she might be, dragging Fanny with her, only to go back, exhausted and worn out, a couple of days later. On two such occasions it was that Fanny and her lover had contrived to meet.

Philip Winslade had never felt quite the same man from the date of his mother's confession. It seemed to him as if he had grown half-a-dozen years older in the course of the first few hours after he was told. Circumstances had forced him to confront the skeleton which for long years had been his mother's companion, and it seemed to him that its grisly presence would haunt him till the last day of his life. With it ever in the background, only felt to be there while he was mixing among the crowd of his fellowmen, but intruding itself as a ghastly reality on his hours of solitude, a measure of that sunshine which his life's morning had heretofore held had vanished, never to return. It was only his supreme love for Fanny which strengthened him and nerved him to oppose with all the power of his will the insidious encroachment of that baleful shadow which, but for that, would have gradually enfolded him in its chill embrace, and have darkened the issues of his life through all the years to come.