The Loudwater Tragedy

by T. W. Speight

It was a matter of course, in view of the disparity in the ages of bride and bridegroom, that there should be no lack of croakers and prophets of the pessimistic school, who, one and all, took upon themselves to predict that such an union could be productive of nothing but discord and unhappiness, if not of evils still more dire. Time went on, however, and these and all, such vaticinations remained unfulfilled. Nowhere, to all seeming, could there have been found a more contented or cosily happy wedded pair. Mrs. Melray fell in with her husband's tastes and mode of life with an easy adaptability which was as delightful as was surprising in one so many years his junior. She made his friends her friends, and never seemed to long or care for any other society than that to which he chose to introduce her. She dressed soberly, but in excellent taste, and after a fashion which caused her to look half-a-dozen years older than her age. James Melray's first marriage had not been a happy one. His wife, a woman of an intractable temper, had been addicted to secret dram-drinking, and had thereby hastened her end. All the greater seemed the contrast between his life as it was now and as it had been then. In all Merehampton there was no happier man than he.

We now come to the fatal evening of Friday, September 18.

Twice every week, on the evenings of Tuesday and Friday, it had for years been Mr. Melray's custom to leave home as the clock was striking eight and make his way to the house of his friend Mr. Arbour, for the purpose of forming one at a sober rubber of whist. It was a custom which he had seen no reason for pretermitting after his second marriage, more especially in view of the fact that Mrs. Melray number two had never expressed the slightest desire that he should do so, and although she was thereby left alone for two or three hours on the evenings in question, she never failed to part from him with a kiss and a smile, nor greet him after the same fashion on his return.

On the aforesaid 18th of September Mr. Melray set out for his friend's house as usual. His wife accompanied him downstairs as far as the entrance hall and helped him to induct himself into his overcoat, and then, before she let him go, and because the evening was chilly, she insisted on tying a white silk muffler round his throat as a further protection against the weather. Then came the customary parting kiss, after which Mrs. Melray stood in the open doorway for a half a minute, watching her husband's retreating form. Then she shut the door and hurried back upstairs to the cosy drawing-room.

That evening Mr. Arbour and his friends waited in vain for the coming of James Melray. He never reached No. 5 Presbury Crescent.

Her husband had been gone a little over an hour when Mrs. Melray rang the bell for Charlotte, the housemaid, and on the latter's appearance asked her to take a lighted candle and go down to her master's private office and bring thence an envelope out of the stationery case, which she would find on his table. Mrs. Melray had been writing to one of her friends, and finding that she was out of envelopes of her own, was under the necessity of using one of her husband's.

Charlotte went her way, leaving her young mistress seated at the davenport with the letter in front of her. A few moments later a piercing shriek rang through Loudwater House. The girl, holding the lighted candle aloft in one hand, had suddenly come upon the dead body of her master lying prone along the office floor between the fireplace and the table.

As already stated, Mr. Melray's business premises were on the ground- floor of Loudwater House. Although such was the case, the main entrance to the old mansion had in no way been interfered with. There, as for generations past, was the massive oaken door with its heavy lion's-head knocker and its overhanging porch--also of oak, and elaborately carved. This door gave admittance to a spacious flagged hall, whence a wide staircase led to the rooms on the upper floors. From the entrance hall a door opened directly into Mr. Melray's private office, in which room there were also two other doors, the first giving access to the outer office where sat Mr. Cray, the head clerk, and his three subordinates, while the second door opened on a narrow side alley leading from the back premises to the Quay-side, so that the merchant, when so inclined, could go in and out without having to pass through the general office.

The girl Charlotte's shrieks at the discovery of her master's body were heard not merely by the inmates of Loudwater House, but by a constable who happened at the time to be standing at the entrance to the side alley, as also by a couple of passing strangers. The three men in question were on the scene of the crime within a few seconds after Charlotte had given the alarm; for the outer door, on being tried, was found to be unfastened. Of what thereupon ensued it is not needful that we should dwell.

At the inquest it was shown that Mr. Melray's death had resulted from a blow from some blunt instrument just above the left ear. The only hypothesis which could be deduced from the scanty evidence elicited at the inquiry was to the effect that while on his way to Mr. Arbour's house, Mr. Melray had unexpectedly encountered some person, or persons with whom he was in some way connected by transactions of either a business or a private nature, and that, in company with the same, he had gone back to his office, admittance to which he would obtain by means of his pass-key, after which he had lighted the gas and opened the safe. What had happened after that, beyond the fact that Mr. Melray had come by his death by foul play, there was not the slightest evidence to show. The body had not been robbed; neither, as the head-clerk's after investigation proved, had the contents of the safe been tampered with. As far as was known, the dead man had not an enemy in the world. Where, then, was the motive for the crime? By whom had it been perpetrated? Days and weeks went on without bringing an answer to either one question or the other. Within a few hours of the discovery of the murder Mr. Robert Melray, the dead man's brother and partner, was telegraphed for, and as, just then, he happened to be no further away than London, he was promptly on the spot. He it was who, a little later, and after all the efforts of Scotland Yard to unravel the mystery had proved unavailing, offered a reward of 500l. in connection with the affair, which, however, still remained unclaimed.