The Loudwater Mystery | Page 3

mean by that?" cried Lord Loudwater loudly and angrily.
Mr. Manley expressed utter ignorance by looking blank and shrugging his shoulders.
"The jade! She's had six hundred a year for more than two years. Did she think it would go on for ever?" cried his employer.
"No," said Mr. Manley.
"And why didn't she think it would go on for ever? Hey?" said Lord Loudwater in a challenging tone.
"Because there wasn't an actual deed of settlement," said Mr. Manley.
"The ungrateful jade! I've a good mind to stop it altogether!" cried his employer.
Mr. Manley said nothing. His face was blank; it neither approved nor disapproved the suggestion.
Lord Loudwater scowled at him and said: "I expect she said she wished she'd never had anything to do with me."
"No," said Mr. Manley.
"I'll bet that's what she thinks," growled Lord Loudwater.
Mr. Manley let the suggestion pass without comment. His face was blank.
"And what's she going to do about it?" said Lord Loudwater in a tone of challenge.
"She's going to see you about it."
"I'm damned if she is!" cried Lord Loudwater hastily, in a much less assured tone.
Mr. Manley permitted a faint, sceptical smile to wreathe his lips.
"What are you grinning at? If you think she'll gain anything by doing that, she won't," said Lord Loudwater, with a blustering truculence.
Mr. Manley wondered. Helena Truslove was a lady of considerable force of character. He suspected that if Lord Loudwater had ever been afraid of a fellow-creature, he must at times have been afraid of Helena Truslove. He fancied that now he was not nearly as fearless as he sounded. He did not say so.
His employer was silent, buried in scowling reflection. Mr. Manley gazed at him without any great intentness, and came to the conclusion that he did not merely detest him, he loathed him.
Presently he said: "There's a cheque from Hanbury and Johnson for twelve thousand and forty-six pounds for the rubber shares your lordship sold. It wants endorsing."
He handed the cheque across the table to Lord Loudwater. Lord Loudwater dipped his pen in the ink, transfixed a struggling bluebottle, and drew it out.
"Why the devil don't you see that the ink is fresh?" he roared.
"It is fresh. The bluebottle must have just fallen into it," said Mr. Manley in an unruffled tone.
Lord Loudwater cursed the bluebottle, restored it to the ink-pot, endorsed the cheque, and tossed it across the table to Mr. Manley.
"By the way," said Mr. Manley, with some hesitation, "there's another anonymous letter."
"Why didn't you burn it? I told you to burn 'em all," snapped his employer.
"This one is not about you. It's about Hutchings," said Mr. Manley in an explanatory tone.
"Hutchings? What about Hutchings?"
"You'd better read it," said Mr. Manley, handing him the letter. "It seems to be from some spiteful woman."
The letter was indeed written in female handwriting, and it accused the butler, wordily enough, of having received a commission from Lord Loudwater's wine merchants on a purchase of fifty dozen of champagne which he had bought from them a month before. It further stated that he had received a like commission on many other such purchases.
Lord Loudwater read it, scowling, sprang up from his chair with his eyes protruding further than usual, and cried: "The scoundrel! The blackguard! I'll teach him! I'll gaol him!"
He dashed at the electric bell by the fireplace, set his thumb on it, and kept it there.
Holloway, the second footman, came running. The servants knew their master's ring. They always ran to answer it, after some discussion as to which of them should go.
He entered and said: "Yes, m'lord?"
"Send that scoundrel Hutchings to me! Send him at once!" roared his master.
"Yes, m'lord," said Holloway, and hurried away.
He found James Hutchings in his pantry, told him that their master wanted him, and added that he was in a tearing rage.
Hutchings, who never expected his sanguine and irascible master to be in any other mood, finished the paragraph of the article in the Daily Telegraph he was reading, put on his coat, and went to the study. His delay gave Lord Loudwater's wrath full time to mature.
When the butler entered his master shook his fist at him and roared: "You scoundrel! You infernal scoundrel! You've been robbing me! You've been robbing me for years, you blackguard!"
James Hutchings met the charge with complete calm. He shook his head and said in a surly tone: "No; I haven't done anything of the kind, m'lord."
The flat denial infuriated his master yet more. He spluttered and was for a while incoherent. Then he became again articulate and said: "You have, you rogue! You took a commission--a secret commission on that fifty dozen of champagne I bought last month. You've been doing it for years."
James Hutchings' surly face was transformed. It grew malignant; his fierce, protruding, red-rimmed blue eyes sparkled balefully, and he flushed to a