The Loudwater Mystery

The Loudwater Mystery

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Title: The Loudwater Mystery
Author: Edgar Jepson
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THE LOUDWATER MYSTERY
BY EDGAR JEPSON
1920


CHAPTER I
Lord Loudwater was paying attention neither to his breakfast nor to the
cat Melchisidec. Absorbed in a leader in The Times newspaper, now
and again he tugged at his red-brown beard in order to quicken his
comprehension of the weighty phrases of the leader-writer; now and
again he made noises, chiefly with his nose, expressive of disgust. Lady
Loudwater paid no attention to these noises. She did not even raise her
eyes to her husband's face. She ate her breakfast with a thoughtful air,
her brow puckered by a faint frown.
She also paid no attention to her favourite, Melchisidec. Melchisidec,
unduly excited by the smell of grilled sole, came to Lord Loudwater,
rose on his hind legs, laid his paws on his trousers, and stuck some
claws into his thigh. It was no more than gentle, arresting pricks; but
the tender nobleman sprang from his chair with a short howl, kicked
with futile violence a portion of the empty air which Melchisidec had
just vacated, staggered, and nearly fell.
Lady Loudwater did not laugh; but she did cough.

Her husband, his face a furious crimson, glared at her with reddish eyes,
and swore violently at her and the cat.
Lady Loudwater rose, her face flushed, her lips trembling, picked up
Melchisidec, and walked out of the room. Lord Loudwater scowled at
the closed door, sat down, and went on with his breakfast.
James Hutchings, the butler, came quietly into the room, took one of
the smaller dishes from the sideboard and Lady Loudwater's teapot
from the table. He went quietly out of the room, pausing at the door to
scowl at his master's back. Lady Loudwater finished her breakfast in
the sitting-room of her suite of rooms on the first floor. She was no
longer inattentive to Melchisidec.
During her breakfast she put all consideration of her husband's
behaviour out of her mind. As she smoked a cigarette after breakfast
she considered it for a little while. She often had to consider it. She
came to the conclusion to which she had often come before: that she
owed him nothing whatever. She came to the further conclusion that
she detested him. She had far too good a brow not to be able to see a
fact clearly. She wished more heartily than ever that she had never
married him. It had been a grievous mistake; and it seemed likely to
last a life-time--her life-time. The last five ancestors of her husband had
lived to be eighty. His father would doubtless have lived to be eighty
too, had he not broken his neck in the hunting-field at the age of
fifty-four. On the other hand, none of the Quaintons, her own family,
had reached the age of sixty. Lord Loudwater was thirty-five; she was
twenty-two; he would therefore survive her by at least seven years. She
would certainly be bowed down all her life under this grievous burden.
It was an odd calculation for a young married woman to make; but
Lady Loudwater came of an uncommon family, which had produced
more brilliant, irresponsible, and passably unscrupulous men than any
other of the leading families in England. Her father had been one of
them. She took after him. Moreover, Lord Loudwater would have
induced odd reveries in any wife. He had been intolerable since the
second week of their honeymoon. Wholly without power of
self-restraint, the furious outbursts of his