The Unbelievers

by Alastair Sim

  “For heaven’s sake, Inspector, can’t you desist from this line of questioning? I have no more to tell you.”

  “All right then, sir, let’s forget about His Grace’s night visits. There are aspects of His Grace’s life that still remain obscure to me. It has been suggested to me that he may have fathered an illegitimate child or children. Do I recall that correctly from our conversation with the Brigadier, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. He referred to the possibility of the estate passing to a bastard.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. And remind me what George Bothwell-Scott QC said about his brother’s marriage to the Duchess?”

  “He said there were impediments, sir.”

  “Yes, Sergeant. ‘Impediments.’ Precisely.”

  Arthur felt his anger rise. How dare these men of no standing come into his house and accuse his family of scandal? His fists clenched but he felt the sweat in them.

  “Inspector, I fail to see how your attempt to taint my family’s honour relates to my brother’s tragic death. If you have no further relevant questions I must ask you to leave.”

  He reached out towards the bellcord but the Inspector made a sign and the sergeant moved to block his way. He looked back at the Inspector.

  “This is outrageous, Inspector.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I must insist on a few minutes more of your time. I am getting a very confused picture of your brother’s life, but one which suggests that one way or another he may well have made himself vulnerable to blackmail. I find it hard to believe, sir, that you have no light to shed on my confusion. It would be unfortunate if, when you’re called as a witness under oath in court, you had to admit to a lack of candour.”

  Arthur sat down and turned his eyes towards the window, away from the policeman’s fixed, smiling gaze. He felt like a trapped hare. He was silent for a moment before turning back to face the Inspector.

  “All right, Inspector, there was one further thing which I did not believe to be relevant.”

  “Excellent. The sergeant and I would be most grateful if you could share it.”

  “It relates both to the impediment of which you spoke, and to the suggestion that William may have fathered an illegitimate child.

  “When I was a child, old enough to begin my lessons, I had a new governess whom I shared with my brother George. She was a handsome lady who must only have been in her early or mid twenties when she was teaching us, though she seemed very grand and unattainably knowledgeable to us.

  “William was already nineteen years old and only at Dalcorn during the vacations from Oxford. All through my childhood he had been a bully, and I had often suffered taunts and beatings from him.”

  “Did you come to hate your brother, sir?” asked the Inspector.

  Dear God, thought Arthur, is he trying to make even me a suspect?

  “No, Inspector. I forgave him for all his errors.”

  “Very generous, sir. You were telling us about the new governess.”

  “I was. When she arrived William’s behaviour took a turn, inexplicable to me at the time, for the better. Instead of berating every poor weaker creature who came within his orbit he became quiet in company, and instead of coming into the schoolroom to disrupt our lessons he would bring flowers and sit quietly and stare at the new governess. Often, they were seen walking together arm-in-arm in the grounds. It was a brief period when my brother’s presence ceased to signify pain and trouble to me.”

  “Most enchanting, sir. I take it this state of affairs did not continue.”

  “No. Without warning, after a few weeks, I came into the schoolroom in the morning and found myself confronted by a withered old woman who said she was my new governess. I asked her what had happened to the kind governess. She caned me and said that Miss Mitchell had been sent away and wasn’t coming back.

  “Life resumed its usual rhythm of punishment and abuse and I tried not to remember kind Miss Mitchell. It wasn’t until years later that it became obvious to me that she had been sent away because of William’s affection for her.”

  “You said, Mr Bothwell-Scott, that this related to an illegitimate child and to an impediment to William’s marriage.”

  “Yes. It was later still, after I had been ordained, that I learnt the full story.

  “I think it was something about the clerical collar that made William feel he could confide in me when he was drunk, as if the Church of Scotland offered a Roman confessional. When I look back, I think I had occasional glimpses of a deep loneliness under his bluster.

  “Anyway, just before he got married to Josephine he staggered in here, rolling drunk, and told me the wedding had to be cancelled.

  “I asked him why.

  “He said it was impossible for him to get married since there was only one woman he had ever loved and it wasn’t Josephine.

  “I told him to pull himself together, and that he’d made a public promise to marry Josephine and that mother would make his life unbearable if he didn’t go through with it. I told him it was his duty.

  “He took a long drink from his hipflask and stared into the fire before replying. He said that it wasn’t as simple as doing his duty. He said that he had in fact been through a form of marriage with the woman he loved, and that she was Augusta Mitchell. There was therefore an absolute legal impediment to his marriage to Josephine.”

  “And yet he married?”

  “I asked him whether he was entirely separated from Miss Mitchell. He said yes, utterly, he had cast her aside completely on mother’s instructions. I asked him about the circumstances of his marriage. He said that, shortly after she had been expelled from Dalcorn, he had arranged to go down from Oxford to London and meet Augusta Mitchell, and had eloped with her to Paris and married her there. I asked if he had taken, or intended to take, any action to bring this unsatisfactory state of affairs to an end. He said mother had barred all talk of divorce, in which he would have had to be the guilty party. Instead he had made a large financial settlement on Miss Mitchell in return for which she had surrendered her marriage certificate to him and he had destroyed it. The settlement was sufficient, in his judgement, to preclude any trouble from Miss Mitchell or her child.”

  “Child?”

  “A daughter. I don’t know her name.”

  “And you proceeded to officiate at the wedding of your brother, despite having been told that it was subject to an absolute impediment?”

  “William came round the next morning and said it was all a fiction and that he’d been talking nonsense under the influence of too much drink and strain.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I was uncertain, but I had his word and it would have been a grave disgrace to the family if we hadn’t gone ahead. I think mother might have disowned us all.”

  “And do you have any idea where we might find Miss Mitchell?”

  “No, none. She may or may not be alive. I can tell you nothing about her daughter either.” Arthur stood, feeling his legs trembling. “I have never previously told any man this story, and I only do so now under the obligation to assist you in finding my brother’s murderer. I must ask you to maintain the strictest possible confidence.”

  The Inspector put his notebook away.

  “Thank you, sir, you have been most unexpectedly helpful. We will happily see ourselves out.”

  The policemen left, and Arthur rang the bell to get Wilson to bring him a large sherry. As he waited he thought about the slight chinks of likeability he had seen in William – his love for Miss Mitchell, his impulsive marriage to her, and maybe even a refusal to give in to blackmail which had led to his death at the well.

  And yet, when he thought of Josephine’s years of misery and abuse at his hands his heart hardened and he found it impossible to mourn.

  And now Frederick had effortlessly assumed responsibility for tormenting poor Josephine, throwing her out of what had become the only home she had.

  Anyway, one way or another God had a way o
f dealing with these things. As the Lord said in St Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, ‘Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will recompense’.

  Amen – and let it be soon.

  Chapter 15

  Allerdyce thought he’d walked into the wrong meeting when he saw Inspector Jarvis seated in front of Burgess’s desk. Burgess signalled Allerdyce to come in.

  “The Chief Constable has asked Mr Jarvis to join us, Allerdyce. The Chief has given Mr Jarvis special responsibilities for counter-sedition and asked him to assist us with this case since it involves a senior public personage.”

  “I see.”

  “Purely advisory, Allerdyce. Nothing to undermine your role as investigating officer.”

  That’ll be right, thought Allerdyce. I suppose the Chief just doesn’t quite trust Burgess and me to do his dirty work for him. He gave a sidelong glance at Jarvis and saw the faintest hint of a self-satisfied smirk.

  “So,” asked Burgess. “Where are we? Do we have a murderer yet?”

  Allerdyce outlined the evidence from his interviews with the Duke’s brothers – their identification of James Semple and Patrick Slater as suspects, their reluctance to volunteer information about the dead Duke’s discarded wife Augusta Mitchell and her daughter, and the almost innumerable range of men and women who could have blackmailed the Duke about his sexual conduct.

  “What do you think about the blackmail possibility, Allerdyce?” asked Burgess.

  “I’m not sure, sir. Blackmail’s a parasitical growth. It depends on the continued survival of its host.”

  “And the rest of the people identified?”

  “Too early to say, sir. I’d like to find out more about them, and interview them if possible. As yet, we don’t know where they are, or even if all of them are still alive.”

  “What do you think, Mr Jarvis?”

  Inspector Jarvis smiled thinly, but it didn’t reach his eyes which focussed on Allerdyce.

  “I think I can help Inspector Allerdyce to find the prime suspect. We’ve had our eye on James Semple for some time because of his work to stir up industrial insurgency in the mines. It would make perfect sense for him to murder a leading mine-owner as part of his revolutionary plot.”

  “Jarvis, I think you’re leaping to an assumption,” said Allerdyce. He felt himself standing on top of a greased slide that led straight towards a ‘non-judicial outcome’ with no pause for evidence and judgement.

  “Well, Allerdyce,” said Jarvis, “I’ve always thought of you as a bit of a socialist, but you surely don’t want to protect revolutionaries from justice.”

  “I don’t, Jarvis. I just don’t think we’re in a position to say Semple is necessarily a strong suspect.”

  “You surely wouldn’t object if I enabled you to interview Mr Semple? I could arrange that.”

  Burgess looked across the desk at the two men.

  “That sounds fair enough doesn’t it, Allerdyce? And do you think you can arrange it, Mr Jarvis?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Allerdyce?”

  “Yes. All right. But I don’t want us to do anything to him which isn’t supported by good evidence.”

  “Of course not. Thank you, gentlemen.”

  Allerdyce stood. He let Jarvis leave the room first. Looking at Jarvis’s back he hated every macassared hair and carefully-tailored thread of his rival. He thought of Sergeant Baird, jobless and destitute to serve Jarvis’s ambition. He thought of each poor soul convicted on the basis of Jarvis’s meticulously and inventively manufactured testimony. Christ, he thought, with Jarvis on the case what hope of justice is there for any of us?

  Jarvis had briefed Allerdyce on how to find James Semple. A paid informer in the union had told Jarvis that Semple was going to speak at a meeting of miners at an inn in Winchburgh in Linlithgowshire. The informer would infiltrate Allerdyce and McGillivray into the meeting, and the policemen would have to seek their opportunity to seize the trade unionist and hustle him out the back door of the inn where Jarvis would be waiting to spirit them all away.

  Finally, Jarvis had passed a revolver across the table.

  “Put this in your pocket, Allerdyce. You may need it for personal protection if the men suspect you’re police. A constable from Glasgow was beaten senseless outside a union meeting last November when the men found out who he was.”

  Jarvis had gone on ahead of Allerdyce and the sergeant. He’d said he wanted to remain invisible, as far as possible, since once his face was known he’d be the target of seditionist plots. So Allerdyce was left feeling the unfamiliar bulk of the revolver in the pocket of his stinking working man’s jacket while the third-class carriage rattled and swayed its way through the darkness.

  He and McGillivray were the only passengers to alight when the train drew up at Winchburgh station. He looked up and down the platform for the informer who was meant to meet them, but there was no-one visible in the dim gaslight except for the train’s guard. After an instant the guard blew his whistle, climbed back into his compartment, and with a hiss and a squeal the train pulled away, leaving the policemen on the deserted platform.

  “So what do you think we should do?” he asked McGillivray.

  “Wait a while, I suppose. Maybe our contact is on his way.”

  “Do you think Jarvis has set us up to fail? Do you think he’s sent us out here for nothing?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

  They stood for a couple of minutes more, their breath forming clouds in the chill air.

  “Damn that man Jarvis.” Allerdyce kicked the gravel of the platform, the unfamiliar weight of the steel-capped boot giving him an unaccustomed force. “He promised us the contact would be here.”

  “Maybe we should try and find the meeting ourselves. I don’t know if we’d get in, but it may be worth a try.”

  “All right then. Let’s walk into the village.”

  They left the platform and turned into the unlit lane which led up from the station. On the far side of the lane, behind straggling hawthorn branches, the moon reflected in the still water of the Union Canal.

  Their footsteps were soft on the beaten earth of the lane, but Allerdyce could still hear the heavy, regular paces of his companion. He turned around as he heard a lighter, less regular pace behind him, his hand reaching into his pocket and touching the body-warmed metal of the revolver.

  Even in the moonlight he recoiled instinctively from the thin, rat-like features of the man who’d crept up behind them, his face the only patch of lightness against his dark bonnet and his shapeless black clothes. His hand closed firmly around the handle of the revolver as he wondered for an instant if Jarvis’s plan had been discovered – or deliberately disclosed – and whether he was facing a trade union enforcer instead of the informer he was meant to meet. He said the password that Jarvis had told him, ready to pull the pistol out if he had to.

  “Unity and brotherly love.”

  “All right.” The informer walked up to them. He took his hands – weaponless – out of his pockets and Allerdyce let go of the gun. “I’ll get you in. You’d get lynched if you just tried to get into the meeting by yourselves.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But if there’s going to be trouble – and it sounds to me like you’re going to cause some – I won’t be any part of it.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to be.”

  The informer looked McGillivray up and down.

  “Christ, he’s a bit big to be a miner, isn’t he? He’s going to stand out a mile. Can’t you leave him outside?”

  “My colleague has to come in with me.”

  “All right, but it’s going to take some explaining. Let’s walk.”

  The set off up the lane. The informer kept talking.

  “The men at the meeting are all from the shale mine here. Semple’s come to stir them up. He’s wanting to cause a strike. The fools will probably listen to him but they’re mad if they think they can win.”

  “Why a
re you helping us?” asked Allerdyce. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that the informer might be leading them into a trap.

  “Because striking’s useless. I was on strike once for two months, but after weeks of eating whatever rubbish we could find on peoples’ middens we had to go back. There’s always a score of men wanting your job if you’re not prepared to work. We’ve a wee girl now, she’s already sick, and I need to work to feed her. And I’m being paid for this.”

  Bribery. That sounds like Jarvis’s way, thought Allerdyce. But he couldn’t help picturing the informer’s girl coughing consumptively in a damp, dark miner’s cottage while little Alice slept in her comfortable bed.

  They turned from the lane into the mean main street of the village. Single-storey cottages fronted directly onto the tarmacadam, without any tree or garden to relieve the drabness. With no streetlights, they walked by the pale moonlight and the occasional crack of light from a window. A dark mound rose behind the houses, silhouetted against the starry cobalt of the sky. It looked like a hill, but Allerdyce knew it must be the smoking spoil-heap of the mine. A handful of other drab figures shuffled, stooped, along the road towards the only well-lit building in the street.

  They reached the building and saw the sign ‘The Artisan’s Arms’ above the door, with the emblem of the compass and set-square.

  “Semple’s pretending he’s a worker on the tramp,” said the informer. “This inn’s a house of call for unemployed mining engineers. They walk round the houses of call across the country, and if they’re union members they’ll get a meal and a bed for the night at the union’s expense, and get told if there’s any vacancies locally. It’s a good way for an agitator to get round the country.”

  They followed a short, limping man into the bar. Only a couple of men were ordering drinks. The limping man went straight past the bar to a door beside it, whispered something to the heavily-built bearded workman who stood at the door, and disappeared through it. As the door opened Allerdyce could briefly hear a murmur of voices.

  The workman stood in front of the door as they approached it. “Who are these men?” he demanded of the informer.