The Unbelievers

by Alastair Sim

  In the split second before his inhibitions could engage Arthur shoved his brother, hard, away from him. George stumbled, looking back over his shoulder, and then there was a sharp crack as his head struck the edge of the table. He fell inert on the floor.

  Arthur knelt down. His brother was still breathing and his eyes were still open, though they didn’t appear to be focussing. George gave a low groan with every breath.

  Get help, said a voice in Arthur’s head. Call the servants and get help. But a subtler voice spoke too – leave him. Whether he or Josephine spoke truly, your brother tried to steal her from you. If Josephine spoke truly, he is justly punished for his evil to her. If George spoke truly, he has confessed that he wants to take her from you. Run away, and leave his fate to the wise judgement of God.

  Arthur stood up, opened the French windows, and ran.

  Chapter 28

  The beefsteak and Burgundy at Professor Boyd’s house tasted like hard-tack and brackish water in Allerdyce’s mouth. The Speculative Society was to be treated tonight to an exhibition of spiritualism by one of Boyd’s latest finds – the ‘Seer of Brora’, Mrs Flora MacIver. There’s a spirit here right enough, thought Allerdyce. It’s Sergeant Hector McGillivray standing behind me in his prison chains, as real as Banquo’s ghost.

  He tried to get through dinner with as little conversation a possible. Normally he’d have been a leading spokesman for rational scepticism, but tonight he didn’t feel he had either the energy or the certainty to argue about anything. It was a relief when dinner was over and they were led through to Boyd’s drawing room, where Mrs MacIver’s spirit cabinet had been set up.

  The room was lit feebly for the occasion by a single red-shaded paraffin lamp on a stand by the door. Chairs had been set out in a circle, and in the middle of the circle was a table on which Allerdyce could dimly discern a book, a candlestick, and a handbell. At the far side of the circle he could see the old woman’s pale and crinkled face, the shadowed light etching the lines deeper into her face so that she looked like Death personified. The rest of her was invisible – black clothing against a background of temporarily erected black curtains, the standard equipment of the music-hall supernaturalist.

  He took his seat and Professor Boyd turned the light down to allow the séance to proceed in darkness. Allerdyce blessed the darkness which allowed him to endure the unobserved privacy of his inner agony while the unconvincing rattles, bangs, and appearances of phosphorescent objects proclaimed the alleged presence of the spirits summoned by the old Highland charlatan. He felt the air disturbed by what might have been a spirit, but was more likely the medium’s accomplice appearing from behind the curtains.

  He was sorry when Boyd stood up after the ‘spirits’ had been quiet for a few minutes and ignited a bright lamp with a clear shade.

  “The next experiment,” announced Professor Boyd, “is not dependent on the whims of spirits who may be shy of the light. It is a simple controlled experiment into the power of thought transference. Mrs MacIver, do you consent to be blindfolded.”

  “Aye.”

  “And to turn your chair so that your back is to the table and there is no prospect of your being able to see any image or object placed on the table?”

  “As you please, sir.”

  “Thank you. Now, Mr Allerdyce will you consent to examine this piece of black cloth, which has been folded over three times? I’d be obliged if you could hold it against the lamplight and confirm to me that no discernible light or image is able to pass through the cloth.”

  Allerdyce got up and reluctantly held the cloth to the light.

  “It’s as you say, Boyd. Practically impenetrable.”

  “Thank you, Allerdyce. Now would you tie the blindfold round Mrs MacIver’s head, to exclude all possibility of her seeing anything.”

  “Very well.”

  He felt his hands shaking as he tied the cloth behind the old woman’s black headscarf, imagining himself tying it round McGillivray’s head before his execution. He fumbled the knot twice before getting it right and sitting down with relief.

  “Right,” said Boyd. “I have in my hand a set of cards. Not common playing cards, but a series of distinct shapes designed precisely for experiments of this nature. To avoid any suspicion that they are in a pre-arranged sequence known to Mrs MacIver may I ask Professor McIntyre to shuffle them, if that is within his pledge as a minister of religion not to conspire with the powers of darkness. Professor McIntyre?”

  “All right then.”

  McIntyre shuffled the cards three times then handed them back to Boyd.

  “Now,” said Boyd, “I will lay out ten cards, one at a time, on the table in front of us. As I place each card on the table I want all of you to hold that image strongly in your mind, as far as possible to the exclusion of all other thought. I will lay the first card now.”

  He placed the card down. Allerdyce tried hard to hold the image in his mind – trying to think of nothing more complex than a black printed shape on a white card kept other, more painful, thoughts at bay.

  The seer paused for nearly two minutes before speaking.

  “A circle.”

  “Correct, Mrs MacIver. I will place the second card now.”

  The answer was quicker this time.

  “A star.”

  “How many points?”

  “Five, sir.”

  “Correct again, Mrs MacIver. Now for the third card.”

  Allerdyce tried, again, to focus on the card but his thoughts refused to be held at bay. It was Antonia he saw this time, with her dressing gown falling alluringly open. Could she have done it? Could she have taken what, in common justice, appeared to be a richly deserved revenge on William Bothwell-Scott? Should he have arrested her already? Was he protecting her because of love, friendship or cowardice?

  The medium appeared to be flustered, her head moving from side to side as if she was looking into the blackness of her veil for an answer.

  “Mrs MacIver? Do you have an answer? Mrs MacIver?”

  “I cannae see, sir. I don’t see it clearly. It comes into view and then out again. Is it a square?”

  “No, I’m sorry Mrs MacIver, it isn’t. Would you like another attempt?”

  The medium continued to look around for an answer, her body now rocking backwards and forwards in her chair.

  “Mrs MacIver? Are you all right? Should we stop? Do you want a glass of water?”

  “I cannae see, sir. There’s too much confusion of energy coming from a gentleman in the room.”

  “All right, we’ll stop this now.”

  “No, wait.” The medium sat bolt upright and appeared to be staring straight ahead of her through the thick blindfold.

  “I have a clear message come into my mind, sir. It is addressed to a gentleman of uneasy conscience. It says ‘You will see a good man hanged and a wronged woman’s revenge. This will be.’”

  No! thought Allerdyce. Not that! Please let me not believe that that message is for me. It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?

  But a chill sweat had already broken out on his back and his pulse was racing. He felt sick to his core. Without thinking he found himself praying to whatever unseen presence or vacuity permeated the universe.

  Save my friends. Don’t let them die. And for God’s sake save me too.

  Chapter 29

  Allerdyce had just arrived in the Police Office the next morning when he was summoned to Burgess’s office.

  The Superintendent was pacing distractedly in front of the window, then turned round and saw Allerdyce.

  “Ah. There you are.”

  “Sir.”

  “Take a seat, for Heaven’s sake.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  They sat, and Burgess tapped his pen against the desk for a moment, looking at a spot somewhere over Allerdyce’s left shoulder, before speaking.

  “We’ve lost another Duke, Allerdyce.”

  Allerdyce felt as if the floor was disappearing be
neath him. Burgess continued.

  “George Bothwell-Scott was found yesterday evening by his butler, dead in his photographic studio.”

  “Murdered?”

  “Without a doubt. Face down in a tray of silver nitrate in his darkroom, with a bullet through his head.”

  “Why wasn’t I called out? Margaret could have told you where to find me.”

  “We didn’t need to. The butler told us who did it, and we’ve brought the suspect in. He’s yours to question when you’re ready. And the crime scene has been sealed and guarded – nothing moved except the body, and Dr Mackay can tell you all about that.”

  “Who’s the suspect?”

  “I can hardly believe it, Allerdyce. The press are going to love it.

  “The Reverend the Honourable Arthur Bothwell-Scott.”

  First of all Allerdyce went to Rock House with Mackay, the Police Surgeon. He needed to see the location of the crime, speak to the butler, and understand the mechanics of how it had been committed before he questioned the suspect.

  He should, he supposed, feel some sense of relief. This was one murder, at least, which couldn’t be blamed on McGillivray.

  Any relief he felt was, though, overwhelmed by a dark fear of what might happen next. There would be the inevitable tide of blame, from the newspapers and from the Chief Constable, that three Dukes had died before the police had found their man. Unless the evidence showed this latest killing to be the work of the same hand as the previous deaths, the sword of justice still hung over the sergeant. And was it really possible that the mild clergyman could have murdered his way systematically through his own family?

  And Antonia? Could she be involved? Had he left her at liberty to commit a further atrocity?

  Anything is possible, he told himself. Just keep an open mind until you’ve examined the evidence.

  The butler’s account, after Allerdyce and Dr Mackay had been admitted to Rock House, was simple. Arthur Bothwell-Scott had turned up mid-afternoon yesterday and said he needed to see his brother on a matter of urgent family business. The butler had shown Arthur into the studio and left them in privacy. He’d heard raised voices briefly, but not felt he ought to intrude on a private family conversation. His master in any case very much disliked being disturbed unnecessarily while at work in his studio, so the butler had decided it was best to let them be.

  It wasn’t until six o’clock, when he usually served a drink to his master, that he felt licensed to intrude. The studio itself was empty, with no sign of George Bothwell-Scott or his guest. The only peculiarity was that the French window was slightly ajar. The butler called out to attract his master’s attention in case he was in the darkroom which opened from the studio, but heard no answer. Becoming suspicious, he opened the door to the darkroom, pushed the shade-curtain aside and saw his employer, evidently taken ill since he had collapsed into a bath of developing fluid. He tried to rouse his master, before discerning that he was lifeless and rushing out to attract the attention of the nearest policeman. The butler was adamant that, unless the master had privately admitted anyone by himself, Arthur Bothwell-Scott was the only person to have visited his employer on the day of his death.

  A constable standing guard at the door of the studio broke the seal and let Allerdyce and Mackay in. Allerdyce checked round the room but nothing looked suspicious or out of place – even the jumble of photographic equipment on the table had some semblance of order. Nothing indicated that there had been a mortal struggle, though the nap of the carpet was slightly disturbed at the near edge of the table as if someone had dug their heels in. He opened the French windows, hoping that there might be soil outside which had absorbed the footprint of whoever had left the doors ajar, but they opened onto a gravel path where only the faintest indentations were visible.

  They went through to the darkroom, pushing the heavy curtains aside to stand in the laboratory, lit by a single red-shaded gas flare, where George Bothwell-Scott had been found dead. Allerdyce had the odd feeling that he had walked into an actual spirit-cabinet, and that he was at the heart of whatever trickery or spirit-workings went on there.

  The gas-light hissed. The dark-room, with its chemical baths, clothes-lines with drying photographic prints on them, and the upright concertina apparatus of the enlarging equipment, was oppressively stuffy. The bottles of chemicals on shelves above the developing bench, and the red glow of the light on brass, wood and glass, gave the place something of the air of an alchemist’s workshop.

  Some of the images hanging from the lines were clear, even in the ruby light. The dead man had taken a variety of landscape pictures, and Allerdyce recognised images of Arthur’s Seat and Berwick Law. He’d also taken some still-lives of flowers and fruit, and some other pictures showed void spaces where presumably the deluded photographer had believed he saw the spirits of the deceased. There were also a handful of what Allerdyce supposed would be called ‘artistic’ images, clearly taken in the studio itself. They all appeared to show the same young woman, with dark hair and a delicate figure, in progressive stages of teasing undress culminating in complete nakedness as she sat sideways on the chair under the skylight. In all the images her face was turned away from the camera – either an attempt to increase the sense of erotic beguilement or to protect her identity.

  One of the hanging pieces of card had no image on it, just a message in what Allerdyce would guess was masculine handwriting.

  ‘An interesting development.’

  So, our droll Duke-killer strikes again.

  “Has anything been moved, Mackay?” he asked.

  “Just the body.”

  “You examined it when it was still here?”

  “Yes. And in the mortuary.”

  “I should have been called as soon as the body was found. Anything – what he was wearing, the precise way he was lying, even the expression on his face – could have been significant evidence.”

  “I’m sorry, Allerdyce. Burgess specifically didn’t want you to be the first person to examine the scene. He asked Sergeant Henderson to come down here with me and make notes.”

  “Why?”

  “I shouldn’t say, Allerdyce. I think he maybe feels you’ve been on the Bothwell-Scott case a bit too long, and maybe you’ve become a bit set in your views. He wants to see the case through other peoples’ eyes as well – perhaps they’ll notice something fresh.”

  It stung that Burgess, normally such a straightforward man, wasn’t giving him his full trust.

  “What about the body, then, Mackay? What did you notice?”

  “Well, you know the basics already. He was shot in the head and we found him, still sitting on his stool, face down in that tray of developing fluid. It’s normally as clear as water: the cloudiness which you see is the victim’s blood.”

  “Anything else?”

  “A couple of interesting things. He’d sustained a bruise to his left temple shortly before his death – certainly the same day, possibly within an hour or two. Rather nasty, looked like he’d fallen against a blunt edge. Could have caused him some concussion.”

  “But presumably he was conscious at the time of his death?” asked Allerdyce. “He wouldn’t be sitting here otherwise.”

  “True enough, but it was a nasty blow and he’d still have been feeling it. The other interesting thing is where the bullet entered his head. We wouldn’t have been able to see any bruising if it had been on his other temple, because of the bullet’s entry hole and the scorching round it.”

  Allerdyce looked past the spot where George had died, towards the curtains and the door.

  “You mean whoever shot him was standing here.”

  “Yes.”

  “With the victim between them and the door?”

  “Precisely, Allerdyce.”

  “That’s interesting, Mackay. Very interesting indeed.”

  Allerdyce interviewed Arthur in a holding cell in the basement of the Police Office. Arthur was sitting on the fold-down bed in his dark
suit and clerical collar, unshaven and with dark lines under his eyes. He had the cell’s police-issue Bible in his hands but threw it aside when he saw the Inspector.

  “Ah, Mr Allerdyce. How ironic. Last time we met you urged me to take precautions for my safety in case the family murderer struck again. Now you meet me when I’m accused of being that murderer.”

  “Unfortunate circumstances indeed, sir. Or should I say, Your Grace.”

  Arthur gave the hint of a smile.

  “It’s almost comical, isn’t it Inspector? I find out when two constables turn up at my doorstep at seven o’clock in the evening that my brother is dead. So, at some stage between then and when I left George’s house I’d become the 10th Duke of Dornoch without my knowing it, and inherited the entire wealth of the estates and mines. And look at where I’ve spent my first night as a peer of the Realm.”

  Better reassure the suspect, thought Allerdyce. Put him at ease and you’ll get the most out of him.

  “I just need to ask you a few questions, sir. Hopefully we can get all this sorted out and needn’t detain you very long.”

  “Thank you, Inspector. I’ll help you as far as I can.”

  “I appreciate that, sir. First of all, do you confirm that you visited your brother at Rock House yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yes I did.”

  “At approximately what time, sir?”

  “I arrived at about three o’clock. After attending to various items of parish business.”

  “And what was the purpose of your visit, sir?”

  “A private family matter.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Grace, I must ask you to be explicit. It’s important that I know the full circumstances surrounding the time of your brother’s death. Otherwise we will be unable to eliminate you quickly from the enquiry.”

  Arthur glanced towards the barred window high in the cell wall, as if seeing the inescapability of the truth. He hesitated, as a door further down the corridor shut with a heavy clang, and looked up at Allerdyce.