Free The Unbelievers by Alastair Sim

breathing, reasoning that Jarvis was the one who should worry since he didn’t have any obvious police reason for being in the sailors’ bar. But it felt as if each of them had their hands round the other’s neck.
    â€œI don’t think we need to say any more about last night, do we, Allerdyce?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI was conducting a clandestine investigation, of course. I presume that you and your man were doing likewise.”
    That’ll be right thought Allerdyce, remembering Jarvis’s embrace of the blond youth.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo we understand each other then, Allerdyce? In the current climate merely visiting such places on business can give rise to mistaken inferences. But we can’t all afford to be holy if we’re going to do this job. Neither of us will have any occasion to mention it to the Chief, will we?”
    â€œNo, Jarvis.”
    â€œFine. I appreciate your discretion. It’s so important that we can trust each other.”
    Jarvis opened the door and Allerdyce left. Going down the corridor he looked back and saw that Jarvis was standing looking at him. Trust, he thought. Not a word that sits easily with Inspector Allan Jarvis.
    He walked down the stairs into the duty room. Sergeant McGillivray was sitting in uniform at his small desk. Three constables were hanging around waiting for their orders – one of them sitting on a hard chair reading a newspaper, another polishing his boots and a third studying the noticeboard. At the far side of the room the desk sergeant, Henderson, was leaning against the public counter filling in a ledger while he waited for business.
    â€œA word in my office please, Sergeant McGillivray.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    The sergeant followed him back up the stairs to Allerdyce’s cramped office. Allerdyce shimmied neatly between the filing cabinets and his desk and sat down. The sergeant stood to attention on the other side.
    â€œPlease, Sergeant, take a seat.”
    â€œThank you, sir.”
    â€œAnd thank you, Sergeant, for your courage last night.”
    â€œNo more than my duty, sir.”
    â€œBut our Duke is still missing.”
    â€œI was thinking, sir. If we could find the telegram which the Duke received before he disappeared we might learn something.”
    â€œYes. I was thinking the same.”
    â€œFailing that, sir, I suppose we’ll have to spend another night in bad company in Leith.”
    â€œPerhaps, Sergeant. But before we pursue either course there is one other enquiry I want to make.”
    â€œWhat’s that, sir?”
    â€œI’m afraid it’s an enquiry I have to make entirely alone.”

    Allerdyce got down from the omnibus at Stockbridge. He looked over his shoulder as the driver whipped the horses and the wheels rumbled away over the cobbles. There was no reason why anyone should be following him, but the chance encounter with Jarvis last night had shaken him. He was relieved to see no-one he recognised.
    He crossed the Water of Leith – running fresh and clear here as it tumbled out of the Dean gorge three miles upstream from the mills and harbour of Leith – and walked under the trees of its left bank for a hundred yards before turning into the handsome Regency terrace of Danube Street. Each house proclaimed wealth and respectability from its sober, classically-proportioned frontage, but Allerdyce knew that at least one of the front doors, its brassware gleaming like its neighbours’, hid a secret life.
    His hand was shaking as he pulled the doorbell. Every time he came here he felt himself drawn back towards those awful months after Helen had gone, when he’d doubted whether he was in fact sane. But, by some luck or miracle, his visits here had started a healing which would never be complete but which had at least stopped him from losing his mind.
    After a few moments the maid opened the door.
    â€œMr Allerdyce? We weren’t expecting