Murder in the Telephone Exchange. June Wright

a telephone set was a privileged thing. “By the way, Maggie, do you know what is wrong with Compton? She’s like a cat on hot bricks tonight.”

      I leaned towards her. “To give you my candid and unprejudiced opinion,” I said softly, “I think that she has gone crackers.”

      Mac looked at me, mildly surprised at my earnestness.

      “I’ll tell you why, later. I must get back to the relieving at once, or she’ll jump on me the way she did to young Gloria. So long.”

      I finished the job about five minutes before the rush period. An atmosphere of tension is always felt at this time. To-night, with the oppressive heat, the strain seemed augmented. I felt hot and weary, but my brain was keyed up and alert to take the burden of the next two hours. I will never forget that night. The main Sydney board was given to me to work, and there was a two hours’ delay on the lines. I could not give my whole mind to the operating, as the brush with Compton and the subsequent event of the lift and even the locked restroom door were playing around in my brain in a jumble. Still further back, in the recesses of my subconscious mind, something was trying to thrust itself on to my notice. Making rapid connections was not conducive to recapturing an elusive thought, even if it had registered itself on my brain in the first place. During a respite when I had all my lines covered, I came to the conclusion that it was something peculiar that I had either seen or heard. But when and where, my memory failed me.

      After that, I settled down more peacefully to the business of breaking that pack of dockets, so much so that by the time the last call was put on, I realized with a jerk that I had forgotten all about those odd occurrences that had taken place earlier in the evening. I felt strangely loath to summon them again, and kept telling myself that I was imagining the premonition of disaster I was experiencing. But the whole building and its occupants including myself seemed to be on tip-toe waiting for a climax. There was that solo hand that I had played in the restroom and Dulcie Gordon’s conviction of an eavesdropper on the telephonists’ private phone; also her knowledge of the rifled lockers, and presently that unnaturally ajar door after Patterson’s departure; even Mrs. Smith, the cleaner with an ever present familiarity about her that I could never place. Then I considered Bertie, a mass of nerves, and Sarah Compton with that evil look on her face, full of malice and triumph.

      Compton had been dodging around the boards, querying dockets and taking inquiries in her usual fashion all night. That was one of her habits that I deplored most. She would ask you questions when you were in the middle of booking with the other telephonist. Her sharp voice, which reminded me always of someone using a steel file, sounded in your uncovered ear demanding futile explanations.

      As I shifted my hot earpiece on to my temple and leaned back in my chair, I noticed that she was not in the room. John Clarkson still wrote at the Senior Traffic Officer’s table, but I did not suppose that he had been doing that all the time for the last two hours; anyway, I had heard his voice behind me during the night.

      “All clear, Maggie?” asked Gordon, who was sitting next to me. “Whew! What a night! Do you think a cool change will ever come! I am nearly dead.”

      “Think of icebergs,” I advised. “Dulcie, when you and the others left the restroom, what time was it?”

      She reflected for a minute.

      “About twenty-five to seven, I think. We were all due to go back.”

      “Did you see anyone go in after you left?”

      She shook her head.

      “What about Patterson?” I asked quickly. “She is on your rota. Was she with you?”

      “Gloria was coming up in the lift, as we passed to go down the stairs to the trunkroom.”

      So that was how the lift came to be at the eighth floor.

      “Did she say anything to you?”

      “Only that she’d made some new conquest at the ‘Australia,’ replied Gordon with a grimace. “What a liar that girl is!”

      “No, she isn’t,” I corrected. “She really believes all she says. She’s a romancer. She appeared much as usual, then?”

      “I think so. What is all this, Maggie? Why the cross-examination?”

      I said: “Since I’m certain to be accused of locking the restroom door, I thought that I had better dig up some other suspects.”

      “As a matter of fact,” Gordon confessed. “I thought that it must have been you. After all you were the last, and that’s what they are saying on the boards.”

      “Oh, are they?” I returned viciously. “You can just inform all the little gossipers from me that I didn’t go near the restroom after my tea. I didn’t even go into the cloakroom.”

      “What about your telephone? Didn’t you put it in your locker?”

      “I took it out again on my way to the lunchroom,” I said. That unknown something jerked in my brain once more. I tried to follow it up, but Gordon interrupted.

      “What did you do after tea?”

      “I went up on the roof, and—” I stopped suddenly. Somehow I didn’t want to spread the facts of my meeting with Compton. Once a fragment of information got to the boards, it would grow like a snowball.

      “What did you do up there?” asked Gordon. “Was there anyone with you?”

      “I had a cigarette,” I answered, somewhat lamely. “There was no one else.” Sometimes I think now that if I had told Dulcie exactly what had happened on the roof perhaps at least one of the terrible events that took place might not have occurred. But how was I to know then? I did what I thought best at the time, and John says that it would not have made the slightest difference.

      “There you are!” she declared triumphantly. “You have no alibi.”

      “Oh yes, I have,” I said to myself, “providing Compton will back me up.” On the other hand, she might be only too eager to forget those adventures we had shared. I wished that I had forgotten my sensibilities and taken a good look at that note, which was thrown into the lift so dramatically.

      A couple of dockets came to the boards. I handed them to Gordon to complete. She sniffed audibly.

      “Be a good girl,” I asked. “I want to think.”

      “What with?” she asked in a silly way that made me want to slap her.

      I closed my eyes in an attempt to bring back the details of the letter. I felt myself pressing the sixth-floor button, and then that rush of cool air that came through the emergency exit.

      “That was it!” I thought, feeling very clever. “Someone was watching for Compton to enter the lift, and then threw down the note.” It must have been the person Compton saw entering the lift cabin on the roof; in fact, it was quite conclusive that it was, because that was the only place from where one could look on to the lift roof, as we were at the top floor. But it was quite another thing to name that person. Who it was and why write a note to Compton I could not understand. The more I thought of it, the more I wanted to see what that letter of Compton’s contained.

      The 10 p.m. girls had signed off and gone long since. Dulcie Gordon was shifting impatiently in her chair; it was a minute after the half-hour, and Compton whose duty it was to release the staff was still absent. Suddenly John Clarkson laid down his pen, rose, and walked down the room. Several girls said plaintively: “I’m supposed to be off, Mr. Clarkson.”

      “Where’s your monitor?” he asked, looking round the room swiftly.

      “Miss Compton has not been in for some time,” said Gordon. “I didn’t see her go out.”

      “You’ll have them all claiming overtime if you don’t let them go,” I murmured, as he bent over my board to see if there were any dockets. I thought his hand touched mine for a second. He straightened up and said clearly: “All right, all you 10.30 girls, just drop