Murder in the Telephone Exchange Read online

  He indicated dismissal still further by scribbling out the booking on a docket.

  I departed without a word, completely baffled. As a rule relations between Bertie and me were very friendly, bordering almost on the mildly flirtatious. I concluded our Senior Traffic Officer was feeling the weather and decided to reopen the subject at some later and more suitable time.

  Two flights of stairs, a long corridor and into the telephonists’ cloakroom with its rows of lockers and racks. It was cool and dim as the lights had not yet been switched on, but with the ease of long practice I located my own locker without difficulty, and put my telephone set away. The ebonite was sweating slightly from my long session at the boards. We were always busy at that time of the year. Now, in this February heat, there was a bushfire or two thrown in for good measure.

  Voices floated through the half-open door that connected the cloakroom with the telephonists’ restroom. Recognizing one, I strolled in, kicking the door shut behind me. Five girls were seated around a table playing cards.

  “Bertie won’t let us change, Patterson,” I said, as a fresh hand was dealt. “What’s got into the man, does anyone know? I’d go misère if I were you,” I added as Dulcie Gordon tilted her hand up for me to see. “You won’t get through, but it’s worth a try.”

  “Shut up, Byrnes. No help required,” one of them ordered.

  “Yes, be quiet, Maggie,” said Gloria Patterson. “It spoils the game if you give hints. Why won’t Mr. Scott give you permission? Not that I mind overmuch. I loathe all-nights.”

  “It was to be a pay-back,” I reminded her.

  “Was it?” she queried vaguely. “But I can’t on Friday. I am going to the Embassy that night with an American fellow I met the other day.”

  “What are you wearing, Gloria?” I asked, instantly diverted, and giving the others a wink. “The gold lamé or the marquisette model?”

  Patterson was always telling us of her extensive wardrobe and many boy-friends. There were those unkind souls who considered both were myths. Certainly she was looking very snappy now,. with a cyclamen orchid pinned to the lapel of her sheer black suit, and I had seen more than one seedy-looking individual waiting for her outside the Exchange. But she was quite unabashed and serious as she told with a wealth of detail, incidentally allowing the little Gordon girl to get her misère, what she was going to wear. Presently she got up to leave.

  “Take my hand, Maggie, will you? I’m due at the ‘Australia’ for a cocktail in five minutes.”

  I took her place.

  “Only one hand. I must have my tea.”

  I saw an easy solo and declared it. We played a quick hand in silence. Ormond snorted as she paid me for two over.

  “Cocktails at the ‘Australia’! Oh yeah! And how does she manage to dress on our miserable screw? That’s if she has all the clothes that she says she has, which I very much doubt.”

  “Shut up,” I said softly. The door into the cloakroom was ajar. Yet I was sure a click had registered itself on my brain as Gloria had left. When I opened it suddenly and looked out, the shadows cast by the light summer coats seemed to waver as though someone had just passed. There was no sight of Gloria, however, and Mrs. Smith, one of the cleaners, was there dusting the lockers.

  It was a puerile impulse to try to catch Gloria. I still don’t know what prompted it or what result I expected. But it manifests the state of nerves everyone was in at that time. I noticed several others had been suffering from similar futile and unreasonable impulses. There was definitely something wrong in the Trunk Exchange, for no one is so sensitive to atmosphere as a crowd of females; especially when those females are telephonists.

  “What’s up, Maggie?” said one of the rota from the restroom. “Are you going to play this hand? Diamonds are trumps.”

  I turned my head, still standing on the threshold.

  “No. I’m going to have my tea. The fair Gloria has gone.”

  “Did you think she had been listening at the key-hole? Talking about listening at key-holes, someone around here has been doing a spot of prying. A couple of the girls complained that their lockers had been tampered with, though nothing was actually taken. And I’ll swear that someone was listening in on that call I made yesterday from our phone in here.”

  “How sinister!” I replied in a light tone. “Probably it was Compton. She seems to find out a lot of things.”

  “Meaning you and Clark, Maggie? I say—”

  “I am going to my tea,” I repeated firmly. “So long.”

  As I made a pot of tea at the boiling urn in the lunchroom across the passage, I tried to put my finger on the cause of my sudden and unfounded apprehensions. Perhaps it was the heat, a close humid blanket of it enough to fray the already taut nerves of any telephonist. But Bertie with the jumps and now all this poking and prying were facts that could not be ignored.

  “Oh, blast!” I thought, trying to dismiss them. “I need my leave.”

  The lunchroom is long and narrow, with a cafeteria at one end divided off by a grille reaching from the roof to the counter. At the special table reserved for the traffic officers and monitors, Sarah Compton was talking in low tones to John Clarkson. She was leaning forward, with her pale eyes looking earnestly and compellingly into poor Clark’s. He appeared to be slightly discomfited. I caught his eye as I went to sit facing Compton, and the expression of relief that came into his face was almost ludicrous. Presently he lounged over to my table.

  “Hullo, Maggie,” he said, then added softly, “How good it is to see you after yon desiccated old maid. She has been holding forth. Like the bridegroom, I couldn’t get away once she fixed me with her eye.”

  “What was she holding forth about?” I asked, exploring the contents of a sandwich.

  “Usual stuff. You know—honour and glory and the noble tradition of the Telephone Exchange. And a bit of polly-prying about you.”

  I muttered under my breath, borrowing a phrase or two from Bertie. Clark laughed and glanced at the clock above my head.

  “I must go. Wait for me to-night and we’ll have a bite of supper somewhere. I am going back to the trunkroom, Sarah,” he called on his way out.

  Compton raised her eyes slowly from the piece of paper over which she had been poring, her arms stretched either side of it protectively. Her eyes meeting mine gave me quite a shock. I tried to analyse the strange combination of emotions that they held. Usually pale and dull, they were gleaming not only in excitement, but also with a certain degree of surprise. She stared straight through me. Not with the idea of ignoring my presence. She just didn’t see me.

  After my evening meal I sauntered up to the flat roof. If there was any stirring of air anywhere it would be there, and I was not due back in the trunkroom for another quarter of an hour. As I mounted the concrete stairs that wound around the lift-well, I noticed that old Bill had gone off duty. The lift was stationary at the eighth floor.

  Situated on a hill with no very big buildings near, a view of remarkable distance and beauty can be had from the roof of the Exchange. On that particular night, the mountains in the east seemed to rise straight out of the suburbs. They were dark blue, which coupled with their apparent nearness usually meant rain. But although the sky was heavy with clouds, no breeze stirred to break them into action. It was more likely that a blustering north wind would start the following day, bringing the dust and hot breath from the Mallee district to make us limp and exhausted until the wind swung round to the south bringing relief and rain.

  I struck a match for my cigarette without bothering to protect it, and the first plume of smoke hung blue and still around me. Leaning over the waist-high rail that ran around the low parapet, I could see far below the glass roof of the basement annexe. It was a foolish thing to do, for like the majority of people, heights always made me giddy. Immediately I started to imagine myself falling. It was so real that I could feel the force of gravity tearing at my body and knew exactly the splintering crash of glass I would
make on the annexe roof. It was insanely tempting to see if my ideas were correct. It was here that I was dragged from the last sickening thud by the most extraordinary sound. There was a small cabin set on the roof, containing the lift paraphernalia, the walls of which provided shelter for a few garden seats. From the other side of it I could hear a voice repeating: “Peep you, peep you . . .” At least it sounded like that.

  ‘The madhouse has claimed another victim,’ I thought, going to investigate. It was Sarah Compton, sitting hunched on a bench and staring at her slip of paper again. Her sandy head jerked in rhythm with that absurd “peep you.” The look of complete satisfaction on her face vanished when she saw me. She tried to cover a certain confusion by asking sharply: “Why aren’t you back in the trunkroom?”

  “I was a few minutes late coming out. Anyway,” I added sarcastically, “aren’t I working the same time as you? Four until eleven?”

  Compton ignored this, and glared at my cigarette.

  “You’re smoking again,” she remarked, rather obviously, I considered. Belonging to the diehard set who began their telephonic career when Central had but a few subscribers, she resented any forward behaviour which might, as she thought, cast a slur on the fair name of the Telephone Department. I told her that that sort of idea went out of fashion in the early twenties.

  “It is not prohibited out of the building,” I retorted gently. “In fact, it is now permissible to smoke in the restroom, so—er—put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

  Compton grew very flushed. “I shall report you for your rudeness.”

  “Nonsense!” I said briskly. “I am off duty now, and so are you. We are just two females, suspended up here more or less like Mohammed between heaven and earth. Come, come, Miss Compton,” I went on, putting just a nice shade of pity in my voice. I detested the woman and felt I owed her something. “Let us forget that you are a monitor and that I am a telephonist, and enjoy this beautiful evening amicably.”

  My flow of eloquence must have stunned her. Without speaking she turned to where the sun was settling for the night behind the bay, making the ships anchored around the Port appear black-etched against the sky. She was so quiet that, as I glanced casually at her profile, I knew that she had forgotten my existence again. Her head was raised slightly. With her rather hooked nose and thin wide mouth she reminded me of a bas-relief plaque I had once seen of a Red Indian brave. In fact, although it must sound incredible to those who knew Sarah Compton, she looked both noble and dignified.

  The Post Office clock down town struck. I took a last draw before stamping on my cigarette.

  “Well, duty calls,” I said brightly. For some unknown reason, I was feeling as though I had behaved rather badly. “Are you coming, Miss Compton?”

  She stirred with a sigh and turned towards me. Her pale eyes shone full of tears in the twilight.

  ‘Heavens! How awful!’, I thought, aghast. But she seemed to control herself. We walked slowly together over the asphalted roof to the stairs. It was just as I had opened the door that she grabbed my arm so fiercely that I let out a yelp.

  “Hush!” she whispered, staring over her shoulder. “Someone went into the lift cabin!”

  I peered fearfully through the gloom to where the cabin was now a black box against the sky. Compton’s nervous condition was infectious. We stood very still, her hand still on my arm. There was no movement from the lift cabin. No light shone from its tiny window. I shook myself free of Compton’s grasp and said bracingly: “Rot! The door is closed. Come on, or we’ll be late. Anyway, why shouldn’t there be someone in the lift cabin? It may have been one of the mechanics going in to oil up the works.”

  I was beginning to have had enough of Compton and her histrionics. She followed me obediently and without a word down the single flight of stairs. The lift was still standing at the eighth floor. Sliding open the doors, I continued in my brisk tone of voice: “This will be quicker than walking. Hop in.”

  I knew Compton was one of those not uncommon individuals who hated riding in an automatic lift. While there was a special attendant, she was fairly happy, but to trust herself to a telephonist she disliked must have taken all her will-power. The lift was worked by a lever when Bill was on duty. Now, after hours, I pressed the button marked sixth, thinking how silly it was of Compton to be nervous of lifts. She was very still in her corner. I could see the pale blur that was her face. A pleasant draught of cool air came through the open emergency exit in the roof as we settled gently at the sixth floor. But when Compton put her hand on the doors ready to slide them open we started to move again, upwards. That was a thing that happened every day, although I must admit that it gave me quite a fright. I heard a gasp from Compton and told her shortly not to worry, at the same time jamming my thumb hard against the emergency button and bringing the lift to a standstill between the seventh and eighth floors.

  “Blast!” I said, as nothing happened when I pressed the sixth button again. It was very quiet and warm in that dark cage, lighted only by the small red globe above the indicator board. But for that first gasp my companion remained as still as a corpse. My imagination started to leap, so much so that I found it hard to suppress a scream when some object whistled past my ear. It fell to the floor and lay white. I bent to pick it up, reeling clumsily in my fright against the apparatus board. In some perverse and mysterious way the lift began to move again. By the dim red light, I opened my hand to disclose a small stone wrapped roughly in paper. Two words written in pencil caught my eye, and made me turn to Compton.

  “Look what someone has been throwing through the roof at us! A letter! It has your name on it, so I suppose that it is meant for you.”

  We were descending very jerkily, as I pondered on the childish trick. I thought that that sort of thing went out with one’s school-days. Compton was standing quite close to me trying to read her note by the light from the indicator board. I was forced to quell a most unladylike impulse to share it over her shoulder. Oddly enough I was to know what it contained very soon, but I did not dream of that possibility then.

  The lift had stopped again, and I made a mental vow never to ride in one again. I was badly shaken. Rather strangely, Compton seemed quite calm. Her very placidness disturbed me. I wanted to break the unnatural silence.

  “Miss Compton,” I began, but broke off as she lifted her face towards me. It was clear enough to make my heart jump with a sickening fright, as I saw her lips drawn back from teeth that appeared bloody in that red glow. Her eyes were staring and horrible to look into as she crouched there like an animal about to spring.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, watching her. I felt like a bird fascinated by a snake, paralysed and numb. Then an instinct as old as time asserted itself. The instinct of flight. A voice seemed to shriek in my brain: “Run! Run for your life!”

  But how? Where? Dragging my fascinated gaze away from that bestial form, I saw a white light shining through the lift windows. The lift must have been at a floor landing for some time; precious moments, when I could have been far away from this mad, fearful thing that was hunched beside me. My fingers bruised dragging at the doors. I pulled them to behind me to give myself a chance to escape down the long passage outside. I had no idea where I was. The corridor was deserted and dimly lit. I hurried on with the vague hope of finding someone sane and solid and sensible. But the doors along the passage remained unopened to my knocking. The whole floor appeared to be empty. My only plan would be to make for the back stairs and chance my speed against Compton’s. Then the sound of footsteps, light and running, made me stop and press against a door in the wall. My throat was parched by my panting breath.

  ‘I’d love a drink of water’, I thought idiotically. The door handle turned under my fingers but did not move inwards. Locked! The footsteps came nearer. Round that bend in the corridor, and she’ll see you in that light frock. Run, you fool!

  But where? My senses seemed distraught and unreliable. ‘This is a dream!’ I told
myself, starting to edge along the wall. ‘Soon I’ll come to a precipice, and then I’ll wake up.’

  I screamed lightly, once, as a dark figure loomed up in front of me. A hand closed tightly on my arm.

  “What on earth are you up to, Margaret?” asked a familiar voice in my ear sharply. This was better than the back stairs; even better than someone sane, solid and sensible. My fingers gripped the lapels of Clark’s coat. One arm crept round me protectively, drawing me closer until I could feel his heart racing against my temple.

  “What are you doing on this floor?” he demanded.

  “The lift—it got stuck,” I explained in jerks, “and that horrible woman—”

  “What woman?” he asked quickly.

  “Sarah Compton. She—she looked evil. She’s insane. I’m certain she’s insane.”

  Man-like, Clark patted my back without speaking. I became calmer. Meeting Clark like that made me feel as if I had exaggerated the whole affair.

  “Someone threw a note down the emergency exit in the lift.”

  I went on. “It had Compton’s name on it. She read it and then—then her face changed. She looked like an animal.” I shuddered involuntarily. “I got out at once and started to run, but I didn’t know where I was. What floor is this, anyway? Then there were footsteps, running”—I raised my head to look into his face, wonderingly—“but that must have been you.”

  The suspicion of a frown gathered between his brows. His arm slackened, and I moved back shyly.

  “I must go. I’ll be terribly late.”

  I could see Clark smiling. It did things to you, that smile; reducing the younger telephonists into simpering idiots, and making even Sarah Compton come all over girlish. Having reminded myself thus of my last encounter with that woman, I said resolutely: “I’m not going back by that damned lift, John Clarkson, and don’t you think it for one minute. I suppose the back stairs are just around the corner? Anyway, it will look better if we don’t enter the trunkroom together.”