Murder in the Telephone Exchange

by June Wright

  Mac must have got what she wanted, because of the way in which she told Gloria to forget all about the nasty business. I resolved to see Mac the next day, and lay my cards on the table so that we could work together. Perhaps in that way we might resume the old footing of frank camaraderie and break down the barrier which, in all justice, had been most of Mac’s making.

  Then there was John Clarkson to remember. It was obvious that he was as dissatisfied with the police decision as I. Certainly he seemed reluctant to commit himself further. That was all very well for him, but he didn’t have the awful dread of wondering if he were responsible for the suicide of poor Dulcie. I knew my Exchange and fellow-telephonists too well not to realize that, although the majority would recognize Gloria’s accusation as a product of her nasty temperament, the rumour would swell and enlarge into an ominous size. It would take some drastic move to destroy the rumour. As far as I could see, that move had to be made on my part, and as quickly as possible. It was a choice between my own peace of mind and leaving things as they stood, or trying to construct a case against someone else. Perhaps I was selfish in choosing the latter course, but I knew now that nothing I could have done would have altered the turn of events.

  I closed my eyes as my head started to ache from intense concentration. It was dark and still in the restroom. Only the distant thud-thud from the power-room kept me conscious of my surroundings. I jerked my head up from my chest to which it had fallen, and let it rest against the side of the couch. I must have fallen asleep, but I did not realize it at the time. I certainly did not hear anyone switch off the cloakroom light and come creeping into the restroom. But my muscles were still tense and unrelaxed when I heard the telephone across the room click as the receiver was lifted. The dial was spun round softly.

  I stared wide-eyed in the darkness searching for the door to the cloakroom, not daring to move. My breath came quickly and my heart pounded against my ribs. I was so silent that I could hear the faint burr-burr of the ’phone ringing. It stopped as a voice crackled metallically for a few seconds, and then the click was repeated as the receiver went back into place. Whoever had dialled out on the restroom telephone in the pitch-black darkness had not uttered a word. The caller had merely listened to the person at the other end of the line, and then glided out as quietly as before.

  I longed for the courage to call out but dared not. I waited for minutes to pass before I was game enough to put one foot to the floor. My heart still thumped sickeningly, and I counted up seconds to three minutes.

  ‘I’ll get up then,’ l told myself firmly. ‘I’ll walk straight over to the door and switch on the light.’ But I was coward enough to allow another sixty seconds to pass before I slid carefully from the couch and felt around the wall, ready to make a dash if the need arose. The room flooded with light under my hand. I blinked rapidly, trying to change my focus. The pedestal telephone stood in its corner quietly, and I tried to visualize a hand spinning the dial around softly. As I stared at it in fascination. my heart began to slow down to its normal tempo. My panting breath had left me parched. Taking one last look around the room, I switched off the light again and walked rather unsteadily through the cloakroom to the lunchroom opposite to get a drink of water.

  I forced myself to drink slowly between deep breaths, and felt much better after doing so. As I was draining the glass, an idea occurred to me. I put down the tumbler quickly, and dashed out of the lunchroom and along the corridor to the lift. It was waiting for me at the eighth floor. I paused for a brief moment then shrugging hopefully, I locked myself in and pressed the button for the first floor. As the lift started on its descent with a jerk, I clung on to Bill’s empty chair, staking my faith in the law of averages. I had come through another harrowing experience in the restroom unharmed, so surely my solitary journey in the lift would be unmarked by any further disturbances. Four, three, two, and as the lift came gently to rest, I pulled at the doors hurriedly and jumped on to the solid concrete of the first floor.

  The landing was the replica of the other floors; the stairs curving away to the left and a glass door on the right. There, the power could be heard more clearly, and as I opened the door the occasional click of dial feelers in the automatic boxes came to my ears. The long room was lined with grey-painted apparatus, and was as close as an oven. Someone was whistling cheerily at the far end. I made my way down the room, calm once more within the sound of that unconcerned whistle. In one corner, I found the all-night mechanic plaiting multi-coloured wires that billowed from the insides of the structure. He looked up from his work, startled, and the whistle died away in a long breath.

  “I thought you were a ghost,” he said, grinning, “but I see now that you’re an angel. Have you come to keep me company in the long hours before dawn?”

  “I was always taught that angels were beautiful spirits,” I retorted.

  He shook his curly head. He was only a youngster of twenty or thereabouts. I had got to know him slightly when he had mended my telephone.

  “You’re wrong, lady. Anyone in skirts looks pretty good to me when I’m stuck amongst all this stuff.” He waved his hand indicating the apparatus, and arose from his squatting position, pulling his mechanic’s dustcoat into place. The whirr of a dial feeler reminded me of the need for haste.

  “I want you to show me where a certain telephone is,” I said hurriedly. “It’s frightfully important, so just lead me to it, and don’t ask questions. I’ll explain in a minute.”

  “What’s the number?” he asked, looking surprised.

  “M—” I stopped short. Heavens! I had forgotten it in the stress of the moment. “The telephonists’ ’phone up on the eighth floor.”

  “This way,” he answered briefly, leading me down a narrow passage between the rows of boxes. “Here you are!” The mechanic tapped one just above his head.

  “Thanks. Is it possible to trace a number that has just been dialled out on it?”

  “How long ago?” he demanded. I felt grateful for his quick appreciation of my strange request.

  “It must be about a quarter of an hour, but I shouldn’t think the ’phone would have been used again.”

  “Hold everything,” he ordered. He ran back down the passage calling over his shoulder. “Keep your eye on that box. If anyone starts to dial, pull out the pip with the red cord connecting it.”

  I watched gingerly, always having had a dislike of tampering with things about which I knew nothing; especially wires with power running through them. A small light glowed above the box suddenly. I yelled: “Quick! I think someone is going to dial.” The mechanic appeared at a run, holding a buttinsky in his hand. “Pull the red out,” he commanded, and as I obeyed him the glow vanished. Unfolding the flex that was wound around the handle of his instrument, he opened the box and placed the fork-shaped tip on a wire.

  “Sorry, we’re testing on here,” he spoke into the mouthpiece.

  “Who is it?” I whispered.

  “It’s a woman’s voice,” he returned softly, closing the mouthpiece with his hand, “and she’s going mad at me for using the line.”

  “Let me listen,” I said urgently. He handed over the buttinsky without any comment. I knew the voice immediately. There could be only one person in the Exchange who made such a business of pronouncing her vowels.

  “Tell her to wait a moment. It won’t take you long to trace the last call, will it?”

  He shook his curly head again, and repeated my message to Gloria. Presently he started fiddling at the bottom of the box, peering through the wires, and now and then pushing the fork on to a line.

  “You’re in luck,” he commented. “It looks like a city west number. Go round the other side and see if any light flashes.”

  I ran around quickly and took up a position against the wall, my eyes raking the tall structure.

  “No light,” I called to my mechanic friend. He grunted something inaudible.

  “Try now,” he said, and I saw a light flash tw
o or three times towards the left, far above my head.

  “Hold it,” I yelled, almost dancing with excitement. It continued to flash as I counted the boxes carefully to its position. “I’ve got it. It’s the seventeenth on the second row from the top. You’re a marvellous man,” I added, as the mechanic joined me, buttinsky still in his hand.

  “Thanks, lady,” he grinned. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but at a word like that from you, I’m willing to blow up the whole place.”

  “Sometimes I’d rather like to do it myself. Can I come up with you?”

  “Sure,” he replied, mounting the steep steps that led to an iron landing, from which the mechanics attended to the higher places of the apparatus. “Be careful in those heels. It’s pretty slippery.”

  “I will,” I promised, following him cautiously. It reminded me of a gangway of a ship, and I wondered if the correct thing was to descend backwards.

  The mechanic walked along the landing carelessly, counting each box with a tap of his hand. “This’ll be it,” he said, opening the door and reading the plate fixed to the back. “M9173. Would you like me to call them?” He glanced at the clock in a dubious way.

  “It’s only quite early,” I remarked airily, “but I’ll take the blame if there’s a rumpus.”

  “There’d better not be,” he returned, grinning mischievously, “or we’ll get the sack. You shouldn’t be here at all. There’s probably a long paragraph in the security regulations forbidding the entrance of pretty females into the apparatus rooms.”

  “Well, that wipes me out,” I said serenely. “Here, give me that buttinsky, and I’ll put on an act. I promise you there won’t be any row.” I took the instrument and slid my hand down the flex to the metal fork. “What do I do with this thing?”

  The mechanic guided it to rest on a wire. “Mind your ear,” he warned just in time. The automatic ring reverberated through the earpiece. It rang for a long time. I was almost calling it a day, when the ’phone was unhooked at the other end and a man’s voice said: “Well?”

  Thinking that I had better not attempt my laryngitis disguise again, I adopted a high-pitched tone like Gloria’s.

  “Oh, doctor! Will you come at once? I feel so dreadful ringing you at this hour, but I really can’t stand it any longer. Do you think that I should go to hospital?”

  “Who is speaking, please?” asked the voice levelly.

  I hesitated a fraction of a second, thinking quickly. “Mrs. Thompson,” I answered in a plaintive voice. “Mrs. William Thompson. Doctor, do you think I should go?”

  “You can go to hell!” said the voice crisply, and the receiver was slammed down in my ear. I pulled out the fork and let my mechanic friend shut the door. He was grinning like an ape as he led the way back to the stairs, re-wrapping the flex.

  “My, my! I would never have guessed it of you. You do keep your secret well.”

  “Don’t be so indelicate,” I rebuked him. “I had to say something. Does one climb down these steps sailor-wise?”

  “You’d better let me help you,” he replied in mock anxiety. “Hang on to my arm.”

  “Will you shut up?” I begged.

  “What about your girl friend who was waiting to use the ’phone?”

  “Oh, blast!” I exclaimed. “I’d forgotten all about her, and I wanted to listen in to what she was saying too. I suppose she’s made her call by now.”

  He looked at me oddly. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

  “Quite, thank you,” I answered in surprise. He did not appear to be acting the fool now.

  “I was just wondering,” he remarked casually. “I’m not accustomed to strange women rushing in and interrupting my work to get me to butt in on lines so that they can listen in.”

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized, “but it’s really terribly hard to explain. In fact, I don’t think I’d better yet. But I promise you that you won’t get into a row if this little adventure is found out. If anyone says anything, just refer them to me.”

  “That’ll be grand,” he said blankly. “Just refer them to you. They’ll know whom I mean, of course.”

  “They will,” I agreed sweetly, “if you say that the name is Margaret Byrnes, and that l am an interstate trunk telephonist.”

  “Gosh!” he stammered suddenly. “You’re the girl who found that monitor’s body.”

  “One of them. You’ll keep my visit under your hat, won’t you? By the way, what’s your name?”

  “Dan Mitchell. Are you doing a spot of detecting? I thought they knew who committed the murder.” He walked with me to the door and swung it open.

  “Thanks, Dan,” I said, passing through. “Just for your information only, and I know that I can trust you, I’m trying to break the police decision. I know it sounds an awful cheek. But I worked with that girl who was supposed to have killed Compton, and I can’t believe that she’s guilty.”

  Dan Mitchell’s boyish face was flushed with excitement. I heard him repeat: “Gosh!” as I let the door close quietly behind me.

  I walked up the stairs automatically; not because of any fear of taking the lift again. I wanted time in which to think. The first thing I wanted to find out was the name of the subscriber the mysterious caller in the restroom had rung, and that was going to be a difficult job. Mentally, I ran through the list of telephonists with whom I was acquainted on the Information desk, and who might be able to trace it for me without wanting to ask too many questions. We trunk telephonists over in the new building were rather isolated from the “Infa.” girls, and consequently it was unusual for the two sections to become friendly. But I once had a session of relieving at the position, and recalled one girl who had been helpful in showing me the ropes.

  Information was a thankless job, and one that received more abuse than any other position in the whole of the Exchange. Subscribers ran to the “Infa.” girls under the slightest pretext, and it was amazing the good results they received for some of their outlandish inquiries. It was also the place where complaints were lodged. It was no wonder that the higher percentage of nervous breakdowns was always found amongst the telephonists working at the Information desk.

  ‘I’ll call the all-nighter from the boards as soon as I get back, and see if she can do anything for me,’ I promised myself. Once having discovered the subscriber’s name and occupation, I would have something to work on. It seemed odd to say the least that someone should be ready to answer his telephone at a city number, where the greater majority of subscribers’ numbers were offices and not even hotels or flats. I hoped that the man had presumed my call was just an error of dialling, and had not started to get suspicious.

  I half-closed my eyes in the endeavour to recall the restroom episode more clearly. I remembered my head jerking forward before I let it fall back against the cushion. The cloakroom light was still on then. I did not know for how long I had slept, but it couldn’t have been more than half an hour. In that time the light in the cloakroom had been extinguished, and the unknown caller had crept into the restroom, oblivious that it was already occupied by a weary all-night telephonist. The prowler evidently dared not use the light for fear of attracting attention, though it seemed more likely from the unhesitating way in which the dial was turned that the number was familiar, and that a light was unnecessary.

  ‘Whoever it was,’ I reflected thoughtfully, ‘must be a telephonist. Firstly, there would be no one else on the eighth floor, and secondly, only a telephonist could use a dial accurately without looking at it. Furthermore, that same person must be up to something fishy.’ The whole episode was too quietly performed for it to be a legitimate or casual call; especially at that hour. Another sinister aspect was the fact that, although the man I had called in the apparatus room had spoken, the caller had not uttered a word; just dialled, listened, and hung up the receiver all in the space of a few seconds.

  I climbed the last few stairs to the sixth floor, and rounded the landing just as the lift was m
oving down. I heard two or three male voices talking inside it, and tried to catch a glimpse of the occupants through the long narrow glass windows set in the outer doors. I turned away and saw John Clarkson standing by a window in the trunkroom with his hands in his pockets. He was staring out into the dark sky. I watched him absently for a while, the long hours of the first dogwatch telling on my tired body. His straight profile was lifted slightly, and although his eyes remained blank the lips above that square chin of his moved continually as though he was repeating something over and over. Presently, as though aware of my scrutiny, he turned his head. I smiled weakly, feeling a little foolish. It came as a surprise that there was no answering flicker in his eyes. Instead he drew his hands from his pockets and strode over to the door, his brows drawn together in a heavy frown.

  “Where on earth have you been?” he demanded angrily, but not without an underlying tone of anxiety. I motioned to him to close the door and to join me on the landing.

  “I’ve been having adventures,” I replied coaxingly, trying to banish the annoyed look from his face. It was not often that I saw him thus. “Who went down in the lift just now?”

  “Only Bertie with a couple of the Heads of the Department,” he replied in a hard voice. “They paid a surprise visit to see if everything was under control.” I ignored the heavy sarcasm in his voice, as that sense of excitement that was becoming so familiar shook me from head to foot.