Murder in the Telephone Exchange

by June Wright

  Inspector Coleman did not look up as he answered. “He is a broker,” he agreed suavely, “but the term covers a varied amount of business interests.”

  “That is what I said,” I remarked eagerly. “But have you found out any particular one which would connect him with someone in the Exchange?

  This man Brown in Sydney, for example. What is his business?”

  The Inspector searched amongst his papers, his face expressionless. “He is also a broker.”

  I glanced from him to Sergeant Matheson who was sitting quietly by his side, puzzled. But as soon as I met his eyes, they dropped and he fidgeted with his notebook.

  The Inspector drew out a long single sheet, and tossed it across his table. “Those are the statements, Miss Byrnes. I believe you said you wanted to see them.”

  I picked up the paper automatically, still frankly bewildered. “But—” I began.

  “Have you got those reports, Matheson?” asked Inspector Coleman. “Don’t worry about us, Miss Byrnes. Just go on with your reading.”

  “I’m not worrying,” I snapped, feeling balked. Why had they suddenly shut up like clams when I asked them about Mr. Atkinson? I turned my attention to the paper in front of me. Quite obviously, I was being fobbed off. The statements were all bald and uninteresting. Probably it was my bemused state that hindered me from reading between the lines, but it appeared that each statement was covered by a strong alibi.

  In the first three, signed by Bertie, his wife, and Miles Dunn, was the declaration that they were together for the whole time that they spent on the eighth floor.

  As Bertie himself had issued the order that no one was to use the trunkroom floor on Saturday night, the only way he could explain to his guests the working of the new automatic boards was to take them to see the dummy that was kept in the telephonists’ classroom. They all declared that they had got there about 9.15 p.m. and had spent no more than a quarter of an hour before returning directly to the danceroom. They had neither seen nor heard anything of a suspicious nature.

  The only interesting point that I gleaned by comparing the three statements was that they lost sight of each other soon after their return.

  Gloria’s remarks only covered about three lines. I was full of admiration for the person who made the précis. She had gone up to the eighth floor for the purpose of checking up on the supper arrangements, but had not stayed more than a few minutes. She did not mention having spoken to Mrs. Smith, and it was that omission that put me on my guard. There was something fishy about Gloria and the cleaner-woman. It hadn’t needed Bill to draw my attention to the fact that they were withholding some information from the police. It also seemed that they shared the same knowledge.

  The four remaining statements held little interest, although I noticed Dan Mitchell’s name amongst them. I glanced through the paragraph which concluded with his signature. He and his partner had used the back stairs from the roof, and walked through the length of the eighth floor to follow another couple by way of a joke. The unfortunate pair they had been shadowing were the newly-engaged couple Clark had congratulated at the commencement of his alibi game.

  “They tell me precisely nothing,” I said flatly, flicking the sheet across to the Inspector with the tip of one finger and feeling indignant that Clark’s good work had been used to no avail.

  Inspector Coleman picked it up, holding it at arm’s length to regard. “I am not so sure,” he replied musingly. “There are one or two possibilities.”

  “Beyond the fact that Mr. Dunn lost sight of Mr. Scott and his wife immediately after their return to the danceroom, I can’t see them.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Scott also became separated,” interpolated the Inspector gently. I did not miss the significance in his voice in spite of my glowering reflections as to the way they had wasted the result of Clark’s invention. I made a mental note not to let Clark know how his effort to help Mac had been of no material use after all. How bitter he would be, on top of his failure to get hold of her letter ahead of Mr. Atkinson.

  In the midst of these reflections, Sergeant Matheson was called to the door by a knock. I heard the voice of my friend Roberts.

  “Here’s Mrs. Smith now, sir. Will you see her?”

  Inspector Coleman glanced up quickly. “Bring her in. Sit down, please. No, not in that chair; the one facing me. Perhaps if Miss Byrnes wouldn’t mind moving over a little?”

  “Certainly,” I replied, shifting my chair against the wall, and regarding the Inspector with renewed interest. Just as I was beginning to feel disgusted with his methods, he had introduced what I considered one of the most important figures of the case. The elusive Mrs. Smith!

  I studied her closely for perhaps the first time, and saw a middle-aged woman of the type that doesn’t attract undue attention. She was fairly tall, with dark greying hair and a heavily lined face, set now in a sullen expression. She wore the white overall which was usually the dress of the women who attended the cafeteria. It puzzled me slightly, as hitherto she had always been on the cleaning staff. By lucky chance, the Inspector remarked on it after taking her name and address and making a few routine inquiries.

  “Mrs. Smith, I believe that your position in the building is that of a charwoman. How did it happen that you worked in the cafeteria kitchen on the night that Miss MacIntyre was found murdered?”

  I saw her fingers interlock as she muttered her reply defiantly. “Mrs. Dobson asked me to. She hated these dance suppers. She always got in a bag.”

  These were the first words she had volunteered since her entry. As soon as she spoke, a blinding light swept through my brain. The shock of sudden mental sight made me forget my position as an onlooker. I got up from my chair and stood leaning over one corner of Inspector Coleman’s desk. Mrs. Smith looked up at me in surprise, and then her eyes flickered once or twice fearfully. I think she guessed her mistake.

  “You were a telephonist at one time,” I declared.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.

  “Yes, you do,” I insisted. “Only a telephonist would use that expression ‘in a bag’.”

  I straightened up and faced the Inspector. “For months now, ever since the first time that I heard this woman speak, I have been troubled by a sense of familiarity about her. Now I know. It was not her appearance that I recognized, but her voice. Only a trained telephonist has that type of voice. You can pick them out of a crowd.”

  “Is this true, Mrs. Smith?” asked the Inspector quietly.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sergeant Matheson look up suddenly from his writing. His eyes met mine, and I think the same thought struck us both. But I was not to be done out of my triumph.

  “Smith,” I repeated. “Smith! Was that what Charlotte meant? Show me your notes, Sergeant.”

  Inspector Coleman expostulated a little. “Really, Miss Byrnes! I am conducting this inquiry.”

  “Just one moment, please, sir,” begged Sergeant Matheson. “It was Millicent, Miss Byrnes.”

  I turned back to the woman, who cowered now in her chair. “Is that your real name?” I asked, holding her eyes. She nodded. “Does the name Irene mean anything to you?”

  “No, no,” she almost screamed in reply. “I don’t know what you’re saying. What right has this girl to ask me questions?”

  “None at all,” responded the Inspector dryly. “But she seems to be succeeding where we are not, so I suggest that she carries on. Well, Miss Byrnes?”

  I grinned at him warmly. He was certainly behaving like a sportsman in the face of my audacity.

  “Just one other matter, before I explain what I’m driving at,” I said, fumbling in my handbag. I was forced to empty the contents on the table in order to find what I was looking for. The two men watched me, and once Sergeant Matheson dived under his chair to retrieve my rolling lipstick.

  “This,” I said, holding out my hand to Mrs. Smith. “This belongs to you, doesn’t it? You dropped it in the ca
feteria kitchen, when you crouched behind the counter to overhear what I was saying to Dulcie Gordon. Oh, no, you don’t,” I added, closing my fist quickly, and tossing a short indelible pencil in front of the Inspector. He picked it up with a broken-off exclamation.

  “Too bad you lost it just then,” I went on. “You had to find another one to write that anonymous letter I found pushed under the door of my locker.”

  The woman covered her face with her hands and began to whimper. Perversely, I began to feel a brute, and cursed the soft streak in me. Then I remembered the reason for my bullying and stiffened. What did this woman mean to me? It was Mac’s death that I wanted to revenge. Whoever fell in my path was of no importance, in comparison with discovering Mac’s killer.

  “You’d better own up,” I told her shortly. “You gave yourself away when you made to take that pencil. Who are you, and why did you write those letters?”

  Mrs. Smith raised her tear-stained face. It was contorted with anger, and her eyes were full of hate. “Damn you!” she choked. “Damn you to hell, you prying smart alec! You’ll get what she got. You’re just the same; poking into other people’s business. And won’t I laugh when I see you dead, all battered and the blood streaming out of your face! I’ll laugh, do you hear? Laugh!”

  She was horrible to listen to, before Sergeant Matheson closed her mouth with his palm. I shrank trembling into a chair.

  Mrs. Smith spluttered and clawed at his hand, but the Sergeant didn’t release his grip. His face was very grim as he looked down at his victim.

  Inspector Coleman said sternly: “Will you be quiet? Or must we lock you up until you cool down?”

  Her eyes darted around the room. I flinched as they rested on me for a moment. Gradually the flush went out of her cheeks, and she made a sign with one hand. Sergeant Matheson removed his.

  “I’ll tell you,” she said quietly. “But first, I’d like someone to be here.”

  “Your lawyer?” asked the Inspector, and she gave him a startled look.

  “I don’t need a lawyer, I didn’t kill those women.” Inspector Coleman folded his hands on the table in front of him, and watched her dispassionately.

  “I didn’t!” she cried shrilly. “Don’t look at me like that. I swear I know nothing about the murders. I only wanted Bill here.”

  I covered my eyes with one hand. It had been inevitable, of course. Bill was mixed up with her somehow, but I had shrunk from the direct truth. Roberts was called in, and came back presently with the liftman. Bill stood in the doorway, his grave eyes, usually so bright and laughing, going slowly from one to the other. I couldn’t meet them when my turn came.

  “Milly!” he said, coming forward. “What has happened? Have you come to your senses at last?”

  “That girl has found out,” she replied grudgingly. “I suppose that I’d better tell the police now.”

  Bill took a chair quietly, facing me from the opposite wall. It was hard trying not to look up, but I dared not read the reproach I knew would be in his eyes.

  “I am Millicent Smith,” the woman began in a low, unsteady voice. She seemed calm now, and I felt very thankful. Outbursts like the one that had fallen on my head were very wearing to the nervous system. “But I did know Irene Smith. She was my sister.”

  She paused. My brain slipped ahead, fitting in various facts and different incidents. I longed to speak, to ask her questions that would cement the theory that I had evolved in my brain, but one brief glance at the Inspector made me hold my tongue. He would brook no interference at this stage of the game.

  Mrs. Smith went on: “We were both telephonists here, many years ago. Sarah Compton was too. Irene was only a year older than me, and very attractive, while I,” and her lips twisted a trifle, “was always plain. No one ever noticed me. In fact, very few realized that I was Irene’s sister. She and Sarah became very friendly. But it didn’t last when Dan Patterson appeared on the scene. He was only a mechanic, but he was one of the best-looking men I have ever seen. Irene and Sarah both fell in love with him. That was what made them quarrel. He chose Irene, and they got married before he sailed overseas to the war. Sarah did everything she could to stop their marriage. She was mad with jealousy.” Here Mrs. Smith raised her head, and I saw a little smile flicker around her mouth. “She needn’t have hated Irene so much.”

  “I told you that Dan was a very attractive man. He was spoilt by all the attention that the girls at the Exchange gave him. Everyone more or less fancied themselves in love with him, Irene included. I think that the only one who really did love him was—myself,” Mrs. Smith dropped her head, and I had to lean forward to catch what she was saying. “I used to stay with Irene while Dan was in camp. One week-end he got unexpected leave when my sister was in the country staying with friends. He was very upset to find her away. I think he realized then that I was in love with him. But he didn’t care for me. I was there in his home, and he was bitterly disappointed to find his wife gone.

  “He went overseas before he knew what had happened. Irene was wonderful to me. She had always protected and mothered me. She promised that when my baby arrived she would adopt it and pass it off as her own. Dan and the rest of the world would never know. But Sarah Compton found out somehow. It has always puzzled me how she did.

  “Irene died from influenza before Dan came back from the war, leaving me in her home with the adopted baby who was really my own daughter. Then Sarah wrote to Dan, telling him the true facts of the story. I never saw him again. He wrote once, giving me the deed of the house, and now and then money would arrive, but I never knew where he was. He said that if he received any communication from me, he would tear it up before reading it.

  “After a while, when my little girl went to school, I got work again, as a domestic. I dared not go back to Central, fearing that Sarah had spread the story around. Strangely enough, she had not. She was biding her time until the proper occasion arose, and she could revenge both Irene and myself.” Mrs. Smith paused again. The silence of the room was only broken by the scratch of the Sergeant’s blunt pencil. Her voice was hard as she continued.

  “The time came when my daughter started work at the Exchange.”

  “Is Gloria Patterson your daughter?” asked Inspector Coleman quietly.

  She nodded. “You see, Irene had adopted her legally, so her surname was that of her father. When Gloria started at the Exchange, I obtained a position as a charwoman to keep an eye on her. It was Bill who recognised me after all these years, but I knew that he would not give me away.”

  Inspector Coleman turned his head, his brows raised inquiringly.

  “I was a mechanic with Dan Patterson,” Bill explained, “and went overseas with him. He received Sarah’s letter on the boat coming home, and told me what had happened. He got off the boat in South Africa.”

  The Inspector returned his gaze to the woman in front of him. “You say that the liftman was the only one who recognized you. What about Miss Compton?”

  “I don’t think she did at first. Of course, she knew who Gloria was. Anyway, she made no move to attack me openly, but started to play a cat-and-mouse game with my daughter. Gloria told me, and I swore that I’d never let Sarah Compton break up my life again. You see, had Dan not heard that Gloria was my own daughter, he probably would have married me.

  “I wrote to Sarah, asking her to meet me one day so that I could beg her not to give Gloria away, but she did not reply. Not once did she come openly to me. If I tried to catch her alone, she would look blankly at me and walk away. I got desperate, and eventually confided to Bill the state of affairs. The lift was his idea, really. Knowing Sarah the way we did, we realised that she would never be able to withstand her curiosity. On Wednesday evening I hid myself in the lift cabin. I knew the shift that Sarah was working, and that she would probably use the lift at some stage or other if I waited long enough.”

  Mrs. Smith glanced at me. “This girl was with her. I saw them on the roof together, and heard her say t
hat it was time to go back to the trunkroom. I waited until they were nearly at the stairs before I showed myself. I wanted Sarah to see someone, and come up later to investigate. As soon as I heard the power starting, I opened the trap-door in the cabin and dropped a letter through. It contained a warning that I hoped would further induce Sarah to come back.”

  “And did she?” asked the Inspector swiftly. I sat up tensely, conscious of an approaching climax.

  “No,” muttered the woman, and her face became sullen again. “I waited for hours, but she didn’t come.”

  The Inspector’s voice was as smooth as silk as he asked: “You didn’t see her again?” Mrs. Smith shook her head.

  “Then how is it,” he demanded loudly, “you could give us an accurate description of what Sarah Compton looked like when dead?”

  Millicent Smith was an awful fool if she hadn’t seen that coming, She gasped and her eyes widened with fear.

  “You saw Miss Compton when she was dead in the restroom,” declared Inspector Coleman. Her mouth formed words noiselessly. Her eyes never left the Inspector’s face.

  Bill said slowly: “You’d better tell them, Millicent.” But still she made no reply, and Bill went on: “When Sarah Compton failed to go up to the lift cabin, Mrs. Smith decided to go and look for her.”

  “What time was it?” demanded the Inspector.

  “I asked her that,” Bill said with a troubled frown, “but she didn’t know. It must have been after 11 p.m., because she said that the floor was deserted, and I know that there is usually a staff coming off duty at that time.”

  Inspector Coleman turned to me. “You and Miss MacIntyre worked the late shift, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right. We were delayed in the trunkroom until about ten minutes after the hour.”

  Bill looked at me puzzled for a minute, before he said: “That was why Mrs. Smith missed you. Do you want me to go on, Millicent?”

  The woman croaked out something unintelligible.