Читать книгу Murder in the Telephone Exchange - June Wright - Страница 8

CHAPTER I

This is John’s idea, not mine. It will bear my reluctant signature and is a record of my impressions of the various incidents which occurred during the heat-wave of last February, but the inspiration is John’s. I think his suggestion sprang from the desire to give me something to do besides count the days for my stay in this shameful place to end.

The whole project fills me with revulsion and the lethargy of one who has survived a crisis only to find another ahead. For that is what I have experienced. I have been through some terrible moments of suspicion, fear and misery. Heaven knows what other words there are to describe the emotions which accompanied me step by step into this room, so bare and expressionless except for the sinister barred window. I reached the peak of those emotions two weeks ago. Now, another summit is waiting to be scaled; for climb it I must, if I wish to survive the results of my own errors. Perhaps this is the way I can do it.

It is so hot again. The cool change which followed the thunderstorm was only a temporary respite. Even in this stone building I can feel the heat. The bars at the window seem to waver against the hard burning sky. As I reached for the jug of water on the table a moment ago, a bird perched itself on the ledge with its beak slightly open. We stared at each other with envious eyes.

It was hot then. The newspapers printed paragraphs about record temperatures and bush fire warnings, filling up picture space with snaps taken of bathers, ice vendors and children drinking lemonade. That was before we hit the headlines. But it was during the same heat-wave that crime, as it was so melodramatically phrased, held the upper hand at the Telephone Exchange, so I daresay they went on printing things like that. I didn’t notice them. But I do remember the heat. It seemed part of the whole ghastly business. A background, just as much as the Exchange buildings were themselves.

I find it difficult to know where to start, and how to express myself in the way I was then. I didn’t feel lonely, embittered and miserable a few weeks ago. Life was full and intriguing.

My perspective and sense of values were totally dissimilar to the distorted vision from which I am now suffering. Maybe I’ll be able to see straight once I get this off my chest.

Did you read about the Telephone Exchange murders in the papers? There wasn’t much chance of anyone missing them. Just in case you were not one of those numerous sightseers who parked themselves outside the building and gaped like landed fish, I will give you a brief description of where the crimes took place.

The Telephone Exchange, which comprises two buildings standing back to back, runs half a block in length. But the frontage being comparatively small renders it a rather inconspicuous place. The old Exchange, facing Lonsdale Street, is a two-storied establishment with Corinthian pillars and other arcanthus decorations, containing aged apparatus for the dwindling manual subscribers in the city and some country stations. At the back of “Central,” like a modern miss shielded by her anxious grandmother, rises the eight-story red brick building which houses the most up-to-date Trunk Exchange in the Southern Hemisphere. We telephonists who have worked there, while dubbing it a “madhouse” or a “hell of a hole,” will always be proud of it.

Eight floors with a basement, a flat roof and one lift, which had the rather trying tendency to break down on occasions when one was running late, the switchroom and cloakroom being on the sixth and eighth floors respectively. This only happened at odd hours, as by day it was run by old Bill, one of the nicest men who ever lost a limb in the First World War. He was intensely proud of his lift, and would hear no word against it.

I am trying to remember when I first became conscious of the changed atmosphere in the Trunk Exchange. It was so gradual that its beginning was almost undetectable. The strange behaviour of the Senior Traffic Officer can provide a point from which to start. That was the first significant item that penetrated my consciousness.

Albert James Scott, or Bertie as he was spoken of except to his face, was in charge of the two Exchanges, Central and Trunks; a dynamic little man with the sense of humour that usually goes with a rotund figure, who changed before our eyes almost overnight. It was his custom to trot about the room, throwing cheery words at traffic officers, monitors and telephonists alike, or to mumble under his breath other words, that began more often than not with the second letter of the alphabet, if any of the Departmental heads had been tedious. Either he would bang the handset telephones about on his desk, or swoop down to the boards and toss the orderly piles of dockets into disarray if he considered the delay on the lines was too high. But that was his way. Those sorts of thing did not worry anyone. Indeed, if one had been connected with the Exchange for as many years as Bertie such behaviour was normal and quite to be expected.

Then one day arrived when he did none of those things, but spent most of his time quietly at his desk in the centre of the room, the single line between his eyes obliterated as his bushy brows met in one unbroken bar. I heard Sarah Compton, the monitor in attendance at the Senior Traffic Officer’s table, comment: “Poor old Bertie is getting very grey. I wonder what he is worrying about?”

He was staring moodily in front of him when, going off duty to my tea one evening, I asked if I could change my all-night shift with the girl Patterson. John Clarkson, a traffic officer, was talking on one of Bertie’s telephones, but he found time to wink at me. He was rather a lamb, with the figure of an athlete and the wrists of a golfer. As a matter of fact I had played with him several times, as the whole Exchange now knew thanks to Compton, who was a regular snooper. I would not have put it beyond her to be jealous. Clark had a very attractive personality.

Bertie came out of his trance with a sigh.

“What did you say, Miss Byrnes?”

“May I change with Miss Patterson on Friday? She is working from four until eleven. I am on all-night.”

It was quite a normal request. Changing shifts and their ensuing paybacks occurred every day. As I started unbuckling my headset, the pencil that I had slipped over my right ear caught and then fell with a tiny clatter to the floor. Bertie started like a shying horse.

“Change!” he said loudly. “No more changing until further notice. Miss Compton, tell the staff, please, and get me the Sydney Traffic Officer.”

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.”

He caught me by the shoulders and pulled me towards him again, laughing, “Why, Maggie?”

“Because—you know quite well what I mean.”

“Right you are, little prudence. On your way.” He bent his head swiftly and kissed my cheek as I passed. “That might satisfy the scandalmongers.”

“You revolt me!” I declared over my shoulder, as calmly as I was able. On top of my unnerving experience with Sarah Compton I felt doubly shaken by that careless kiss. I kept thinking about Clark as I started to climb the concrete stairway, and incidentally to regret my decision about the lift. He had taken me to a few shows in the city, and had entertained me several times at an exclusive and expensive golf club of which he was a member. As he kept a very comfortable bachelor flat in South Yarra, I concluded that his parents, whom I knew were dead, must have had money. In fact, Clark seemed to have everything the praying maiden could wish for. I knew several lasses in the Exchange who were pursuing him hopefully.

After some solid climbing, I arrived at the glass doors that opened into the trunkroom, slightly breathless and with the backs of my knees aching. Although every floor in the Exchange is architecturally the same, there is something unforgettably familiar about the sixth. You can feel a unique atmosphere, one of telephones and telephonists working flat out to serve a public, which for the most part remains ungrateful. Just as a ‘wowser’ seeing an intoxicated person thinks that everyone who drinks is a drunkard, so the person who, by chance, gives the responsibility of their call to a careless telephonist considers that all Exchange employees are rude and haphazard.

I have seen girls, beaded with perspiration from hot apparatus, putting calls through every minute for hours on end during bad bush-fires and crises in Europe and the Pacific, until they collapsed from sheer nervous exhaustion. I know that strained concentration which is needed to complete connections, with half a dozen lines under your tense fingers, that must not make mistakes.

I can honestly say that the greater majority of telephonists endeavour conscientiously to answer the oftentimes outrageous demands of the public. Here is an excellent example, when an unnamed man was located in one of our larger country towns for a very urgent call. He was a traveller for an engineering firm in the city, but for some inexplicable reason his name could not be supplied. He was tracked down through thirteen hotels, half a dozen garages and hardware shops and three clubs. I know this for a fact, because I found him myself!

However, we to whom the Exchange means our bread take the romance of the telephone very casually. So it was that buckling on my apparatus in obedience to the rule before entering the trunkroom, I resigned myself to a hot and tiring night.

The trunkroom is a T-shaped room covering the whole of the sixth floor, except for the front and back stair landings and a telephonists’ toilet and washroom. Gone are the days of the plugs and cords more familiar to others than telephone employees. In their place are highly polished rows of boards about three feet in height, and worked by keys, lights and automatic dials. These boards occupy the larger part of the room together with booking, inquiry and information desks, and the Senior Traffic Officer’s table. In one arm of the T-shape stands the sortagraph, which brings dockets to the operator from the boards by means of air-pressure tubes under the floor. In the other is an immense delay board, another marvel of this mechanical age, which manifests the waiting time on the various interstate and country lines. The room is lighted and aired by windows on all sides for the hundred or more people working therein at the peak period.

At night the Senior Traffic Officer was not on duty, so John Clarkson was head man. I could hardly expect a rebuke from him for my tardy return, though he was a great stickler for punctuality as a rule. He was sitting at Bertie’s desk, his head bent over his writing. And there was Compton fluttering around him as normally as ever. It was as if I had last beheld her plain face in an absurd nightmare. She even had the audacity to say accusingly: “You’re very late, Miss Byrnes,” as I approached her to learn my position. I glanced at her keenly to observe any recognition of our last meeting, but the pale eyes that met mine were quite blank.

“You can start the relieving,” she told me.

If there was one job I loathed more than another, it was that. In the hour before the rush half-fee period, those telephonists working more than three hours on end were entitled to a ten-minute break. I suspected Compton of spite in allotting the relieving to me, though to give her her due, it was usually the job of the late telephonist. Where all the other telephonists would go off duty at 10.30 p.m., I had to wait until the all-night girls who worked the interstate positions came on at 11 p.m. Just as the late telephonist on the country positions on the far side of the room would gather all working country lines on to a couple of boards and operate them all, so I would have to do the same with the interstate lines. Although traffic was cleared up rather well by 10 p.m., two telephonists to cover the work of sixty meant all your concentration and ability. I have always hated that last half-hour.

To-night there was no late country operator. It had been arranged that Gerda Maclntyre, the sortagrapher, would transfer there when her own position closed down at 10 p.m. Mac, who was by way of being a particular friend of mine, was one of the most versatile telephonists I have ever known. She had a lovely voice, unroughened by many years in the Exchange, and tiny hands that dealt with any amount of work with the most amazing competence and ease. John Clarkson would probably take us both down town somewhere for supper after work. There was a time when I was afraid Mac was taking Clark rather seriously. However, everything seemed to have cleared up, and I was somewhat relieved, though I could never put my finger on the exact cause of my relief.

I started on my tour of the interstate positions; ten minutes here, and ten minutes there. No two telephonists work alike. By the time you got the lines working your own system the original operator returned to say rather acidly: “You seem to be in a bag.”

‘In a bag’ is an expression peculiar to the Melbourne telephonist; it means that you are in a muddle or so confused that you can’t straighten things out. In Sydney, the girls say that they are ‘overboard.’ As a rule Mac was sent for when anyone got in a bag. It was a delight to watch those small hands of hers pass rapidly over the board from key to dial and from dial to docket, a pencil always between the first two fingers but in no way hindering the clearance at which she arrived so quickly.

I plugged my flex on the main Adelaide board, waiting for Gloria Patterson to slip out of the position. Patterson was what I call a genteel telephonist, and one to whom Mac often rendered assistance. She was more concerned with keeping her rather high-pitched voice refined, like those of our local socialites to whose calls she delighted in listening, than speeding up the tempo of her connections. She ought to have been shot for eavesdropping of course; one day she’d be reported and would most deservedly get it in the neck.

“That’s there, and I was just dialling this out, and that’s been on for two and a half minutes,” she said, pointing at the dockets clipped under the three Adelaide lines she was working.

I could hear Adelaide saying: “Waiting, Mel., waiting,” rather querulously. I concluded that Patterson must have been super-refined to-night.

“That’s just grand, Gloria,” I replied gravely, “most lucid. Now, run along, dear, and I’ll have it all nice and straight for you when you return.”

She gave me a cross look, as I transferred my attention to the patient girl in Adelaide. I knew her rather well.

“Thank goodness it’s you, Byrnes,” she declared with a sigh of relief. “Who is that awful mug?”

“One of our shining lights,” I replied, picking up a docket. “I’ll have L3178 for U7173, not a personal call, here. Give me your country line to Salisbury on number 3. How are you going? Has the weather changed yet?”

“Wait for a minute.” She went off with a click of her key to dial out my number. Presently she said: “No! It is still as hot as ever. Perth have had a change; the girl there says that she is wearing a woollen cardigan. Salisbury on three.”

“Thanks, Ad.,” I said, dialling my caller quickly. “That means that we won’t get a cool change for at least another three days.”

“Stop gassing, Maggie,” nudged the girl next to me. “Ob. is hovering around.”

Ob. is observation. About two or three monitors of Sarah Compton’s vintage patrol the boards to see amongst other things, that we behave ourselves. Their listening post was situated on the third floor. It is considered a matter of honour to warn your neighbour when she is approaching. Presently a voice said coldly in my ear: “Who are you, Trunks?”

When I had replied M. Byrnes, the voice went on: “I shall be observing your work for the next quarter of an hour for a time check.” It was very decent of her to let me know. As a rule Ob. doesn’t make her presence known. The first you learn of her presence is a report on the Senior Traffic Officer’s desk with an immense “Please explain” at the foot of it.

“I am only relieving,” I warned her. “I will be off in a few minutes.”

“Very well, then. Thank you, Miss Byrnes. I’ll come back presently,” and the voice departed as quietly as it had come. I could see the telephonists farther down looking startled, and then giving their names. Ob. gets you that way.

Patterson came back late. She had cribbed an extra five minutes. Compton followed her down to her position, the look of malice on her face reminding me of the lift episode again. Although I didn’t care much for Gloria, I felt sorry for her when Compton had her claws bared as now. What a beast that woman could be! I was becoming more and more convinced that she must be mentally deranged.

“You’re five minutes late, Miss Patterson,” she said. “You will not be allowed to go until 10.35 p.m. I was timing you.”

She would be, I thought. Patterson replied: “I couldn’t help it. I had to go to the other building to ring up. The restroom door is locked.”

Compton looked surprised.

“Who locked it?”

“I don’t know,” said Patterson. “And the key is missing. Are you ready, Maggie?”

I slipped from the chair, explaining how the work stood until Compton moved away.

“I quite agree with you, Gloria,” I said, as she muttered angrily under her breath. “Are you sure the door was locked? It might have just jammed.”

“I tell you it was locked,” she replied crossly. “If you don’t believe me, go and ask your friend Maclntyre. She was with me.”

“All right, keep calm,” I said soothingly. “But I’ll take your advice and ask Mac.”

Mac had been talking to John Clarkson and Compton. I walked down the room with her.

“I’ve just been reporting the mystery of the locked door, Maggie. Did the girl Patterson tell you about it?”

I nodded. “Our Sarah jumped on her for being five minutes late. Has the key been found?”

“No. And as far as I can make out there is no duplicate. It will have to stay locked until the morning.”

“I wonder who could have done it, and why,” I said thoughtfully.

“Anyone, I suppose. The key is usually in the door. Did you go back there after your tea?”

“As a matter of fact, I didn’t. I went up on to the roof for a cigarette. I met Compton there, so she can vouch for me, which I’m sure she won’t. Bless her kindly heart!”

Mac adjusted her mouthpiece to the regulation inch from her charming mouth. I remembered how Clark had once said, with mock sentiment, that 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 out. Couple up these boards, Maggie.”

“Now for the rush,” I thought, replacing my earpiece and picking up a light from the panel. On these modern boards when an interstate or country telephonist is wanting attention, her ring on the line brings a light flashing in a panel on the Melbourne boards. To transfer that line for working is accomplished by merely pressing a button.

I heard Korrumburra yelling her head off, demanding service, and released the line to let Mac deal with her on the far side of the room. I had both my boards covered, and more lights were flashing in the panel, waiting to be picked up. As a rule, the late monitor gives assistance during this half-hour, and I wondered again, irritably, where Compton had got to. She was never around when you wanted her.

John Clarkson passed on his way to dismantle the delay-board at the other end of the room.

“All right?” he asked.

“Quite,” I retorted. “Absolutely nothing to do.

He grinned. “I’ll give you a hand in a minute. Where’s that blasted woman?”

I didn’t have time to conjecture about Compton’s whereabouts. The lasses across Bass Strait were being neglected shamefully. I gave Sydney the go-by, and picked up Launceston. A blistering diatribe greeted me. I listened patiently.

“Sorry, dear,” I said in a meek voice. “My attention is all yours from now on.”

That was the only apology I gave during that hectic half-hour. I cut the standard phrases originated by some leisurely Department official in his nice quiet office to the minimum. Once I wondered how Mac was faring over on the country boards behind me. The Senior Traffic Officer’s telephones rang for a while and were silent, so I supposed that Clark was as busy as we were. Book, dial, connect and a swift glance at the clock to complete the docket with my numerical signature. I felt the perspiration trickling down my ribs, and the wire band of my headset was cutting into my skull.

“Mel., book please.”

“Your particular person is waiting, Mel.”

“Mel., take a through call.”

It came at me from all lines; all those telephonists throughout Australia with the same metallic crisp voice.

On with those calls.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Three minutes—extending please?”

“You’re through—go ahead.”

Mentally I threw up my hands in despair, while coaxing slow callers to start their conversations. The perpetual ‘Hullo’s’ and those bad telephone voices, with their unenunciated consonants and flattened vowels. They all wasted precious seconds of the three minutes that most subscribers declare that they do not get, not realizing their own extravagance.

Five minutes to eleven! Out of one corner of my eye, I could see Clark grappling with lines with a spare telephone set from Bertie’s table. His face was in profile, but I thought that he looked angry.

“Sarah will get it in the neck for landing us in this bag,” I thought. “She deserves boiling in oil.”

Three minutes to eleven, and a couple of the all-night girls came in early. Bless them! May all their children have curly hair! I stayed on for a while helping to straighten things out. It was amazing the difference one or two extra telephonists made. At ten past eleven, I rose wearily from ray chair and stripped off my outfit.

“And so to bed,” I said. “Sweet dreams, my dears.”

“I believe you have been locking doors, Byrnes,” remarked the girl Billings with a grin.

“I am too tired to defend myself,” I answered, “so let it stand that I was the culprit until the morning.”

“Giving yourself time to think up a good one,” another called after me as I went to sign off. Mac’s neat signature was the last in the book, made at 11.5 p.m., while above hers with many flourishes was that of Gloria Patterson at 10.40 p.m. She must have been afraid that Compton would see her if she had gone with the rest of her rota.

I found Mac outside on the lift landing, studying the notice-board.

“I’m down for a late on Sunday,” she said as I joined her. “What a bore!”

“Did you see my name?” I asked, scanning the list. “I worked last Sunday, but you never know what fast one they’ll pull next.”

“I’m afraid you’ve got the dog-watch with John. Compton is working late, too.”

“That’ll be great!” I said bitterly. “Especially if Sarah does the disappearing trick again. I’d like to get my hands on that woman.”

We had started walking up the stairs together. At the eighth-floor landing, Mac paused to light a cigarette; at this late hour we should be able to dodge a reprimand, so I followed her lead.

“Having supper with John?” she asked with a sidelong glance that made me wish that I knew more about her late ‘affair’ with him.

“And you,” I said in a firm voice.

“I don’t think so. I don’t want to butt in, Maggie.”

“Shut up!” I said loudly.

We entered the cloakroom and parted company. Mac’s locker was against the wall, while mine was in the centre aisle facing the restroom door. It was still closed, and no light showed through the glass pane at the top.

“That blasted door!” I said, tossing my telephone into my locker.

“What’s that, Maggie?” called Mac.

“The restroom door! Someone locked it, and everyone seems to think that I did, since I was the late telephonist.”

I heard Mac laugh softly.

“Yes, I heard something about that. Perhaps it is not locked but jammed after all. It has happened before to better doors. Try it for yourself and see.”

“I will,” I said, advancing with my cigarette between my lips so as to have both hands free.

“Well!” I declared. “What do you know about that!”

“What?” Mac asked, appearing around the corner of the lockers, lipstick in hand. “What’s the matter?”

I pointed to the door in amazement.

“Why, it is not locked after all. I suppose someone must have found the key,” she added, rather obviously.

“Someone is going to pay for this,” I said, putting my hand around the door to switch on the light. “The idea of accusing me!”

Mac was amused.

“I think things look rather black for you, Maggie. After all the door is locked, and you are the last one to be near the restroom.”

“I wasn’t,” I protested.

“And then you come off duty, and lo and behold the door opens. Very, very ominous!”

“Rot! A dozen others could have done it. Oh well, at least we can make up under a decent light.” I returned to my locker to get my handbag. “I look a hag. I say, Mac, I must tell you about our Sarah.”

“Sarah!” I heard her repeat in a horrified whisper. “Sarah!” I swung round quickly. Mac was standing in the lighted doorway of the cloakroom, swaying slightly. I was beside her in a second. She turned towards me and tried to push me away. Her face was close to mine. I could see the pigment of her pallid skin, and the dilating iris of her eyes. They both spelled terror.

“Don’t go in, Maggie,” she whispered imploringly. “It’s—it’s horrible.” But I pushed her roughly aside, and went into the restroom.

I think I almost expected what I saw. It was as if I had dreamed it all before, but the stark reality of the scene froze my blood and parched my throat. Mac was leaning against the wall, panting; her normally pale skin had taken on the bluish appearance of alabaster. We heard someone walking down the corridor outside, whistling the ‘Destiny Waltz.’ Suddenly hot sweat started to flow down my icy body, and dark mists crept up from the corners of my eyes. I heard Mac shriek like a madwoman: “John! John! John!”

‘Fancy knowing that those footsteps were Clark’s!’ I thought, as I slid to the ground and remembered no more.

* * * * *

I was in a floundering boat on a rough sea. I could feel the icy water on my face. Then a pair of oars appeared in some mysterious fashion, but I did not seem to be able to manage them. They kept hitting my hands and eluding my grasp. Presently I heard a man’s voice say: “She’ll be O.K. in a minute, sir,” and wondered about whom he was talking. I was quite comfortable now that the sea was smooth. I wanted to stay quiet, but a strong light was shining through my eyelids, forcing them open.

I knew where I was immediately: in the sick-bay on the eighth floor of the Telephone Exchange building. I had tried that hard bed before.

‘That’s funny!’ I thought. But I must have spoken aloud, because the man’s voice said: “What’s funny?”

I struggled to sit up. “I thought I was in a boat.”

A strange man stood over me, and another figure was in the background. They swayed a little before my puzzled gaze. I put my head down to my knees automatically. They spoke over my head.

“We’d better leave her until the last, Sergeant.”

“Very well, sir. What did they say her name was?”

I raised my head.

“M. Byrnes,” I said clearly.

The first man seemed amused. “What does the M. stand for, Miss Byrnes?”

“Margaret,” I replied, embarrassed. Ob. was to blame for my slip.

“How do you think you will stand up to a few questions, Miss Margaret Byrnes?” he asked.

“It all depends what they are about,” I answered, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

The two men gazed at me so keenly that I began to feel uncomfortable. I looked at them inquiringly, but they remained silent. Then a wave of horror started to sweep over me, and Mac’s tragic whisper seared my brain.

“Sarah Compton,” I breathed in answer to my own question.

“Precisely, Miss Byrnes,” said the second man crisply. “I am Detective-Inspector Coleman from Russell Street Police Headquarters, and this,” indicating his companion, “is Detective-Sergeant Matheson. We are inquiring into the murder of Sarah Compton, late monitor at the Melbourne Trunk Exchange.”

I gripped the edge of the bed, hard.

“Murder!” I repeated, still whispering. Something seemed to have gone wrong with my voice-box. Detective-Inspector Coleman nodded in silence. The sick-bay room was so quiet that I could hear the thudding of the dynamo many floors below.

“Surely, Miss Byrnes,” he went on, “as you saw the body, you realize that Miss Compton has been the victim of foul play?”

I stared down at my clenched hands.

“I only looked into the room for a minute—a second,” I replied jerkily. “It—she was a shocking sight, but—murder did not occur to me. It doesn’t seem possible. Those sorts of thing,” and I threw my hands out helplessly, “murders—only happen in mystery novels, not in a Telephone Exchange.”

“They happen in real life,” said inspector Coleman quietly, “only too frequently.”

I stared at him, trying to absorb the fact. Sarah Compton—murdered! Someone had killed her; taken from her the most precious thing we own. And Mac and I had found her, lying face down in her own blood. At once I realized what it meant. We would be mixed up in this ghastly business, no matter how repugnant we found it. But would I find it so distasteful after all? It was horrible and frightening finding Compton like that. I was not likely to forget the scene in the restroom in a hurry. But I had never cared much for the woman. I felt no personal grief on top of the horror. The situation might prove exciting and intriguing. I wondered if Mac, who had always been indifferent to Sarah, was thinking the same.

“Where is Miss Maclntyre?” I asked abruptly.

“In the next room. I am just going to take her statement. Sergeant Matheson here has a few questions to ask you. I hope that you will give him every assistance.”

I nodded dumbly and watched him depart. He was a big man, but as light as a cat on his feet; later, I learned that he was an enthusiastic amateur boxer. Sergeant Matheson switched off the bright overhead light, leaving only the shaded one on the table aglow. I supposed that he thought the powerful light would only aggravate my aching head, but it had the effect of making me feet very nervous. It was as if he was setting his stage. When he sat down beside me, notebook in hand, I lost all my fears. He looked shy and ill-at-ease, so much so that I wondered if this was his first important case. It took me a long time to realize that this appearance was only part of his stock-in-trade, and that he was considered one of Russell Street’s most able officers.

However, just then I thought he was bashful, and to break the ice I remarked lightly: “Why is it all you policemen only have blunt stubs of pencils with which to take your notes?”

His smile was infectious. It lit up his plain face, and made his eyes twinkle under their sandy brows.

“You seem to know a great deal about policemen, Miss Byrnes,” he remarked, writing carefully in his book.

“Here! I hope you’re not putting that down to be used in evidence against me.”

His mouth was closed firmly, but his eyes still danced.

“No, just your name. Margaret Byrnes,” and he repeated it slowly.

“That’s quite correct,” I said tartly. “Now what is it you want to know?”

“Your address, please, Miss Byrnes.”

“15 Lewisham Avenue, Albert Park. I board there. My real home is in the country. You’ve probably never heard of it. Keramgatta.”

“About twenty miles from the north-east border?” he queried.

“That is right,” I agreed in vexed surprise.

“I used to work in that district,” he said apologetically.

I kept what I thought was a dignified silence.

“Now, Miss Byrnes—you knew the deceased?” I nodded.

“What sort of woman would you say she was?”

“She was a—” I shut my mouth quickly. Sergeant Matheson looked up from his writing.

“You were saying?” he prompted.

I thought for a minute. “She was a very difficult woman to work with,” I said lamely.

He gave me a direct glance. “What were you going to say originally, please, Miss Byrnes?”

“I don’t think that I’d better tell you,” I parried. “It was something very rude, though rather apt when applied to Sarah Compton.” I was sure that his eyes twinkled again, as he let the matter pass.

“I believe that you were the first to find the body,” he continued.

“The second,” I corrected. “Miss Maclntyre saw Compton a few seconds before I did.”

“Miss Maclntyre is a particular friend of yours, Miss Byrnes?” he asked quickly. I looked at him speculatively.

“A friend, yes,” I answered, “but not an accomplice.”

“I did not suggest it, Miss Byrnes,” he said, appearing uncomfortable and ill-at-ease again.

“No, but you were thinking it,” I retorted, and had the doubtful reward of another infectious grin. He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

“We seem to be getting nowhere, and taking a long time about it,” he remarked. “Perhaps it would be better if you told me in your own words exactly what happened.”

“No interruptions?” I asked, and he raised one hand solemnly.

“Not unless strictly necessary.”

“Right!” I said briskly. “Have you a cigarette? I don’t remember finishing my last one. Thanks. And a match, please?” I drew a long breath. “Are you ready? Shall I go fast or slow?”

“Medium,” he suggested. “I’ll take it down in my own particular brand of shorthand, but I want to absorb all the facts.”

I looked at my cigarette a moment in silence, mentally gathering myself together.

“I’ll begin by answering your first question more fully,” I began. “Sarah Compton was a prying old busybody. Hundreds of people, not only in the Exchange but outside, that is if she behaved anything like she did here, must have had her in the gun. But I don’t know of anyone who would want to murder her for her inquisitiveness. You see, I have provided you with a motive for the crime already.” I flicked the ash from the cigarette and drew again. “I disliked her intensely myself; why, I won’t tell you. That’s my business! But I will say that the reason I detested her was not enough to make me even want to, murder her. I might have scratched her face, considerably, but bashed it in, no!” I wished I had not said that now. My stomach felt squeamish, and I fought against nausea. “When did it happen and how?” I asked, desiring a breathing space.

Sergeant Matheson looked up from his notes.

“That’s for you to help us find out, Miss Byrnes. Medical evidence is rather vague as to the time. The body was still warm, but then it is a hot night. We dare not give an accurate time. As to how—two blows were struck with some heavy instrument, as yet undiscovered; one on the temple, the other directly in the face. What time did you last see Miss Compton?”

I frowned in concentration. “The last time that I actually saw her,” I said slowly, “would be about five minutes to eight. I had finished the relieving—letting different girls have a short break,” I explained in answer to the question in his eyes, “and then Compton sent me to work the principal Sydney board. We were very busy. In our game you rarely lift your head during the rush period, but I can remember her querying me about various dockets. I think that the last I heard of her would be about twenty to ten. I can check up with the time on the docket, if you like.”

He made a note in his book.

“However,” I continued, “someone else is certain to have seen her after that. I was only one of many in the trunkroom.”

“Can you think of any reason why she left the room?” he asked. “Surely it is not usual for a monitor to absent herself during the busy time?”

“Yes,” I said promptly. “I told you that she was a busybody. Someone had locked the restroom door, which is quite against the rules. I’ll bet you anything you like to name that Compton had her nose on the trail, trying to find out who it was. As a matter of fact, I was the chief suspect in that little affair; being the late telephonist, everyone jumped rashly to the conclusion that I locked it.”

“Why rashly, Miss Byrnes?”

“Because I didn’t go near the blasted room after 6.15 p.m. I kept my telephone outfit with me while I had tea in the lunchroom, so that there would be no need for me to return to the cloakroom. After tea I went up on to the roof for a cigarette. Oh!” I ejaculated, pausing.

“Go on, please,” said Sergeant Matheson quickly. “What time would it be?”

“About a quarter to seven. What I was going to say was that I had an alibi concerning that door, but not now. She’s dead,” I finished blankly.

Sergeant Matheson looked interested.

“You met the deceased on the roof?”

“Don’t use that word,” I said in an irritated voice. After a gruelling night’s work, to be kept from your well-earned rest by a murder inquiry was a little trying on the nervous system. Heaven knew what I would feel like in the morning!

“I will tell you in detail,” I said resignedly. “I was smoking a cigarette and enjoying the hot night air, when I heard someone in a corner playing games with me.”

Sergeant Matheson looked at me sternly.

“It’s quite true,” I protested. “I’m not trying to be funny. Compton was playing ‘peepo’s’ with someone, and I was the only one on the roof. At least I thought that I was. I’ll tell you more about that in a minute. Compton was sitting at one side of the lift cabin. You’d better go and inspect that later, by the way. When I went round it to see what was up, she was reading a piece of paper. There’s no use asking me what it was,” I interrupted, observing him take a breath. “It was nearly dark. You’ll probably find it in her handbag. She put it there when she saw me. Then we talked for a bit.”

“What did you talk about, please, Miss Byrnes?” asked the Sergeant, writing furiously.

“This and that,” I answered airily.

“Was the conversation friendly?”

“Most. She barely said a thing, while I pursued an amiable discourse on the view. After a while, we started to go back to the stairs. Here is something that may be of interest to you. Just as we were at the door, Compton said that she saw someone go into the lift cabin.”

I paused for effect, but the Sergeant only asked in an expressionless voice: “Did you?”

“No,” I said, feeling unreasonably annoyed. “I thought that she was imagining things. But there must have been someone, because a note was thrown down into the lift at us.”

“The lift?” he asked, puzzled.

“We took the lift down to the trunkroom,” I continued impatiently, “only we didn’t arrive. It got stuck or something. Anyway, some fool of a person hurled this letter at me. I gave it to Compton.”

“Why did you do that. Miss Byrnes?”

“Because,” I said, raising my eyes to heaven, “it had her name on it.”

“Did you see what it contained?”

“No, but I wish I had. The note will probably be in her handbag, too. I caught the words ‘spying’ and ‘Compton’ on it before I handed it to her.”

Sergeant Matheson looked at me thoughtfully.

“Why did you say that you wish you’d read the letter?”

“Because,” I replied, speaking very slowly, “it had the effect of changing her from a very insignificant, commonplace telephone employee into a snarling animal. She looked insane. I was scared stiff when I saw her face. The lift had stopped at some floor, so I got out and ran like mad. But I don’t think that I need have worried. She had forgotten my existence.”

A slight smile flickered across the Sergeant’s face.

“There was nothing amusing in the situation at the time,” I remarked crossly. “If I hadn’t bumped into Mr. Clarkson, I’d be running still.”

“What floor were you on during your marathon, Miss Byrnes?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I confessed, and his brows rose. “Clark will be able to tell you. What’s the time? Can’t I go home now?”

“No, not just yet. You must finish your statement first.”

“I’ll miss my last train,” I complained, “and I suppose, murder or no murder, I’ll have to be on duty to-morrow.”

“Arrangements will be made to get you home. Now, Miss Byrnes, what did you do when you met Mr. Clarkson?”

I pushed my hair back, and sighed. “I clung on to him as though he was the proverbial straw. I tell you I had got a terrible fright. He soothed me down, and after telling him about Sarah I walked up the back stairs to the trunkroom.”

“Did Mr. Clarkson go with you?”

“No. He went to look for Compton.”

“Miss Byrnes, what made you walk up the stairs instead of going with Mr. Clarkson?”

“I was too damned terrified to travel in that lift. I wouldn’t go in it again if it was with a policeman.”

The Sergeant laughed. “We must try it one day,” he suggested. “Did you find out what floor you were on, when you started to walk up the stairs?”

“No, but it must have been a long, long way from the sixth. I arrived at the trunkroom about 7.25 p.m., and Sarah Compton was there as bold as brass to reprimand me for being late. In fact, she was as normal as ever. If this murder business had not taken place, I would have thought that I had dreamed everything that I have just told you.”

A long silence fell. Sergeant Matheson tapped his notebook pensively with his stub of a pencil, which had become blunter from its long use that night. I stared vacantly at my creased, linen skirt, and wondered if I would be let go home now. I felt limp from all the mental and emotional strain of the past few hours, though somehow the horror of the whole business seemed diminished. It was as if I had begun a tedious job, that must finish sooner or later. I could even think of that horrible scene in the restroom without feeling squeamish. My brain was so sodden and weary, that if anyone had asked me then if I had been responsible for the locked door, or even the murder itself, I would have agreed quietly just for the sake of a bit of peace.

Sergeant Matheson got up unhurriedly, and put a hand under my elbow. “That’s all,” he said gently. “Home you go, and I advise a couple of aspirins before you go to bed.”

“I won’t need them,” I answered, stretching. “I’m nearly asleep now.”

“Better take them,” he advised. “It’ll be worse to-morrow. You’ll need all the rest you can get tonight, or rather this morning,” he added, glancing at his wrist. “It’s nearly one.”

“What!” I shrieked. He grinned at me.

“Don’t forget that you were rowing around in a boat for a considerable time, while Inspector Coleman and I were trying to revive you with the good old-fashioned methods of cold water and slapping your hands.”

“Was that what it was?” I asked with the air of one making a great discovery. “I fainted! Well, well, I’ve only done that once before in my life—running a mile to school without my breakfast, when I was a kid.”

“At Keramgatta?”

I nodded.

“Good place,” he declared, opening the door and standing aside to let me pass through. The narrow passage outside ran down the walls of the cloakroom and restroom and into the main corridor. There were several small rooms opening from it. Outside the closed door of one stood a uniformed policeman. It opened as I came up. Mac and John Clarkson came out, followed by Inspector Coleman.

“Fixed things up, Matheson?” he asked his subordinate. “Right! Now, all you people, go home to bed. There is a car waiting outside for you. One word of advice before you go. Carry on with your normal duties, and the less spoken about all this the better. We don’t want any unnecessary rumours starting. Do I make myself clear? Good! Mr. Clarkson, will it be possible to interview the night telephonists immediately?”

“I should think that it would be all right. Mr. Bancroft is the traffic officer on duty. He should be in the trunkroom at this moment. Just say I sent you down, Inspector. He’ll fix things for you.”

“Many thanks. You can come along with me, Sergeant.”

“Wait a moment,” I said. “Can I go into the cloakroom to get my coat and bag?”

The Inspector swung around. “That’s quite a reasonable request. Roberts! Take these young ladies into the cloakroom.”

Mac put a small hot hand into my cold one, and I squeezed it gently. Poor little Mac! If she was feeling anything like I was, she would be pretty bad. Even Clark looked pale and stern. Roberts took a ring of keys from one of his pockets, and fitted one into the lock.

“You’ll find several duplicates of that one,” I informed him.

“I’ll tell the Sergeant,” he replied, swinging the door open. “Thank you, miss.”

I could see the half-open door of the restroom, and caught the glimpse of a trailing dust-sheet as two men moved across the opening. Advancing to my locker, I realized that I was probably treading in the very footsteps of the murderer; that shadowy, brutal figure which was to hold us in its fearful influence for days to come. For never, until the Exchange building is razed to the ground—and I believe that it is built to stand the strain of many years—will that evil shadow be removed. My hands were shaking as I took my handbag from the locker and unhooked my light summer coat. I noticed a burnt-out cigarette on the linoleum-covered floor near the door, and remembered that it was the one Mac had given to me on leaving the trunkroom. “I hope they won’t think that it is a clue,” I thought, pulling myself together.

Mac said gently at my elbow: “Ready, Maggie? John is taking us home.” Her face was pale, but very calm; only the still dilated iris of her fine eyes showed any remembrance of horror. I slipped my hand through her arm without a word. We went out.

Clark stood in the corridor, a raincoat over his arm. I thought, in a detached fashion, of how we all must have thought that it would change that night. Rarely in our damnable climate does one venture forth without being prepared for a taste of several seasons during the day. Clark was very gentle and understanding with us. He held my arm firmly as we descended in the lift. I felt grateful, as I could not resist the impulse to glance at the emergency exit above us. He kept his torch alight all the way down, and it softened the memory of Sarah’s hideous grimace in the red glow of the apparatus board globe.

We walked in silence along the narrow passage of the ground floor in single file, Mac leading the way; passed the power-room and into the old Exchange building, where the only entrance to both Exchanges was guarded day and night by an ex-serviceman with a revolver on his hip. To get by him into the Exchange, you had to produce a special pass issued only to Telephone employees. He bade us a cheerful good night. Clark answered for us all in a quiet, even voice.

A Departmental car was at the kerb. Mac and I got into the back, while Clark slipped into the driver’s seat.

“Home, James,” I murmured, leaning back and closing my eyes.

Clark let in the clutch, and swung the car around in a big semicircle.

“Listen, you two lasses,” he said presently, driving swiftly through the deserted streets, “you’re coming to my flat for five minutes before you go home. I want to give you a dose of medicine that’ll fix your night’s rest.”

“I’ve already been advised aspirin,” I said, without opening my eyes. “What’s your prescription, Clark?”

“Aspirin!” he said scornfully. “Who said that? The flatfoot who poured water all over you? Just you wait and see what I’ve got for you, my children.”

“I must say I’d be glad of something stronger than aspirin,” Mac remarked, with a faint smile.

“All-in, Gerda?” asked Clark, glancing at her in the mirror over his head.

“Just about. What about you, Maggie?”

“I’ll make that five minutes, but no more. You must be rather fagged yourself,” I added to Clark. I could only see his profile but guessed he was frowning.

“You’re quite right,” he replied briefly over his shoulder, and then remarked on what was uppermost in our minds. “What a hell of a business!”

“Perfectly bloody,” I agreed with accuracy.

“Shut up, Maggie,” said Mac, with a shudder. “Don’t be so callous.”

“I’m not,” I protested. “It’s just that if I let go one minute I’ll have hysterics, or something equally idiotic.”

“Don’t repeat your fainting act,” said Clark with a grin. “I think I’d be even clumsier at reviving you than our friend, the Sergeant.”

“What happened exactly? I know that I went off into a genteel swoon, while Mac was yelling like mad for you. Then I came to after some time to find two strange men ministering to me. Don’t tell me that you let me stay unconscious until the police arrived without doing something!”

“No,” said Mac, smiling faintly again at the recollection. “He pushed you aside from the door, so as you wouldn’t be in the way.”

“What!” I cried, leaning over the driver’s seat. “I’ll get even with you for this, John Clarkson.”

He put up one hand to pat my check. “Sorry, my sweet. But what else could I do? Besides you in a swoon, as you term it, Gerda was still yelling her head off, trying to explain what had happened.”

“I was speaking quite clearly,” interrupted Mac, “but you were saying ‘what’ so many times that I thought you couldn’t hear me.”

We were turning off the highway into South Yarra, as Clark spoke jerkily: “It was rather difficult to grasp the situation.”

“You were great, John,” said Mac in a soft voice. “As soon as he saw Sarah was—what had happened, he pulled me out of the room and locked the door. By the way, you’ll be interested to know that the key was in the lock on the inside. John carried you into the sick-bay, while I went back to the trunkroom to ring the police. They arrived in less than no time. John had to deal with the situation alone, as I was being violently ill in the washroom.”

“I’m glad that it affected you in some way, and that I wasn’t the only weak-kneed person.” We had drawn up outside a block of flats, and Clark said as he got out of the car: “I wasn’t so marvellous. I nearly followed Gerda’s example a couple of times. In fact I wish you’d shut up about it until I have that medicine.”

I had been in Clark’s flat several times, but never by myself. That was one of the many things I liked about him; in spite of his air of a gay Lothario, he was, in the correct meaning of the word, a gentleman. The lounge room where Clark left us was furnished with a taste for which it was hard to give a man credit. A plain mulberry-coloured carpet covered the floor, and the misty chintz that hung in the windows matched the deep lounge chairs where Mac and I had seated ourselves. A rather lovely mahogany escritoire stood in one corner of the room diagonally opposite a low table with slender, curved legs. On the cream-textured walls were two or three charming water-colours depicting Australian bush scenes.

Clark came back presently with a tray of long, frosted glasses. He put it down on the table by my chair, and took one to Mac.

“Hold your nose, my pet, and swallow it down.”

“What is in it?” I asked, peering into the amber depths. It tasted delicious, cold and fragrant.

“That is a very guarded secret,” said Clark gaily. “Only through many years of careful experiment has this drink been discovered. It’s my own invention,” he added, White Knight fashion.

Mac fished for the floating lemon ring, and started to suck it.

“I can taste soda water.”

“A very minor ingredient. How do you like it, Maggie?

“It is delightful, but I’m very glad you’re taking us home,” I confessed. “I won’t trust my legs by the time I reach the bottom of this glass.”

“You’ll be all right. Have a cigarette?”

“That’ll put a few more minutes on to our stay. How I’ll get to work to-morrow, I don’t know. What say we drop out, Mac?” “Drop out” is another Exchange expression. Its obvious translation is to stay away from work on the excuse of illness.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Mac agreed, “but what about John? In his responsible position, now that he knows our plans, he will be compelled by his conscience to report us.”

“You wouldn’t give us away, Clark, would you?”

“I’d send someone out to your boarding-house to see if you were faking,” he threatened.

“Dirt mean!” said Mac. “Sarah Compton used to have that job.”

“And didn’t she love it,” I cut in. “I’ll always remember the day she came to see me, prepared to be very triumphant, and ran into my doctor. It was the one bright moment of my illness.”

“Hush!” said Mac, looking troubled. “Don’t forget that she is dead, Maggie.”

“I don’t care,” I said defiantly. “She was an abominable woman; everyone thought so.”

Clark sat down on the arm of my chair, and swung one leg.

“All the same, sweetheart, I don’t think you’d better go around saying how much you hated her. People, including the friends we made to-night, might start thinking things.”

“The police? You mean that they might suspect me of killing her?” I asked scornfully. He nodded through a cloud of cigarette smoke, watching Mac turn an empty glass in her small, nervous hands. “But that’s ridiculous! I told that Sergeant person that I didn’t hate her enough to kill her. Anyway, I’ve got an alibi. We all have for that matter. We were all in the trunkroom two floors away from the murder.”

Mac got up to collect the glasses.

“Did Sergeant say when it happened?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Not exactly,” I said slowly, frowning. “As the night was so warm, they didn’t like to make a definite time. But what does that matter? We were working all the time, and Sarah was actually in the room at least until a quarter to ten. I can prove that with a docket of mine that she queried. You probably saw it, too, Mac. I sent it along to the sortagraph.”

Mac gave a tiny laugh, though she seemed far from amused. I thought it held a note of embarrassment, perhaps fear.

“Maggie,” she said gravely, “would you swear that I was in the room all the time until 11 p.m.?”

I looked at her in complete astonishment. “I didn’t actually see you, but I presume that you were there all the time. Weren’t you?”

She made a pretence of arranging the flowers in the low bowl on the window ledge. Her head was turned away from us. Clark was very quiet. I glanced at him uneasily and then at Mac’s straight, slim back.

“What is all this nonsense?” I asked impatiently. “Did you go out of the room or didn’t you? What story have you told the police?”

Clark got up leisurely and strolled over to her.

“You are making yourself appear very mysterious, Gerda,” he said lightly. “There is a very simple explanation, which in no way impairs the alibi that Maggie has supplied so blithely.” He turned to me. “I let Gerda shut up the sortagraph at ten to ten, so that she could have a few minutes’ relief before taking over the country boards.”

“Is that all?” I asked, relaxing in my chair. “Why have you been acting so strangely, Mac?”

“I saw Sarah,” she said in a low voice.

“You mean when she was dead?” I asked, feeling a trifle sick. “Before we found her?”

She turned quickly. “No! Oh no, Maggie. You don’t think that I was pretending up there in the cloakroom?”

“Hardly,” I lied, for the thought had occurred to me. “What do you mean, you saw Compton? When and where?”

“Entering the lift just as I came out on relief.”

“That must have been about eight minutes to ten,” said Clark swiftly. “Did she say anything to you? What floor was she going to?”

Mac twisted her hands together, and swung around to face us. “I don’t know. She just glared at me. But she must have gone past the fourth floor because I remember glancing at the indicator before I went up the stairs.”

“I wonder where she was off to?” Clark said thoughtfully. “There is only apparatus below the fourth floor.”

“Observation,” I cried, inspired. They looked at me blankly for a minute. Then Clark slapped his knee with his hand.

“Maggie, you’re a marvel!”

“But observation closes at 9.45 p.m.,” argued Mac.

“What was to prevent her from wanting to observe herself,” I retorted. “Not her job, certainly, but quite in her line.”

“But the room is always locked when the observation officers go off duty,” Mac still protested.

“Another damned locked door!” I said, determined not to be put off from my brilliant idea. “She’d find a key from somewhere. In fact, I’m even beginning to think that she was responsible for the restroom door.”

Clark interposed. “The point is, my dears, whom or what did she want to observe?”

“Anyone,” I declared airily. “I said that it was in her line.”

Mac was looking thoughtful. “She had a docket in her hand. I do remember that.”

“There you are!” I said in triumph. “She was going to follow it up, and try to catch someone doing something they shouldn’t, I’ll bet.”

Taking no notice of my solution, Clark asked Mac if she saw Compton at any later time.

“Not alive,” she replied, and a shudder passed through her small figure.

“Why didn’t you tell the Inspector all this, Gerda?” asked Clark gently. She gave that small laugh again.

“It sounds very silly, but I forgot all about it.”

I was sure that she lied. Mac was too honest and straightforward to be able to deceive anyone. It was not in her nature to be subtle that way. Why lie about seeing Sarah Compton alive at 10 p.m., or rather at eight minutes to ten, I couldn’t understand.

“Mac is playing a dangerous game,” I thought with anxiety, resolving to find out what it was. A silence had fallen. Mac was staring at her entwined fingers, and Clark was whistling softly, flicking his cigarette for ash continually. I hauled myself up from the deep chair in several stages.

“Stop that noise,” I ordered irritably. “We must go at once, Mac.”

Clark removed his gaze from his swinging foot and grinned. “You’re very cross, Maggie.”

“I know I am,” I snapped. “Who wouldn’t be with all this murder business keeping me out of bed, and Mac here acting the fool.”

“I’m ready, Maggie,” said Mac, putting an arm through mine. “Don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to put on an act.” Her eyes were clear and candid, as I looked down at her.

“Let’s go home,” I said gruffly, ashamed of my irritation. Clark turned off the lights and we returned to the car in silence, Mac still holding my arm.

“Goodness knows what my landlady will think of me coming in at this hour,” I said, trying to speak lightly.

“You’ll be the star boarder when she reads the paper in the morning.”

“Of course!” said Mac suddenly. “I can just imagine the headlines. I suppose we’ll sweep the world news from the front page.”

“I bet our glamorous Gloria has her picture waiting for the reporters when she hears all this,” I remarked. “By the way, she was off late. I wonder—”

“Shut up,” interrupted Mac wearily.

“Seconded,” said Clark in a firm voice.

“All right,” I said huffily. “I was only wondering.”

“Sit on her, Gerda, for Heaven’s sake! I’ll be glad to say good night to you two women.”

We all seemed to be behaving like tired, cross children. I forbore any correction regarding the time that I might have made about Clark’s remark. The car sped through sleeping suburbs, passed jangling milk-carts. I stayed silent in my corner until we drew up outside Mac’s boarding-house.

“Don’t get out, John,” she said, as I opened the door. “Good-bye, Maggie, and sleep well. I’ll call around to see you in the morning.”

“Come to lunch,” I suggested, drawing up my knees to let her pass, “but not earlier. I mean to stay in bed until late.”

“Very well, then; about twelve-thirty. Good night, John.” Clark, ignoring her request, held the gate open and patted her shoulder as she passed. He waited there until we heard the click of her key in the door, and then came back to the car.

“Cut down the right-of-way,” I advised. “It will be quicker.” I lodged only two streets away from Mac, but there was no cross road, which made the distance quite considerable if one went by the main streets. Clark steered the car carefully down the narrow lane, bumping a little on the uneven paving stones.

“Very exhausted, Margaret?” Clark’s voice was oddly gentle. It gave me a shock hearing my proper name; rarely do people call me that. I remembered suddenly that it was the second time that night that he had done so.

“Completely and utterly,” I replied. “Do you think it will be bad tomorrow—John?” His name came to my lips with difficulty. I could not share Mac’s ease with it. I continued hurriedly: “Questions again and the like, I mean.”

“It’ll be pretty grim. Be a big girl and you’ll get through. I’ll try to stick around as much as possible if that is any help.”

“It will be,” I said gratefully, “but do you think that you’ll be allowed?”

“No, probably not.” He stopped the car precisely opposite my gate, and leaned over the back of the driver’s seat, chin on his clasped hand, to gaze at me intently.

I avoided his eyes and said in a desperation of shyness: “What was it that Mac had on her mind?”

He relaxed and shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Heaven alone knows! But what about you? Is there anything worrying you?”

“No,” I replied slowly, trying to concentrate. “I don’t think so. But I’m tired now. My brain refuses to function. Good night, Clark, and thanks for being the proverbial rock.”

“I’ll take you to your door,” he said, getting out.

“No, better not. If my landlady sees you, she’ll have a fit.”

“Rot,” he replied, taking my arm. Suddenly he swung me round to meet his gaze.

“Listen, Maggie,” he said earnestly, searching my face. “Are you sure there is nothing worrying you; something perhaps that I could help you fix?”

I stood still in his grasp under the hot, hazy stars. His eyes were keen and bright on mine. Presently I said with difficulty: “It’s ridiculous, I know, but I feel as if there should be. There was something on my mind earlier, that I was trying to remember—before the murder, I mean. But I can’t think what it was.”

He gave me a little shake. “Try now,” he commanded. “Think hard.” I shook my head.

“It’s no use,” I said wearily. “I’ve tried and tried. I don’t think that it could have registered in the first place.” He let me go and patted my shoulder as he had done to Mac.

“Never mind, my sweet,” he said softly, “just forget everything and have a sound sleep. But remember, Maggie, if there should be anything worrying you now or later, tell me. I would be glad and—honoured to help you.” We had reached the doorstep and I turned to look at him wonderingly. I could not think of any way to express my gratitude, so I just repeated Mac’s phrase: “You’re great, John.”

He smiled a little before his face became serious again.

“No, Maggie. It’s just that I—well, perhaps we’d better leave it for tonight. Good night, my dear.”

Again that night I felt his lips on my cheek. I put out a hand to hold him. But he had gone, striding swiftly down the path to the gate. He did not look back, though I was ready to wave a last good-bye.