Murder in the Telephone Exchange (23 page)

At last Gordon decided that she could stand it no longer' Matters finally came to a head when Compton discovered that one of the boys at the Exchange had been taking Dulcie out. She got hold of this lad's letters, and magnified the perfectly innocent friendship into a sordid
affaire
, upbraiding Dulcie in a most filthy fashion, and thus spoiling the latter's simple ideas for ever.

“The dirty, dried-up old maid,” I muttered to myself.

Compton threatened to write to Gordon's people, and tell them their daughter was behaving no better than a woman on the streets. Poor Dulcie, though not fully grasping her meaning, begged and implored her not to write, promising to give up her nice lad and to be mindful of Sarah's advice in the future.

But that night, while Compton was on duty at the Exchange, she packed her few possessions again and left. She took a room in a house the other side of the city, as far away from Sarah as she could. She was compelled to meet her at the Exchange, but that was unavoidable. She was not in a position to throw in a good job at Trunks. She had been a telephonist ever since she left school and was untrained for anything else but switching.

Compton's attitude puzzled her. She behaved as though nothing had happened. Dulcie was forgetting her nasty innuendoes and starting to enjoy her freedom when letters began to arrive at her new lodgings. Every week Sarah would send in a bill for the rent of her room. Gordon ignored them at first, but at the end of a quarter she became frightened, as a letter
from Sarah came threatening to start legal proceedings if she did not pay her rent. Dulcie wrote and told her that she couldn't meet the account, and saw no reason why she should as she had long since left Compton's roof. She received an answer in the next mail in the form of a copy of the lease she had signed together with a short note from Sarah stating that if the account was not paid, she would apply to Gordon's people for remuneration.

“I couldn't let her do that,” Dulcie told me. “Dad had been ill, and Mother and my young brother had been trying to run the farm on their own. So I went to see Miss Compton, to beg her to wait until I could save up enough money, She was quite agreeable, and arranged that I pay her so much a week until the lease expired.”

“How long has this been going on?” I demanded of the poor girl.

“Nearly two years,” she confessed. “You see, I didn't give her the full rental each week. I couldn't, as I had to pay for where I am now.”

“You silly, silly child,” I said stormily. “Why didn't you tell someone about it. Don't you know that Sarah was only playing a low-down trick on you, and that she had no more right to that rent than I have? She would never have dared to have taken your case to court.”

Gordon's eyes filled with tears. “I didn't have anyone to confide in,” she answered, her voice trembling a little, “and I thought that if Compton knew, she might start telling people about—about that boy I used to go with.”

She should never have left her home town. She was too young and sensitive to be able to break away for herself. As a small-town telephonist, where everyone knew and liked her, she was excellent at her job. But at Trunks thousands of subscribers are handled. You are not regarded as an individual. City work was not for such. She was crying quietly but unrestrainedly. Two years of disappointment, disillusionment and misery were all she had to show for her high hopes to make good in town.

“Cheer up,” I said, awkwardly patting her hand. There were times when I wished the maternal instinct was stronger within me. The proper thing would have been to support Dulcie with one arm and let her cry her heart out on my shoulder, at the same time cooing words of sympathy. Her complete relaxation in her grief embarrassed me, and I did not feel like having my frock ruined.

“Don't cry so much,” I begged. “There's nothing to worry about. All your troubles seem to have ended now.” Gordon raised her face from her handkerchief and stared at me. There was a pause. I saw fear in her eyes as clearly as if the word was written.

“Oh, I see,” I said slowly, thinking hard. Here was a motive and an opportunity. If both were presented to the police they would be almost
certain to build up a sure case against Dulcie Gordon.

“Tell me,” I asked, testing her, “do you know how Sarah was killed?”

She bent her head, dabbing at her eyes again, “Her head was smashed in, wasn't it?”

“Yes, that's correct. But do you know how?” Gordon shook her head, and I looked at her thoughtfully.

“Come along,” I said, gathering up my bag and gloves, and putting my hat anyhow on my head. “You take my advice and go straight home to bed. I'll think over what you've told me, and let you know what you'd better do about telling your story to the police to-morrow.”

She followed me obediently but made no reply. She appeared to be in a daze. The flood of weeping, followed by the sudden flash of fear in her eyes, had given place to the wide open blank stare of a child. I thought it advisable to escort her to her tram stop. Emotional unrestraint seemed to have fogged her brain and it had ceased to function. When I asked her if she felt all right she only nodded in a faraway fashion.

“Good night,” I said as I left her on the safety zone. “Forget everything, and have a good sleep. You'll feel better in the morning.” She still didn't reply.

I watched her board a tram before I made my way thoughtfully towards the station. Here was another pretty kettle of fish. As far as I could see Compton must have had a finger in numerous unpleasant-looking pies. There were those known to me who would have been only too glad to have her depart to another world. How many more must still be undiscovered?

The station clock said seven minutes to twelve. I made a sudden spurt for my train that was due to leave in two minutes. The porter was calling through the microphone in definite tones that the train at number nine platform was leaving—stand back, please—as I jumped into a crowded compartment. My fellow travellers eyed me with hostility as I climbed over knees, more often than not standing on white-shod feet. Apologizing profusely, I squeezed myself into a narrow space between a fat woman sucking sweets gustily, and a be-curled child who was sleeping with her mouth open. Luckily my journey was short. I could not have stood the competition between false teeth and toffee for long. If there is a type of person I dislike more than any other, it is the one who eats in public conveyances.

I had made up my mind to put in several hours' sleep before starting to cogitate on the recent discoveries that had come my way. Although having denied at first any interest in the mysteries that seemed to envelop all at the Exchange, I was beginning to be as curious as Mrs. Bates's striped tomcat; only I sincerely hoped that I would not get into as much strife as her feline pet did through inquisitiveness. I was prepared for further
brushes with the police, rebuffs from the senior staff and even facetiousness from my fellow telephonists. But I did not anticipate anything like the trouble that was to come my way.

Lewisham Avenue was as dark as a tunnel. I found No. 15 with the practised ease gained through many years of habitation at the same boarding-house, hoping that Mac had left my latchkey in the front door. I did not want to waken her to come down and let me in. But it was not there. I tried the door to see if it had been left unlatched. It was locked. Very remiss of Mac!

‘Now what do I do?' I thought to myself after glancing under the mat and in the letterbox, in case Mac had not deemed it wise to leave the key in the front door for anyone to use. I skirted the hydrangea bed, and called up to my window softly. There was no reply. Poor Mac must have been terribly tired.

I tried throwing a handful of gravel in the endeavour to waken her. The tiny stones rattled against glass. “That's odd!” I said aloud. “She must be sleeping with the window closed.” I called her name again.

Presently the door on to the top veranda opened, and a voice said sternly: “Who's there? I'll have the police on to you, if you don't go away.”

“Hullo, Mrs. Bates,” I said, grinning. “Have you come out to play Shakespeare with me? ‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou,' etc.”

She peered down over the rail. “Miss Byrne, what are you doing in the garden at this time of night? And mind my hydies, please.”

“All right, I'm not touching them. Please, I'm locked out. Hurry up and let in the poor orphan out of the cold, cold snow.” Mrs. Bates clicked her tongue several times, before she disappeared. I groped my way back to the front door.

“Where's your key?” she demanded, opening the door as little as possible, though her big frame was draped in a thick, black dressing-gown. I nearly laughed outright when I saw that she was wearing a befrilled nightcap, such as might have been in fashion many decades ago.

“I gave my key to Miss MacIntyre,” I explained, as she followed me up the stairs. “She wanted to stay with me to-night.”

“I didn't hear her come in,” Mrs. Bates declared positively, “and I've heard every hour strike.”

“She must have changed her mind,” I said carelessly, trying not to feel apprehensive. Mac had seemed so definite in her desire for company, that I was at a loss to explain her sudden alteration of arrangements. I paused in the passage outside my room.

“Sorry, Mrs. Bates, for spoiling your beauty sleep like this.”

“I was awake,” she said indignantly. “You know that I can't sleep until
all my young ladies are safe at home.”

“I suppose that I am the last in as usual,” I said, opening my door, “so you can go back to your couch with a free mind. Good night.”

I stood for a moment inside the door, my fingers on the electric light switch, listening for light breathing. But there was none, and I pressed down the switch. My room was hot and airless. I went to open the window, unhooking the placket of my frock and slipping it over my head at the same time. It was then that I heard light footsteps running madly down the silent road. I leaned over the window-sill, my eyes straining against the night. The gate clicked, and a figure, that I guessed rather than recognized as Mac's, came hurrying up the path.

“Is that you, Maggie?” she called in a hushed tone, gazing up at my silhouette against the lighted bedroom.

“I'll be right there,” I said. I hurried down the stairs, unmindful of my deshabille condition. Mac's hot little hands grasped mine as I let her in.

“Wherever have you been?” I asked softly, not wishing to bring Mrs. Bates to the scene demanding explanations again. “I thought you would have been home and asleep by the time I came in.” She shook her head ‘and together we crept up the stairway. It creaked loudly in the annoying way stairs have when you want to be quiet.

“Can I have a shower, Maggie?” Mac asked, as we gained the privacy of my room. “I feel so sticky.”

“Sure. Here's a towel. Make it snappy, will you. I want some sleep. Why are you so late?”

Her voice was muffled as she pulled her dress over her head.

“I came by tram, and it got held up.”

“All right,” I said patiently. “That'll do until the morning, anyway. I'm too tired to argue. There's a spare toothbrush in that drawer.”

“Thanks. What about some pyjamas?”

I got out my best pair of apple-green Chinese silk, and handed them to her in silence.

“Get to bed, Maggie,” Mac ordered gently. “You look fit to drop. I'll turn out the light, so that it won't worry you.”

I did as I was told, and relaxed with a sigh between the cool sheets. I heard the shower running in the bathroom next door, and tried to rouse myself until Mac came back. For a tram to be held up at that time of night was the thinnest story I'd heard for a long time. But the sound of the streaming water grew fainter and fainter, and soon faded altogether, Presently I saw Dulcie Gordon's hand twisting and turning her glass, It swelled up jerkily until it obscured all other vision and then vanished. A mass of golden hair, which somehow I knew to be Patterson's, appeared
and parted like curtains to reveal a pale blood-stained face; Sarah Compton's, jerking her head that way she had on the roof a few hours before her death. And all the time I heard voices yelling unintelligibly but with insane fury. Grotesque faces grew up before me, and threatening hands waved red-dripping buttinskys until I could stand it no longer. I sat up in bed with a jolt. The shower was still running in the next room. I stared around my brilliantly-lit bedroom in amazement.

“That's odd,” I said aloud, pushing my hair back with both my hands. “Mac turned the light out before she went to the bathroom. How on earth—?” I stopped and fumbled automatically for my watch. It was half-past nine and the hot morning sun was streaming through the unshaded window. Staring at the tiny hands in a bemused fashion, I realized that I must have slept for nine hours.

“It's my second time on earth,” I thought, putting my hands to my head again. It was aching intolerably. Then I remembered with a groan that it was Friday, and that I had an all-night shift to face.

The door opened and Mac came in. She was in my dressing gown and had a towel around her neck.

“Have you been having a shower all this time?” I demanded. She glanced at me in a puzzled manner, and went to the window to draw the blind.