Murder in the Telephone Exchange (35 page)

“Is Miss MacIntyre in?” I asked.

“I'm sure I don't know. Isn't she in her room?”

“I've knocked, but there is no reply. Do you know where she is?”

The woman thought for a minute. “Have you looked in the front room?”

I presumed that she meant the lounge, so I hurriedly retraced my steps. Boarding houses in the Park area were all much the same. I had no difficulty in finding my way around. There was always a long hall dividing the rooms on either side, which led past the steep stairs to the first floor down to the kitchen premises and back yard. The first room on the left was usually given over to a living-room. But Mac was not there either. It was unoccupied, except for a middle-aged man reading the newspaper and listening to the radio.

I went back to the bungalow, thinking that I would wait there for a while. It was too early for her to have left for work. I knew that she wasn't on duty until 7 p.m. that evening. The slovenly woman seemed to have disappeared. I tried Mac's door and found it was unlocked. That meant that she must have been coming back presently. No one leaves their bedroom door unlocked in a boarding-house; especially an easily accessible place like a bungalow.

“That's funny,” I said aloud, standing very still with one hand on the door knob. The room was a riot of confusion. Drawers were hanging open and their contents billowed forth untidily. Even the bed had been stripped, with the bedclothes dumped on the floor and the mattress folded double one end of the bed. I looked down at the knob in my hand, and then at the keyhole on the outside. The woodwork around it had been scratched and torn. My heart missed a beat as I realized the significance of that untidy room.

It wasn't like Mac to leave her bedroom in such a mess. She was always so neat and orderly. Therefore, there was only one explanation. Someone had forced her door, and had ransacked the room in a desperate search. But who it was and what they were looking for, I could not even hazard a guess. As I surveyed the scene grimly, I told myself that Mac would probably have been able to answer both those questions had she been at my side that moment. What was more, the search must have been conducted not long before my appearance on the scene. The person who had made the room into such a rubbish dump must have been very urgent indeed to risk a daylight raid. The possibility of burglary drifted into my mind. I dismissed it immediately as I saw a tiny gold-bar brooch of Mac's pinned to the lace runner on the dressing-table. No burglar would be fool enough to overlook that.

I pulled the mattress back and sat down to think. Should I go and tell the landlady of the establishment that one of her guests' rooms had been ransacked? Or should I wait until I saw Mac, so that she would be able to decide what was to be done? There was one conclusion that I came to: Mac could not be returning for some time. Otherwise, such a thorough search would not have been risked. As I sat there on Mac's bed brooding on what was the best way to get in touch with her, I suddenly remembered the most likely place where she would be.

‘I'll tidy up a bit,' I told myself. ‘She might get a fright when she sees her room like this. It's giving me the jumps just looking at it, and I don't have to sleep here to-night. It's horrid knowing that someone has been going through your possessions.'

I re-made the bed and closed drawers. The floor was littered with
papers. I bent down to gather them up. Suddenly I stiffened and rose to a standing position slowly, holding one scrap in my hand. It was a piece from a notepaper set that I had given Mac the previous Christmas. I remembered the trouble that I had had in obtaining that particular shade and quality of paper. She had evidently been writing a letter, and had torn it up after making some mistake. The name “John” leaped to my eyes, and I stared at it wonderingly. There could be only one John where Mac and I were concerned. I forgot all the nice manners my mother had taught me as I knelt quickly and gathered together the rest of the papers that had been spilled from the overturned wastepaper basket. I dumped the heap on the bed and went through them, feeling puzzled. They were all the same type of paper, but I finally came to one that fitted into the torn slip that I held in my hand. It didn't convey much. Mac had only written a few words in her neat hand and then tossed it aside. It started off “Dear John, I don't know how to—” and there it stopped.

Filled with an overwhelming curiosity, I tried fitting other pieces of the heap together and discovered that they all began with the same address, and continued with a similar, unfinished sentence that conveyed nothing.

‘What on earth was she trying to write,' I thought irritably, ‘that it takes her sheets of paper to compose?'

A door slammed in the main house. I started guiltily. ‘I'm pretty low,' I thought in disgust, piling the scraps into the wastepaper basket and standing it in its corner. I gave the room a final look over before I closed the door carefully after me, and went round the side of the house to a back gate. It opened on to a lane that would take me to the tram route.

* * * * *

There was an atmosphere of gay expectancy at the Exchange, which was wholly at variance with the groups of quietly gossiping telephonists of the past few days. Girls in working kit were calling brightly over the banisters to others who were dressed for the street. As far as I could understand the principal topic of conversation was what everyone was going to wear that night to the charity social in the new building. I was filled with a sudden sense of bitterness. Although I was on the ticket committee, the only pleasure I would get from it would be an hour or so before I went on all-night duty at 11 p.m.

‘There's one good thing about it, anyway,' I told myself, as I proceeded to the seventh floor. ‘It has made people forget the unpleasant events of the past few days.' I wondered if I was doing a very foolish thing in trying to stir up more trouble.

The dormitory echoed hollowly with the sound of laughing voices and the occasional thud of a hammer. I opened the door and saw half a dozen girls decorating the room with long streamers and pieces of asparagus fern. It had been cleared of furniture and the floor gleamed with polish. At the far end on a small dais, where the three-piece dance band would play that night, I recognized the curly head of the mechanic, Dan Mitchell. He was wiring a group of multi-coloured lights, cunningly hidden amid a mass of greenery. I was greeted with derisive remarks as to the way I had timed my entry when all the work was practically finished.

“I was on all night,” I protested indignantly. “Anyway, the room looks so beautiful that I doubt whether I could have done much to improve it.”

“What's all this about Gloria Patterson fainting in Clark's arms last night. I wish it had been me. Weren't you jealous, Maggie?”

“Not in the least. Fainting is never enjoyable.”

“Why did she faint?” asked another curiously. I thought for a minute. But it was not from wanting to comply with Gloria's wishes that I replied: “The heat, I suppose. It was red-hot in the trunkroom all night.”

My interrogator spoke coyly: “A little bird told me it was something you said that made the fair Gloria collapse.”

“Really! And did the same little bird tell you what it was I said?”

“No,” she replied with regret. “I suppose it's no use asking you?”

“No,” I said curtly. “Has anyone seen Gerda MacIntyre this afternoon?”

They looked at each other. “Mac?” queried one. “She came in for a while. The bell from the centre light is her contribution. It makes the room, don't you think, Maggie?”

“It looks fine. When did she go?”

“I don't know. Did anyone see Mac leave?”

They shook their heads. “She must have been gone for some time.”

“Thanks,” I said, and strolled down the room to the dais. “Those lights will be pretty, Dan.”

He glanced down to see who had spoken and then grinned. “Hullo, lady, you don't look quite so angelic by daylight.”

“Sorry you're disappointed,” I retorted. “Has anything been said about last night's adventure?”

“Nothing.” He climbed down the stepladder and dropped a coil of wire and hammer to the floor. “Anything new on the horizon?”

I glanced over my shoulder, but the others were busy clearing up odd fragments of fern. “Our Senior Traffic Officer, Mr. Scott, came in last night when I was in the power-room.”

Dan whistled, and raised his brows comically.

“Not a word,” I whispered warningly. His eyes danced with excitement.
“Are you coming to the social?” I asked, raising my voice for the benefit of the others.

“Sure,” he replied clearly, giving me a knowing look. “Will you keep a dance for me?”

“If you like, but I'll only be there for a short time. I'm on duty again to-night.”

“I'll be seeing you,” he promised. I walked back to the girls. “Haven't you finished yet? The roof won't stand many more decorations.”

“Get the ladder someone. Maggie, you're the tallest. Jump up and twist that red one to match the other side.”

“I will, if someone holds on to the ladder,” I agreed cautiously. “Isn't that someone knocking at the door?”

The girl Martin hurried over to it, throwing instructions over her shoulder. “Not too much now, Maggie.”

“Where's this ladder?” I asked. “Thanks, Dan. You might hang on to the base while I climb. I always did loathe heights.”

I unpinned the streamer and started to twist it, holding on with one hand. “Is that enough, Martin?” She drew her head into the room and shut the door. “That'll be right, Maggie. Just pin it firmly and then you can get down.”

“Thank you,” I said gratefully, descending the ladder. “Who was that at the door?”

“Only one of the cleaners wanting to know if we were ready for her to sweep up. Stay where you are a minute, Maggie, until I look around. There may be some others that want fixing.”

I needed no second bidding to remain stationary half-way down the ladder. I was frozen to the spot, with one foot in the air and my hands gripping the sides. The words which the girl Martin had spoken all unwittingly re-echoed in my brain.

“What's the matter, Maggie?” she asked sharply. “You'd better get down at once if you're feeling dizzy.”

I looked down at her wonderingly. “Who did you say was at the door just now?”

“One of the cleaners. Get down this minute. If you go fainting up there, I won't catch you when you fall.”

“You're a hard-hearted woman,” I remarked, placing one foot firmly on the floor. “Dan can go up next time. He's used to climbing around the apparatus. I'm going home.”

Dan Mitchell followed me to the door. “Why did you behave so queerly just now?” he asked softly, as he held open the door.

“I am not quite sure. It was something that Martin said. I thought that
I had heard it before, and connected it with something important. But when I asked her to repeat it, the parallel went out of my head.”

“It might be silly,” he said hopefully, “but I noticed that the second time she said ‘one of the cleaners,' she left out ‘only.' ”

I stared at him for a moment, puzzled. “Only one of the—You're right!” I declared excitedly. “Only one—Listen, Dan, this may be frightfully important, so if those girls want to know what's up, don't let on that you know.”

“Neither I do,” he answered, grinning. “You're much too deep for me.”

“I'll try to explain it all to you to-night,” I promised. “I've got too many facts jumbled up in my mind at this moment. If I don't go somewhere and have a quiet think, my brain will burst.”

“Well, be careful. I don't like a kid like you trying to do everything on your own.”

“Don't sound so pompous,” I retorted. “You're only a child yourself.”

“I'm nearly twenty-one,” he said in a dignified tone.

“You look about seventeen,” I grinned. “See you to-night.” I left him quickly, still smiling to myself at the offended expression on his face, and proceeded to walk down the stairs. Half-way I paused, and then retraced my steps as far as the trunkroom.

As it was late afternoon the boards were sparsely staffed, with a monitor in charge. Practically the only traffic that went on during Saturday afternoon were race calls, when tipsters and starting-price bookmakers swung the telephonists into sudden activity immediately before and after each race. The monitor was rather a good sport and she greeted me cheerily.

“Come to help, Maggie? These damn race calls will be the death of me. We've already had a row with one bookie.”

“That's too bad,” I said ironically. “Was the call five seconds too late?”

She grimaced. “Something like that. What do you want here? Aren't you in this dump often enough without paying a social visit?”

“Too often. I was wondering if anyone had seen Mac. She was helping in the dormitory a while back.”

The monitor frowned. “She did pop in for a minute, to see one of the girls. Jean Mills, I think. Go and ask.”