Murder in the Telephone Exchange (52 page)

I gazed at it speculatively, and at the filing cabinets beneath. That was where Mac had stood on Saturday night. I could almost see her efficient hands picking up the dockets that fluttered along the revolving belt, and the quick frowning glance she gave them before placing each one with rapid accuracy in its correct receptacle. Before I knew what I was doing, I had pulled my plug out of its socket and had darted down the room.

“If you want to hide a needle, you put it with a whole lot of other needles,” I muttered under my breath, reaching for the last file.

A quick upward glance told me that Bertie had gone out of the room again. The others were engrossed in their own affairs. I was safe for a while; time enough to run through Friday's and Saturday's dockets. Although my search was hurried, I was certain that I had not missed anything that might be a message from Mac. Once again, I felt that hopeless, bitter disappointment. My sudden inspiration had seemed so reasonable, and the sortagraph so exactly the place where Mac would have chosen to hide her message.

I stopped short in my slow walk back to my position. Mac might have filed the docket earlier than Friday. That meant it would be amongst those tied together with string and dumped in the basement storeroom. My mind flew back to the evening I met Mac, when I was too excited about my discovery of the hidden door to question her activities. She had just come out of the storeroom, and there was a smudge of dirt below her left cheekbone as though she had put one grimy finger to her face while she thought deeply. That had been an old trick of Mac's. I remembered the would-be casual way in which she had answered me when I asked what she was doing.

“Just hunting around for a docket,” were her exact words. But were they to put me off the scent? Had Mac gone down to the storeroom to look for something quite different? The place was full of old bundles of used stationery, and as that day was Friday, surely she wouldn't have filed away her message so soon.

Unless—My brain stopped dead, then groped itself back still further to the beginning of the whole tragedy. Compton! I'd almost forgotten her. She was the cause of the second murder. It was something that Mac had
discovered about Compton's death that made the killer strike again.

Mac's statement! What was it she had said again? She had seen Compton going down in the lift with a docket in her hand? No, not that. There was something else; another docket, the one that I had seen Compton poring over in the lunchroom that Wednesday while I ate my cold sandwiches, and then later still on the roof. Compton had filed it herself, muttering under her breath. Mac had caught her words. “That'll fix it,” Compton had said.

No one had attached any importance to those words. They seemed meaningless at the time. I knew now that Compton had held in her hand an important document, for the sake of which someone had killed her.

That was why Mac had been acting so strangely. She remembered that docket later, and the careful way in which the late monitor had filed it personally. It was Compton who wanted to hide it, not Mac. She went down to the storeroom in the basement to look for it. But had Mac found it? I shut my eyes tight, trying to capture the scene that had taken place between us. She had not been holding anything in her hand, because if I had noticed that they were grimy, I would have seen it. What frock did she wear that day? She had slept with me the night before, and had gone straight from Mrs. Bates's boarding-house to work, looking cool and fragrant in that printed silk dress with pouch pockets set in the skirt. Mac must have slipped the docket into one when she heard me exploring for the second exit.

I tried to remain calm in the face of my new discoveries, and to put myself in Mac's place. What had she done with that docket? Had she put it back with the others, or taken it home to study it more closely? When the murderer searched her room, was that the evidence he was after? Surely Mac would have realized that something like that would happen, and—what was it John Clarkson had said? Mac would have insured herself against losing it. Perhaps she kept it in her handbag, or concealed about her person. She may have done what Dulcie Gordon did. If so, I knew where that docket was, and it was safe. Once again, I saw Mac's room with the drawers pulled out, and the upturned wastepaper basket with its contents scattered around the room. I felt myself smoothing out those crumpled sheets of pale blue notepaper, and saw each one starting with Clark's name. That was why Mac had found it so hard to write that letter. She was insuring herself by telling someone else what she had learned. Someone whom she knew she could trust.

Without a second's hesitation, I put on my headphone and called the Windsor Exchange to give Clark's number, praying wildly that the sleeping draught had not taken full effect on him yet, and that he would answer
my call. If Mac had posted a letter to Clark on Saturday that meant that he would receive it in the morning's mail. But if the killer had reached the same conclusion, he would be waiting outside Clark's flat to get that letter first. I must get hold of Clark to warn him.

“They're not answering, Central,” Windsor's voice said boredly.

‘You dumb cluck!' I thought, ‘If you only knew how important it was to get that 'phone answered, you'd snap out of it.”

“Keep trying, Win.,” I ordered curtly. “If you raise them, get in touch with Margaret Byrnes in the trunkroom.”

“O.K.,” she answered lightly.

I dropped my head into my hands, thinking hard. If Clark had taken that dose, he wouldn't awaken for hours; perhaps too late. Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was now 2 a.m., and speculated on trying to reach either Inspector Coleman or the Sergeant.

“They wouldn't love me if I dragged them out of bed at this hour to tell them a theory,” I thought with grim amusement. “The best thing that I can do is to slip down to the basement, and see if Mac re-filed that docket. Then I would have a legitimate excuse to rouse them.”

Bertie sat at his desk once more, his head bent over papers. I threw him a cautious look, and called gently to Jameson: “Come on Adelaide 5.”

She set up the line on her own board by opening a key and tapping out 35 on her dial.

“What do you want, Maggie?” said her voice in my ear.

I glanced at Bertie again, but he hadn't lifted his head as the lines clicked loudly in the silence of the trunkroom. “I want to sneak out without Bertie seeing me. Come up here, and change positions with me. I have more chance of making a dash from the Hobart board.”

Jameson turned her head to watch me curiously. “What's the idea? You've just come back from relief.” But she arose carelessly, and sauntered towards me swinging her flex by the plug.

“You're a pal,” I told her fervently. “There's no work to do. You needn't worry that I was trying to put one over you. See you later.”

I sat on the Hobart board for five dragging minutes, but still Bertie did not move.

‘Now's your chance,' I muttered, watching out of one corner of my eye as he lifted his telephone and called out a number. Quickly and silently I slipped from the chair and sped behind the delay board to the door opening on to the back stairs. My telephone was dumped on the first step and I took the others in flying leaps.

One would have thought that after my narrow escape with Bertie in the cloakroom, I would have disdained any further adventures that night.
I must confess to a one-track mind. All thought of Bertie, outside wondering if he had already missed my presence, had left me. I wanted a docket from the basement storeroom, and nothing would stop me until I got it. How I expected to recognize it as the one Compton had filed just before her death never entered my head. It was sufficient to say that I knew what I wanted, and even the uncanny half-gloom in the basement caused by the street lights shining through the glass bricks failed to deter me.

I heaved a sigh of relief as the storeroom door opened under the turn of the handle. Thank heaven, it was not locked! The little matter of finding the key would have been most irritating. Even the light went on. I felt that luck was with me as I surveyed the shelves that lined all sides of the room before starting on my search. I found the bundle labelled Wednesday, February 11th, without any trouble, and sank down on to my knees tearing at the string.

Mac said that Compton had filed a docket before she went on relief, so I turned to the bottom of the pile and picked out those timed from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Moistening my forefinger, I went through the dockets, but each one appeared a genuine call. None of them held either the signature of Compton or Mac. It was only on glancing through them a second time that I noticed that one had been completed at 5 p.m. I sat back on my heels slowly. Was it an error that a call, connected five hours earlier, should be amongst those of a later hour? Then the calling number leaped to meet my gaze. I stared at it fascinated, unable to believe what my senses told me. It was the same number that I had rung from the power-room with Dan Mitchell. A man had answered that call. A man whom I had identified with an armchair golfer in Riverlea club-house that very afternoon.

Was this the docket that had cost two lives? Had Mac found it, and purposely placed it in its wrong place to avoid detection by the killer? Or had she done so hoping that it would catch the eye of the right person, in case something happened to her before she could reclaim it? It looked innocent enough. But for the number, I would have passed it over. What had Sarah Compton learned about Mr. Atkinson that made her file his call so carefully? Something very grave indeed that would send her to her death. I turned over to the back in a puzzled fashion.

“I'm blowed if I can see anything odd about it,” I said aloud, about to rise to my feet.

Before I got both feet to the ground, the storeroom was plunged into darkness. My heart stood still with a terrible fear. Was it Bertie again? Would he let me go this time? Not in my wildest hopes did I expect to get out alive from that room. I could hear someone breathing lightly, and got cautiously on to my other foot, still holding the docket in my hand.
In those few seconds before I heard footsteps approaching me very, very slowly, I thought of a million things. I must do what Mac did. I must hide the docket again. When I am dead, Clark will look for it. He knows.

The footsteps came on. I backed away quietly, my fingers ever feeling for a hiding place, and encountering nothing but bundles of dockets. With a sudden inspiration, I slipped one out of a pile, jamming the docket I held into its place. I continued to creep round the wall. Where was that door? If I could reach it, I would have a chance. Even if it was to open it and scream. Someone might hear me.

Suddenly I could stand the sound of those footsteps and soft breathing no longer. I rushed like a mad woman through the blackness, sobbing under my breath as I banged my fist along the wall in a desperate search for the door. But it was no use. The last thing I remembered was a feeling of triumph as the dummy docket I held in my hand was torn from my grasp.

CHAPTER X

It was very annoying to recall later that I had used precisely the same words as Gloria Patterson when she recovered from her faint. But I had some excuse, as I found myself lying on a hard bed in a room of dazzling whiteness, clad only in a knee-length robe that tied with strings around my neck.

A thin, boyish face studded with freckles bent over me. For one moment I thought it was Sergeant Matheson, until Charlotte's candid remark floated gently into my brain. “Either they've come back very quickly, or else Charlotte couldn't have been seeing too well,” I said resentfully. Those freckles worried me, until my eyes travelled over his white-coated figure.

“You're not a policeman, after all!” I exclaimed in triumph. “You're a doctor.”

The boy's face crumpled into an attractive smile, that revealed rather buck teeth. Sergeant Matheson had a nice, even grin.

“Not quite,” he said modestly. “I'm only a medical student. You had an accident, and they brought you to hospital.”

“Who are they?” I demanded, my mind still on Sergeant Matheson. I was going to ring him about something; drag him out of bed for a joke.

“A Mr. Scott brought you into the casualty ward. There was a young lad with him, whom he called Dan.”

“Dan Mitchell,” I nodded, pleased to be able to remember something. “Was it Bertie who hit me?”

The embryo medico turned my head gently, and started to plaster some evil-smelling ointment on to my forehead.

“I asked you a question,” I said reproachfully. He shook his head, smiling, and turned away.

I scowled. “Like that, is it? Where are my clothes?”

He came back quickly to force me down on the bed. It didn't require much effort on his part as I sank back with a groan.

“You're not leaving here for a while,” he told me firmly. “Try and get some sleep.”

As I opened my mouth to protest, a hypodermic was flourished warningly before my face. “See that! If you don't shut up, I'll give you a plug of dope that will make you sleep. Now turn over, and off you go.”

“The room is too light,” I grumbled, rolling over on to my side obediently.

When I awoke later, the whiteness was even more glaring. The sun filtered through the frosted windows, and fell in a pattern on the starched coverlet of my bed. While I was studying it in a bemused fashion, a nurse came into the room holding a tray aloft.