Murder in the Telephone Exchange (53 page)

“Cup of tea?” she snapped, placing one on my chest at the same time, and whisking off before I had opened my mouth to thank her. The hot liquid felt grand as it flowed down my parched throat. Very warily I raised myself on one elbow. There were half a dozen other beds in my ward, and I grimaced in a friendly fashion to the blowsy-haired woman opposite.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

“Much, thank you. Were you here when I came in?”

“This is my second week,” she replied cheerfully. “I stopped a car down town, and didn't remember anything else until the doctor was taking the stitches out of my head. What happened to you?”

“I'm not too sure,” I replied, feeling the dressing on my forehead gingerly.

“You made enough row when they brought you in. I knew you couldn't have been hurt much.”

“Oh,” I said, interested. “I was talking, was I?” The woman folded the bedclothes in an embarrassed manner. “Of course, I didn't listen to what you were saying. It was about 3 a.m. when they brought you in, and the wards were asleep. But you kept calling out to someone called Clark. They had to put you in another room. You were waking everyone up,” she finished in an injured tone.

The woman seemed inclined for conversation as she sipped her tea gustily. I asked her how she came to get run over, and let her ramble on about car drivers' manifold iniquities as I lay back to think. I could remember
going down to the basement to look for a docket, but somehow I couldn't fit Bertie in. Did he hit me, and then cart my senseless body off to hospital with the assistance of Dan Mitchell? No, that was wrong. I couldn't see the person who knocked me out. I could only hear that horrible breathing and those creeping footsteps. It couldn't have been Bertie. What happened about that docket? I looked down at my clenched hand, and then opened it slowly. There were one or two tiny spots of paper on the damp palm. I laughed triumphantly.

The patient opposite raised an aggrieved face. “It wasn't funny, I can tell you,” she remarked. “The doctor told me that it's a wonder I'm still alive.”

“Sorry,” I replied. “I was thinking of something else. Go on.”

The murderer didn't get away with the right docket. I had swopped it with another in the darkness and foiled him. How angry he would be to discover his mistake, and that it needed a harder blow to penetrate the skull of one Maggie Byrnes. I closed my eyes hard in an attempt to remember every detail. Someone had turned out the light in the storeroom just as I was about to rise, holding the docket on which was inscribed that number that I had allocated to Mr. Atkinson, broker and golfer. Was it he who had struck me down in the darkness? Was that the reason that I could in no way identify my assailant. Supposing that Bertie, after finding me at Mac's locker, rang him and told him of the danger in which they stood. He could have directed Mr. Atkinson to the door opening from the lane, and arranged that I could have been sent to a nice quiet spot to be finished off. Furthermore, if Bertie knew what I was searching for in the cloakroom and had seen me at the files below the sortagraph he might have guessed that my next move would be to continue my search in the basement. Once he saw me leave the trunkroom, he could have advised the murderer as to where I was heading. What would be a better place in which to eliminate me than the lonely, soundproof storeroom? Evidently Mr. Atkinson was so eager to get that docket out of my hand that he did not worry whether he killed me or not. I felt my forehead again. Perhaps he had no suitable weapon to hand, so hurried was the need to stop me, and used his clenched fist.

The fact remained that he didn't get the correct docket. Even if he had, there was always that letter that Mac posted the day of her death. I glanced around the room for a clock, but there was none in sight. I waited until my blowsy-haired friend took a breath, and cut in.

“Have you any idea of the time?”

“It would be about 8 a.m. Do you know that when doctor examined me yesterday, he told me that it was a miracle that I was alive?”

“Yes, I know,” I replied. “You told me before. How do I get hold of a
nurse or someone? There doesn't seem to be any bell near my bed.”

“Just tap on the wall. The pantry is next door, and someone will hear you.”

I banged with my fist. Presently a nurse came running in. “What's the trouble?” she demanded, looking down the ward.

“The young lady over there wanted you.”

She swung round. “I'm just preparing the breakfast trays. You'll have to wait until the right time.”

I looked at her puzzled for a moment before light dawned.

“I only want my clothes,” I said firmly. “Where are they?”

The nurse gave me a sharp glance. “Never mind. You're not to get up until the doctor sees you.”

I lay back in a turmoil of impatience, biting at my lip. It was essential that I got out of the place, and got hold of Clark. If the murderer had learned of that letter Mac had written, he might go armed to Clark's flat to intercept it. I shuddered, visualizing a short struggle for the letter between the two men, and the sharp sound of an exploding pistol before Clark staggered and crashed face downwards. That must not happen. I couldn't bear to see another twisted figure lying in a pool of blood. I banged hard and urgently against the wall and waited a few minutes, but no white-garbed nurse appeared in the doorway.

“What's the matter, dearie? Can't you wait any longer?”

“No!” I shouted, throwing off the bedclothes, and slipping to the floor. My appearance must have been ludicrous, to say the least, with my long legs bare to the knee. I didn't care. Things were desperate. With a swimming head I managed to negotiate my way to the door, and clung there panting as the nurse came hurrying in, bearing two breakfast trays.

“What on earth do you think you're doing?” she asked angrily. “Get back to bed.”

I shook my head, and demanded weakly for the nearest telephone. “I must make a call; in fact, two calls,” I added, remembering Charlotte. The poor darling would be out of her mind if she knew that I was in a hospital.

The nurse dropped her trays on one of the beds, and advanced with both arms outstretched. “Come along now.”

But I clung to the door defiantly. “Please, nurse,” I begged. “You've no idea how important it is that I make those calls.”

She slid one arm around my waist, and half-pulled me across the room. “Don't be so foolish,” she scolded. “You're in no condition to go rushing about. I'll call whatever people you want and give messages. Climb up into bed again.”

I clambered up, and sank down breathlessly. It was amazing how weak
a crack on the head could make one.

“Will you ring up at once?” I pleaded.

She handed me a pencil and block from one of her capacious pockets. “Write down the numbers, and the messages you want sent. I'll do it as soon as I've finished with these breakfast trays.”

“No, ring them right away,” I insisted. “Nurse, you've no idea—”

“All right,” she cut in peevishly. “I'm glad you're not a patient of mine for long.”

I gave her a warm smile, writing quickly. “Like the rest of your profession, you're an angel in disguise. Here you are.”

The woman in the bed opposite remarked to the ward at large after the nurse had gone: “Well, I must say that some people haven't much consideration. Do we have to wait for our breakfast while Nurse Williams makes telephone calls?”

“You don't happen to mean me?” I asked gently. “I'm sorry about delaying everyone's breakfast, but since there are two trays at the foot of your bed I don't think you need worry.”

She snorted indignantly, and, not attempting to take my advice, folded her hands with a martyr-like expression on her face.

The nurse came back again. I watched her eagerly as she handed around trays. Finally she came to where I was biting my fingers in feverish anxiety.

“No luck with the first, but your mother said that it would be all right.”

“What about Mr. Clarkson? Wasn't the number answering?”

Nurse Williams shook her capped head as she propped me up with pillows. “The girl at the Exchange was terribly rude. She said that she had been trying all night, and not to worry her again. It was the first time that I'd used the 'phone this morning, let alone called that number.”

‘That must have been the girl I spoke to last night,' I reflected. ‘Clark must have taken those deadly pills. He might sleep all the morning and miss the mail.'

I surveyed the sausages before me without interest. What could I do now? Someone must be there to get that letter; someone I could trust. Charlotte? No, I wasn't going to let her run any risks of meeting an armed murderer. I pushed the tray aside, and called to Nurse Williams again. “Get me the police.”

She turned round slowly, her mouth open. “Have you gone mad?” she burst out, after swallowing once or twice.

“Get me the police,” I repeated stubbornly, “or I'll run out of the hospital like I am, and shout until I find one.” I made a move as if to get out of bed again. It caused her to come hastening back.

“Now, look here, dear,” she said in the kindly, reasoning tone that nurses seem to keep for refractory patients. “Just you eat your nice breakfast and wait for the doctor. Maybe he'll let you go home.”

“It's not a nice breakfast,” I said childishly. “I loathe sausages, and I want the police.”

My friend across the way spoke up patronizingly: “That's exactly what I said, dearie. Find me the police. I want to give them my side of the story. Those car drivers think they can get away with anything.”

Ungratefully, I glowered across at her, thinking: ‘I bet it was your own silly, damn fault you got run over.'

I gazed up at Nurse Williams in what I hoped was an appealing manner. “Couldn't you make just one more call?” I coaxed. “Ring Russell Street Police Station, and ask either Inspector Coleman or Sergeant Matheson to come and see me at once. No, wait a minute, it'll be too early for them to be at the office. You'll have to look up their private numbers.”

“I am not going to do anything of the kind,” she returned. “I've got another ward besides this to give breakfast to. Then I've got to sponge down the patients, and tidy up before the doctors arrive. And you're asking me to spend my time at a telephone.”

It was no use. I couldn't make her realize that my request was much more important than washing people unless I gave her all the facts; not that she'd believe me if I did. I tried to stay patient until the doctor arrived. Maybe he would discharge me from the hospital. The sausages tasted like leather. I managed to swallow some buttered toast and another cup of tea, glancing now and then at the clock and praying that the morning mail was not delivered at the flats where Clark lived until late.

At a quarter to nine, I was presented with a bowl of water and two towels, and instructed how to wash myself in bed.

“I'll be back later to do your back,” said the nurse, moving off to sponge one of the more incapable patients. I surveyed the water distastefully, but set about the job, trying to keep in mind the instructions. The bowls and towels having been removed and the ward swept and dusted, the door was thrown open for the doctor. He came in with a retinue of medical and masseur students, and began the round of the beds. When they came to mine, the doctor turned to the curious group around him and said: “There is nothing of any medical interest in this case.”

I felt like a butterfly squirming on a pin as he stepped forward to take my pulse.

“Well, young lady?”

“Very well, thank you, doctor,” I retorted, and heard a snigger from the group. “I want to go home.”

“All in good time. How's the head?”

“Just fine. Would you mind telling that dumb nurse to bring me my clothes?”

He shook his head gravely. “I want you to stay here until midday at least. Then we'll see how your temperature is.”

“You haven't got a hope in Hades,” I replied. “Once more, where are my clothes?”

“You're a very curt young lady,” said the doctor reprovingly. “What's the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” I shouted. “That's why I want to leave.”

“Very well,” he said, signalling to the others to move on. “I'll write out a discharge. Nurse Williams,” he called. She came hurrying over, glancing at me suspiciously. “Find this young lady her clothes. She can go home.”

“Certainly,” she replied, so promptly that I gave her an offended look.

When she returned to dump my belongings at the foot of the bed, I remarked gently: “I think that you're glad to get rid of me.”

“I am,” she snapped, “and the next time someone hits you on the head, I hope that they make a better job of it. Good-bye.”

I climbed gingerly into my clothes, trying to avoid the dressing on my forehead. My head still ached intolerably. It wasn't until I strolled automatically to the nearest mirror that I realized that my handbag was missing. Loss of make-up was a minor matter in face of the fact that I was without a penny. One can't do anything in this world without money. I was prepared to sit down helplessly when I remembered the calls that I had asked Nurse Williams to make. I bade a fond farewell to my friend in the bed opposite, and made my way to the entrance of the hospital. There I found a small room partitioned off by a counter. A girl sat at a large switchboard manipulating plugs and cords.