Murder in the Telephone Exchange (29 page)

I flipped through them disinterestedly. What was the use of trying them again, and dragging people out of bed at this unearthly hour. As I started to re-mark them for 8 a.m. the following day, a name caught my eye. My attention froze on to it immediately. It was an almost absurd coincidence. I stared at it stupidly. But there it was in black and white, or rather yellow because an in-docket recorded the call from Bertuna to a city number, personal to Mr. C. Gordon. I turned it over quickly, and discovered that it had been a particular person unavailable all night—to be tried again urgently.

I shot a glance at the clock. It was nearly 1 a.m., but that did not deter me. I dialled the first country town that switched for Bertuna.

“A line to Merriup,” I demanded and waited patiently. Presently a sleepy voice came on to declare the station.

“Melbourne speaking,” I said, flashing my monitor's light to bring John Clarkson back. “A line to Bertuna, please.”

“They're closed, Melbourne,” answered Merriup with some indignation. “It's after twelve.”

“I can tell the time, thank you,” I remarked crisply. “Open them up.”

“It'll be an opening fee,” declared the voice doubtfully.

“Open them,” I repeated. “I'll take the responsibility.” I heard a few clatters as Merriup put down her hand-set, and rang on the Bertuna
line. Presently her aggrieved voice remarked: “They're not answering, Melbourne.”

“Ring them again,” I ordered stubbornly. “And keep on ringing until you get them. I'll stay on the line.”

“Getting through, Mel?” asked the main switching station.

“Yes, thanks; leave me on until I ring back on the line, will you? Are you calling them, Merriup?”

“Yes,” snapped the voice, “and don't you tell me how to switch. I've been at it for twenty-five years.”

“You should be due for your pension any time now,” I suggested, and received a nasty threat to report my rudeness.

“What is it, Maggie?” asked a voice in my right ear. It was Clark. I pointed to the yellow docket in silence. He picked it up and whistled long and low.

“It might be interesting,” I said. “Will you get a hand-set?”

His eyes danced for a minute, but his face was quite grave. “It's against the rules, both moral and the Department's, but I'll risk it.”

“I won't split. Yes, Merriup, Melbourne waiting. Oh, is that Bertuna? Sorry if we woke you. I want 7D please, a party line.”

“There'll be an opening fee on this,” Bertuna threatened me.

“I know, I have already been warned. You'll get your miserable eighteen pence. Tell me, who is the subscriber at 7D?”

There was silence as Bertuna pondered for a while. After all, it was rather difficult to summon all your faculties to work out whose number it was at a moment's notice; especially at that early hour of the morning. “Charlie Gordon's place,” she said at last. It didn't surprise me. I had guessed as much. The Bertuna telephonist waxed conversational as she called on the party-line. I could hear the ring-two long and a short.

“His daughter did herself in early this morning,” she informed me. I nodded to myself wearily. As if I wouldn't be likely to know! “She worked at Trunks,” the voice went on. “Did you ever come across her?”

“On occasions,” I replied, listening intently for an answer from 7D.

“They're very cut up about it round here. She was such a nice girl. I couldn't believe my ears when they told me.” I heard a click, but it was only Clark plugging in on my board. He grinned at me as if I was a fellow-conspirator, and drew up the adjacent chair.

“To whom are you talking?” he whispered, covering his mouthpiece with one hand. Bertuna was still flowing on about her impressions and emotions at the news of Gordon's suicide.

“Bertuna,” I replied helplessly. “We're a gossipy clan. Yes, I'm here.”

“You're through, Melbourne.”

“Thanks, Is that Bertuna 7D?” I asked as a subdued female answered. “You booked a call earlier to Mr. Gordon in Melbourne.”

“Have you found him?” asked the voice eagerly. “Hullo, Charlie. Are you there, Dad?”

“Just a minute, I only wanted to know if you'd like me to try your call again.”

“Oh, please,” said the voice on what I thought was a sob.

“Hold the line, please,” I ordered, dialling out the number of a residential hotel down town.

I knew the telephonist on duty rather well, but did not tarry to yarn with her as was our wont; rather, I attempted to disguise my voice, but to no avail.

“He's in room 304, Maggie,” she told me. “Have you got a cold?” Clark shook silently beside me. I gave him an indignant glance.

“Just a touch of laryngitis,” I replied airily. “Where's this bloke been all night, anyway?”

“On the razzle, I bet. I know these farmers when they come to town.” But Dulcie's father sounded far from gay as he answered his telephone.

“Mr. C. Gordon?” I queried. “Bertuna calling,” I closed his key. “Are you there, Mrs. Gordon? Your number is waiting. Go ahead, please.” I closed both keys, but opened the observing line, and leaned back in my chair.

“Now!” I breathed to Clark. There was dead silence on the line. I reopened the keys, puzzled, wondering if the monitoring line was out of order. Like so many subscribers, the Gordons were sitting facing each other and not uttering a word.

“You're connected,” I said patiently. “Please start your conversation.”

“Hullo, Charlie,” said Mrs. Gordon in a faltering voice. His deep one answered gravely: “Is that you, Mother?”

“I've been trying to get you all night, but they said you were out. Where have you been?”

“I was up at Russell Street most of the time. Then I went for a walk. It's no use, my dear. They're convinced that she killed Miss Compton.”

I heard Mrs. Gordon sob a little, and could visualize the tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks. “She couldn't have done it. Not our little Dulcie! She was such a good, quiet girl.” I nodded to Clark in an ‘I told you so' fashion. He frowned and rested his arms on the board, listening intently.

“Charlie,” went on Mrs. Gordon hesitantly. “I've got a letter here-from Dulcie. It arrived in the night's mail.” I nearly jumped out of my chair in excitement. What fools we had been not to guess! Of course Dulcie would not leave a farewell note in her rooms for all the world to read. She would
send it to her people-post it last night before- It took all my control to stop from going on the line to demand what she had written. I heard Charlie Gordon's troubled voice ordering his wife to read it. Mrs. Gordon did so, interspersed with pauses when I could hear her weeping pitifully. It was a pathetic little note, that filled me with fresh dread, particularly when my own name was mentioned.

“I have told one of the girls, Margaret Byrnes. You have heard me speak of her. She's one of the nicest girls at Central, and I know she would not tell the police. But they are bound to find out sooner or later, and I can't face it. Forgive me, darling Mummy, but I am so miserable. They say that it is just like going to sleep, but I don't care much, It is better than being hanged.” The letter ended there. There was no fierce contradiction to being guilty of murder. Dulcie Gordon had gone out of this world as quietly, and with as little fuss, as she had lived.

Were the police right after all, as Dulcie had not denied killing Sarah? ‘She's guilty. She's not guilty,' sang my brain over and over until I felt that I was going mad. Why couldn't she have said one thing or the other, and not left me in this horrible suspense of doubt? Had I been the means of causing her to commit that unpunishable crime, or did she anticipate the hangman and prevent the law from completing a conviction?

The Gordons talked on, but I took very little notice of their conversation. Indeed, I felt rather mean eavesdropping on their secret sorrows. Presently they speculated whether it would be better to hand Dulcie's letter over to the police at once or to destroy it, and keep some particle of their daughter's name unsullied. However, Charlie Gordon was adamant, and insisted that the police should learn of its existence. After all, as he told his wife and as I had considered earlier, they were already convinced of Dulcie's guilt. The fact that she had neither admitted nor denied having killed Compton might help them to change their decision, and work from the angle that she was innocent of any implication in the murder. The probable cause of her taking her own life was not the knowledge of actual guilt, but the fact that circumstantial evidence pointed her way. She knew that no jury on this earth could acquit her.

As the conversation had started on a repetitive course, I considered that it was high time that they finished useless speculations, and had some respite from the sadness that their conversation was causing each other. A glance at the clock showed that they had been connected for nearly a quarter of an hour.

“Three minutes have expired,” I informed them with largesse. “Are you extending?”

“No, thank you,” said Mr. Gordon hurriedly. “Good-bye, Mary, I'll be
home to-morrow night. Try to be brave, my dear.”

“Finish up, please,” I said without emotion, marking off the docket and signing my name.

“That's that,” I remarked calmly to Clark, pulling my earpiece on to my temple and rubbing a sore ear. “It leaves us precisely where we were before. To put it in a nutshell—did she, or didn't she?”

“I wouldn't like to give an opinion,” Clark answered slowly. “It seems impossible that such a nondescript girl would have the brain to work out such a cunning plan and yet—”

“And yet,” I continued, “it couldn't have been such a marvellous idea. Look how she ended up! Committed murder on Wednesday, and killed herself on Friday. It's too brief to be wholesome. No, there's more in this business than meets the eye,” I added reflectively.

“What do you mean?”

“I don't quite know,” I confessed. “But I think that I will keep an open mind as to Dulcie's guilt for a while.”

“Listen to me, Maggie,” Clark said sternly. “The police are not fools. They are trained, clever men. It's their job to discover the truth. If they are satisfied to leave things as they are, I am too.”

“And I,” I declared in a low voice, “am a telephonist. My job is switching, at which I think that l am fairly capable.”

“Correct, you conceited woman,” he said with a half-smile. “Stay in your own sphere, Maggie. Don't go prying into things that don't concern you.”

“Like Sarah Compton?” I interpolated gently. A sudden look of fear flashed through his eyes before he replied gravely, placing one hand on mine.

“Precisely, my dear. If our idea is correct and the killer is still at large, there is all the more reason why you should stay out of the picture.”

“I believe that you're concerned about my fate,” I remarked watching him surreptitiously. His hand tightened.

“Don't, Maggie,” he said in a low voice, as he arose from his chair. “You know that I—” and he stopped.

“I know—?” I prompted.

“No matter,” Clark replied curtly, starting to clear the boards of dockets and odd pencils. Presently he came back to inquire lightly: “Why do you always call me that?”

After a moment of puzzlement, l parried: “Why do you call me Maggie?”

He laughed. “
Touché!
Nicknames are the devil! Would you like some relief after the gruelling work you have put in?”

“I don't think so. Not for a while, anyway. Will you do me a favour?”

“Anything,” he answered promptly, with mock gallantry.

“Send Gloria Patterson over here to switch, I want to have a talk with her.”

Clark raised an admonitory finger, “Now, Miss Byrnes!”

“Nothing about murders,” I assured him hastily. “l want to ask her about something purely private.”

Under the pretext of collecting some dockets that I had pushed to the floor, I watched Clark approach Gloria. She started suddenly as he touched her shoulder and spoke a few words. An artificial smile spread over her face, and one hand pulled at the curls near her ears. ‘That girl would ogle anything in pants,' I thought disgustedly, sighting a docket half-hidden under the boards. I was compelled to go the full length of my telephone flex like a dog on a leash before l could retrieve it. Patterson's voice sounded slightly patronizing behind me as I got down on my hands and knees.

“What on earth are you doing, Maggie?”

“Playing hunt the thimble,” I retorted, rising to my feet and feeling red in the face and untidy from the exertion. Gloria was looking so impossibly well-groomed and smug that I longed to slap her.

“Clark sent me over to help you,” she continued, taking a chair beside mine.

“Good of you, Gloria,” I remarked gravely, wondering if the girl ever saw through anything that anyone said to her. She inclined her head graciously as she turned over dockets, disturbing my neat pile.