Murder in the Telephone Exchange (55 page)

“I never knew how domesticated you were, Maggie. What a good wife you'll make some lucky man!”

I grimaced, trying to disguise the sudden flush that crept into my face.
“Don't say that. With my unpowdered skin, it makes me feel worse. Where are your tea-towels?”

Clark pulled open the drawers, one after the other. “Damned if I know! An old woman usually comes in every day to do for me. Wait a minute, Are these what you want?”

“Yes, they're correct. You can use them while I wash these dishes. Why didn't she come in today?” I asked, pouring hot water into the stainless-steel sink and soaping vigorously.

“She has every second week-end off,” Clark replied. “I wonder why that flat-foot friend of yours is coming here?”

“To cross-examine us,” I answered cheerfully. “Are you sure that that's all the dirty plates?”

“Stop being so energetic. You make me feel worse.”

“Head and tongue like cotton-wool?” I asked knowingly. “What on earth possessed you to take three tablets? I found two more than adequate.”

“I wanted to make sure,” he replied, following me back into the lounge-room. “I wish you'd sit down, Roberts. You've no idea how sinister you appear, standing near the door like that. You need have no fears. Neither Miss Byrnes nor myself feel any desire to make a getaway.”

Roberts compromised by perching on the arm of the chair nearest the door, only to rise again as the bell pealed.

“He'll go off you when he sees you without lipstick,” Clark warned me. It was nearly more than I could stand. “Hullo, Sergeant. Welcome to my humble abode.”

“Good morning, Mr. Clarkson. You've got a very nice place here,” and his eyes wandered appreciatively over the room. They came finally to me, seated with my back discreetly to the light.

“Good morning, Miss Byrnes. I believe you met with an accident last night.”

“My, how the news gets around! When did you learn about it?”

Clark motioned, him to be seated, and he chose a straight-backed leather chair, staring full into the sun. I wondered why he was not more careful, if he freckled easily.

“There was a report on my desk when I came in. Mr. Scott had telephoned early this morning.”

“Bertie!” I exclaimed incredulously. “The cheek of the man. It was he who hit me; or at least he had something to do with it.”

The Sergeant raised his brows inquiringly. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

I told him the same story that I had related to Clark, preceding it with my new discovery, in the shape of Mr. Atkinson.

Sergeant Matheson glanced at his henchman. “Was this the man you rang Headquarters to pick up?”

Roberts replied cautiously. Evidently, years of association with criminal inspectors had taught him not to commit himself. “It is, if the young lady is talking about the same man as the one she told me to follow this morning.”

“What description did you give them?”

Roberts half-closed his eyes. “About six feet, fair-haired, driving a blue sedan, number 68,749,” he rattled off.

Sergeant Matheson wrote it down in his notebook and, tearing out the sheet, handed it to the policeman. “ 'Phone these further particulars through. Would you mind, Mr. Clarkson?”

“Go right ahead,” Clark replied, waving his hand. “I'll send my next quarter's bill in to Russell Street.”

The Sergeant's face remained expressionless. I felt annoyed at his lack of humour.

“This docket you found, Miss Byrnes? I understand that it will be quite easy to trace?”

“I don't know on which pile it will be, but it will be the first; that is, if Mr. Atkinson or one of his associates didn't remove it later.”

“In that case I won't trouble you to come into town. If you don't mind me saying so, you look very off-colour this morning. I advise you to go home to bed.”

I felt Clark shake gently beside me, and dug my elbow into his ribs.

“Just one other matter before I go,” continued the Sergeant. “Mr. Clarkson, are you certain that Miss MacIntyre wrote a letter to you before she died?”

“There is a possibility,” Clark admitted. “The theory is Miss Byrnes's, not mine.”

I hastened to explain the torn-up sheets of notepaper that I had found in Mac's room. “Mac might have remembered Dulcie Gordon and imitated her. After all, it would have been the safest way.”

“That's all very well,” said the Sergeant irritably. “The best move would have been to tell the police.”

“Did you look in your own mail this morning?” I asked pointedly.

“No communication was received from Miss MacIntyre,” he replied, rising to his feet. “That's all for the moment. It only remains for us to trace this man Atkinson, and see what he has to say for himself.”

Clark got up to escort him to the front door, but I remained where I was.

“By the way, Miss Byrnes,” he said casually from the doorway, “if you care to come up to the Exchange this afternoon, you can see those
statements. Inspector Coleman will be in his usual room. Good-bye.”

I heard his light steps going down the brick stairs outside, followed by the heavy plodding of Roberts. Presently a car drove off.

“What statements?” Clark asked, coming back. “Maggie, you're to go home at once. You look fit to drop.”

“So the Sergeant observed,” I retorted. “Will you come in with me this afternoon? You remember how there were eight people left on the floor after that awful game of yours. It is their statements that I want to read.”

Clark stood directly in front of me, looking down.

“Can't you drop out of the business now, Maggie? You're killing yourself. After all, it is a police job.”

“As long as no one else does the killing, I don't mind,” I remarked grimly, and suddenly stretched myself, yawning. “I'm tired, but I seem to have been in that state for the past week. Have you ever got that way when your brain feels stretched to its limit, and liable to snap at any minute?”

Clark looked troubled, “You're heading for a breakdown.” I got up swiftly, and had to cling to the edge of a table as my head swam suddenly.

“Nonsense!” I replied. “I'm not going to rest until they find out who killed Mac. And that's final. Can you lend me some money? My handbag is still in my locker at the Exchange.”

“I'll get you a taxi,” declared Clark, and ignored my feeble protest. “You'd never get home without one. Does your mother know what has happened?”

“Not yet,” I confessed. “I phoned from the hospital to say that I was delayed in town. I suppose she'll shriek when she sees the lump on my head. Will you call round, or will I meet you at the Exchange?”

“The invitation wasn't issued to me,” Clark pointed out. “But I may come in, even if it's just to annoy Sergeant Matheson. Don't bank on it, as I have a few things to do in town.”

“Why should your being there annoy him?” I asked indignantly. “After all you did for them on Saturday night?”

Clark shrugged. “He has a nasty look in his eye whenever he speaks to me; in fact, he reminds me somewhat of your psalm-singing landlady.”

“Well, if I don't see you this afternoon, I will to-night. I suppose I'd better work. It may take my mind off things.”

I found Charlotte attacking Mrs. Bates's zinnia bed with a dutch hoe, and called out to her in a cheerful manner that I was far from feeling. She dropped the hoe, and came running over the lawn.

“Maggie Byrnes, where on earth have you been?”

“In hospital,” I replied. “Do you mind if we go inside. The sun is making me feel a bit sick.”

My mother gave the dressing on my forehead one troubled look, and guided me upstairs to her own room. It was cool there.

“On to the bed,” she commanded, making a nest of pillows, “and no talking until you've had a rest.”

“Don't you want to know how I came to be in hospital?” I asked, baffled at her lack of curiosity.

“I already know. That nice Mr. Scott rang me this morning. As a matter of fact, he caught me under the shower. Shall I pull down the blind?”

“Did you say nice?” I asked incredulously, raising myself on one elbow. As if it wasn't bad enough to be told by your Senior Traffic Officer that your mother was a remarkable woman, without her more or less reciprocating his sentiments!

“I thought that you'd have been home ages ago,” she scolded. “When I rang the hospital, they said that you'd left. Where have you been?”

“At John Clarkson's flat,” I said, suddenly very weary. I felt that it was almost impossible to go into lengthy explanations just then. “Let me rest a while, and then I'll tell you everything.”

“I'll call you for lunch,” she promised, tip-toeing out and closing the door quietly behind her.

I clasped my interlocked fingers against my forehead, trying to still the tight throbbing pain that seemed my whole world. Presently I fell into a restless doze that only increased the feeling of fatigue when I awoke. Charlotte was very sweet and understanding, but it was necessary to keep myself tightly curbed to avoid answering her questions irritably. I had given her the barest outline of my adventures, and, not unreasonably, she was dissatisfied with it. But my brain felt incapable of deducing and theorizing just then. After a while she forbore any more questions and left me in peace. However, she protested strongly against my decision to go into the Exchange that afternoon for the purpose of examining the statements.

“You are knocking yourself out,” she remarked, as she followed me into my bedroom while I got dressed. “What do you hope to get out of it?”

“The murderer. The person who killed Mac. Charlotte, please be patient. I promise you that I'll go to bed for a week after everything is finished.”

“But the case may go on for months,” said my mother despairingly. “You'll never stand the strain.”

I paused in making up my face, and noticed that the hand that held the lipstick shook slightly.

“I can and I will,” I said stubbornly, finishing the outline of my mouth. I leaned forward to survey the bruise on my forehead in the pink-tinted mirror, and remembering my attempt at a new coiffure in the golf-house
cloakroom the day before, I combed my hair forward loosely so that the lump was partly hidden. It was ridiculous how different my face looked; the new hairdo seemed to alter the contours and features.

“If ever I want to disguise myself I'll remember this way,” I said to Charlotte, drawing her attention to my hair. She surveyed it critically.

“It doesn't suit you,” she announced. “You look like that Patterson girl.” Which remark was really rather extraordinary in the face of an incident which happened not very much later.

* * * * *

It occurred going up in the lift at the Exchange, when I was caught in a crowd of mechanics coming on the afternoon shift. I got far back, knowing that they would get out before me. After a half-hearted glance to see if Dan Mitchell was amongst them, to thank him for what he did the night before, I dropped my eyes to the floor. Not that I actually knew what it was, but he may have been able to throw some light on the identity of the person who had hit me. Leaning against the wall of the lift with my head sunk wearily, I wondered in a vague way why Bill hadn't given me his customary greeting. Had the police interviewed him, and told him that it was I who had laid information against him? I watched his one hand manipulate the lever that brought us to a standstill outside the eighth floor. It was odd how one noticed people's hands. They seemed so much more to blame for acts of violence than their brains. Was it just that one hand, now sliding open the doors to let me get out, that was responsible for two deaths?

Bill spoke very quietly as I came forward. His words made me stop to look down at him in amazement. He was fiddling with the shutters on the board in front of him, and his head was turned away as he said sternly: “I am going to tell the police, Gloria. It is better to do so than to let them find out for themselves.”

I stood there speechless, one foot on the floor of the lift, the other on the eighth floor landing. Presently he glanced up, and his plain, pleasant face became suffused with a dull colour. Was it anger or embarrassment? Even in spite of my bemused state of mind, I was sure that it was the latter.

He said confusedly: “Miss Byrnes? I thought you were—that you were someone else.” His laugh was unnatural and without mirth.

I made some noncommittal reply, and stepped out. The doors closed sharply behind me and the lift descended, leaving me standing still dazed on the landing.

The whole incident only took a few seconds, but in that time I had

learned that Bill knew Gloria well enough to address her by her Christian name, and that he shared the knowledge that she had held secret for the last few days. Would his mistake make him change his decision to go to the police; the fact that he had taken me for Gloria, and thereby letting something slip that was meant for her ears alone, weaken his determination? I could tell the police what happened myself, but how far would that help, if Bill suddenly refused to talk?