Murder in the Telephone Exchange. June Wright

at his words, but kept my face passive. He came round the table to my side.

      “You fool, you hopeless little fool,” he continued, gripping my arm. “Don’t you realize that you may be holding in that silly brain of yours some half-forgotten fact that may make your life a danger to this inhuman creature?”

      My eyes swept his face. Some half-forgotten fact! Last night I had been trying to remember something when I was switching at the boards, and I couldn’t. Was the Sergeant right? Was that semi-conscious thought a necessary thread of evidence? Then I remembered Mac and her big tragic eyes. I couldn’t speak. I wouldn’t, not until she had given me my cue. Mac knew something; of that I was certain.

      “You’re hurting my arm,” I said coldly. “Can we go back to the Exchange now? Thanks for the tea.”

      Sergeant Matheson removed his hand. He looked at me in a helpless way. “I could shake you,” I heard him say breathlessly, as I led the way between the tables to the door.

      * * * * *

      He appeared so stern as we drove up town, that I began to think that I had behaved idiotically. I felt almost frightened of him. “After all, he is an officer of the law, not a shy boy,” I argued with myself. “I suppose that I should tell him.” But some instinct made me hold my tongue. “I’ll wait until I have seen Dulcie.” I thought.

      Sergeant Matheson parked the car without a word, and took my arm as we crossed the street to the Exchange door. “Please tell me everything you know soon, Miss Byrnes,” he begged. His voice sounded anxious. I shook my head wretchedly. What a nuisance one’s loyalties could be!

      The Sergeant stopped at the door to speak to the guard, but I continued on my way. A different knot of telephonists was gathered in the hall, but they gazed at me with the same curiosity as the others had that morning. I felt a strong temptation to put my tongue out at them, and was compelled to use all my will-power to pass them in silence. It had more effect than any vulgar gesture I could have made, and they dispersed rapidly. I found old Bill making his last trip for the night before switching the lift over to the automatic, and felt inexpressibly relieved. I hadn’t fancied a walk up eight flights of stairs. I would never have ridden in that lift alone.

      “Well, little lady?” he asked in his kindly way. “Have you had a trying day?”

      “Not so little,” I retorted. “Yes, I’m worn out even before I start work.”

      “Terrible business,” he said abruptly, banging one of the indicators shut.

      “Very,” I agreed. Then a thought struck me. “Look here, Bill, you must know a lot about this place one way and another, driving this box up and down all day. What did you think of Miss Compton? What sort of woman would you say she was?”

      He ignored a signal from the third floor and I could hear someone calling out indignantly.

      “I knew her when she first came here to work,” he said slowly. “I was a mechanic in the old power room at Central; before this happened, of course,” and he took his hand from the lever to indicate his empty sleeve. I felt touched. He was probably an excellent mechanic; the way in which he looked after the lift proved that. Now, because of that bloody debacle of over a quarter of a century ago, he was reduced to the inanity of his present job.

      Bill glanced at me smiling, as though sensing my sympathy. “You mightn’t believe me,” he declared, “but Sarah Compton was quite a good-looking girl when she was young. Not unlike yourself, as a matter of fact. Tall and fair.”

      “Good lord,” I said blankly. “Will I look like her when I reach middle age?”

      “Quite likely. I see ’em all fade as the years go by.”

      I gazed at him curiously, as we stopped at the eighth floor. “You’ve been with the Department for a long time, haven’t you?”