Murder in the Telephone Exchange Read Online Free PDF Page A

dials. These boards occupy the larger part of the room together with booking, inquiry and information desks, and the Senior Traffic Officer’s table. In one arm of the T-shape stands the sortagraph, which brings dockets to the operator from the boards by means of air-pressure tubes underthe floor. In the other is an immense delay board, another marvel of this mechanical age, which manifests the waiting time on the various interstate and country lines. The room is lighted and aired by windows on all sides for the hundred or more people working therein at the peak period.
    At night the Senior Traffic Officer was not on duty, so John Clarkson was head man. I could hardly expect a rebuke from him for my tardy return, though he was a great stickler for punctuality as a rule. He was sitting at Bertie’s desk, his head bent over his writing. And there was Compton fluttering around him as normally as ever. It was as if I had last beheld her plain face in an absurd nightmare. She even had the audacity to say accusingly: “You’re very late, Miss Byrnes,” as I approached her to learn my position. I glanced at her keenly to observe any recognition of our last meeting, but the pale eyes that met mine were quite blank.
    â€œYou can start the relieving,” she told me.
    If there was one job I loathed more than another, it was that. In the hour before the rush half-fee period, those telephonists working more than three hours on end were entitled to a ten-minute break. I suspected Compton of spite in allotting the relieving to me, though to give her her due, it was usually the job of the late telephonist. Where all the other telephonists would go off duty at 10.30 p.m., I had to wait until the all-night girls who worked the interstate positions came on at 11 p.m. Just as the late telephonist on the country positions on the far side of the room would gather all working country lines on to a couple of boards and operate them all, so I would have to do the same with the interstate lines. Although traffic was cleared up rather well by 10 p.m., two telephonists to cover the work of sixty meant all your concentration and ability. I have always hated that last half-hour.
    To-night there was no late country operator. It had been arranged that Gerda Maclntyre, the sortagrapher, would transfer there when her own position closed down at 10 p.m. Mac, who was by way of being a particular friend of mine, was one of the most versatile telephonists I have ever known. She had a lovely voice, unroughened by many years in the Exchange, and tiny hands that dealt with any amount of work with the most amazing competence and ease. John Clarkson would probably take us both down town somewhere for supper after work. There was a time when I was afraid Mac was taking Clark rather seriously. However, everything seemed to have cleared up, and I was somewhat relieved, though I could never put my finger on the exact cause of my relief.
    I started on my tour of the interstate positions; ten minutes here, and ten minutes there. No two telephonists work alike. By the time you got the lines working your own system the original operator returned to sayrather acidly: “You seem to be in a bag.”
    â€˜In a bag’ is an expression peculiar to the Melbourne telephonist; it means that you are in a muddle or so confused that you can’t straighten things out. In Sydney, the girls say that they are ‘overboard.’ As a rule Mac was sent for when anyone got in a bag. It was a delight to watch those small hands of hers pass rapidly over the board from key to dial and from dial to docket, a pencil always between the first two fingers but in no way hindering the clearance at which she arrived so quickly.
    I plugged my flex on the main Adelaide board, waiting for Gloria Patterson to slip out of the position. Patterson was what I call a genteel telephonist, and one to whom Mac often rendered assistance. She was more concerned with keeping her