The owner of the Consolidated Mills was trying to bring strikebreakers in. Four truckloads of unemployed men from the city’s parks were nosing through the lines of sullen workers. The police opened a way for them. “X” saw the first real outbreak of violence.
A factory hand made a harsh-tongued harangue to his fellows. A dozen men rushed forward and surrounded the foremost of the trucks. The driver tried to speed up the vehicle. He was pulled from his seat, sent staggering into the gutter with a black eye. Workers swarmed around the truck in an angry sea. A strikebreaker shouted a warning. He was pulled from the truck and beaten. Blood ran as a fist squashed his nose. The voice of the mob rose in an angry roar.
The other scabs, fear suddenly in their hearts, leaped from the truck and ran yelling. Sticks, stones and empty bottles followed them. One man fell to the pavement with a cracked skull.
“X” SHOULDERED on inside the mill and a furtive watchman conducted him to the manager’s office. The owner wasn’t present; but the manager, bald-headed, nervous, was there. “X” at once told his purpose in coming.
“This strike most be stopped,” he said. “The workers don’t want it. It’s going to cause needless suffering and killing. It will wreck the returning prosperity of this city. The DOACs’ demands must be met before it is too late.”
A flush of fury spread over the manager’s pink face.
“That’s impossible,” he said. “They want a hundred thousand dollars from the mills of this city. The owners of Consolidated and others have refused to meet their demands. The DOACs and the workers are in league against us. It’s criminal extortion.”
“You’re wrong,” said the Agent harshly. “The DOACs have used intimidation, terrorism on the union leaders. They don’t want the strike any more than you do. But their lives wouldn’t be worth a cent if they didn’t call it. There’ll be murders, bloodshed if this thing isn’t stopped. The demands of the DOACs must be met, I tell you — to prevent a terrible catastrophe in this city.”
“It’s a racket!” shouted the manager. “We won’t be taken in by it. Who the hell are you?”
Again Agent “X” showed his card, and the manager’s face grew redder still.
“So! I told you the workers were in league with the DOACs. You dare to come here and tell me—”
Quietly Agent “X” opened his brief case.
“How much of the extortion money is assessed against this mill?” he asked.
“Twenty thousand dollars!”
The Agent took out a dozen packages of bills as the manager stared in wide-eyed amazement. “X” flipped the bills down on the man’s desk.
“Give me a receipt for that — and tell your boss that it is to be paid over to the DOACs at once.”
The manager was speechless for a moment. He found his voice. It was breathless.
“What about the other mills? Will they pay their share?”
“Yes. I can promise you that they will pay, too. The full amount will be raised.”
The manager nodded, grabbed a telephone. There was relief on his face. As he told his boss the good news, the sound of the strikers outside was like a rising storm.
Violence had gained headway as “X” went to the next big mill. A thousand wild rumors were going the rounds. Some union leaders were uncertain as to what course to follow. They were fighting furiously among themselves, giving and countermanding orders.
The mill owners, feeling that this strike was unfair and uncalled for, were bringing more and more scabs in. Regular employees of the mills, seeing their valued jobs snatched from under their noses, were becoming bitter, dangerous.
Beads of sweat on his forehead, working madly against time, Agent “X” visited mill after mill. He felt like a man pouring oil on troubled waters, trying to calm a raging sea to save a frail craft from destruction. His frenzied work was beginning to take effect.
The owners of the various mills along the trail behind “X” were getting in touch with one another. The word was going about that money had been obtained, that the DOACs’ demands were to be met.
An hour passed. Agent “X” moved on, interviewing, haranguing, taking packs of bills from his brief case. But not until the last mill owner had received his share of the Agent’s money and informed the DOACs that the sum demanded had been raised did the hooded organization get in touch with the union leaders.
Then at last the fury of the strikers began to abate. Groups of workers began straggling back to their jobs. Foremen began organizing shifts.
At the outskirts of the city by the last mill that Agent “X” came to, a tense knot of men stood gathered. Here, like a lurid spark of revolt refusing to die out, hatred and suspicion were still burning fiercely. The Agent heard a man’s voice, hoarse, frenzied, haranguing those around him. He saw a pair of arms flailing the air. The man seemed to have the gift of an orator. He was holding the others spellbound.
“Don’t go back to your work, fools!” the man was shouting. “Don’t let your bosses betray you. Who are they to make pawns of you! They are being bought off. They are the tools of the mill owners. Money has been sent in from the outside to stop this strike. You are being sold out, double-crossed, betrayed.”
A leader of a local union thrust forward angrily to speak to the man. The man lashed out with a huge, brutal fist, knocking the other down. As he did so he turned his head and Agent “X” caught sight of his face for the first time. He gasped.
The man was broad-shouldered, his features covered by a dense black beard shot with streaks of gray. The gleaming, close-set eyes, burning with the light of fanaticism, were familiar.
Every muscle in the Agent’s body grew tense. He was looking at the face of Leon Di Lauro — Summerville’s strange guest and Mike Carney’s suspect.
Chapter XV
THE sight of this man backed up the Agent’s suspicions against him and Benjamin Summerville. Di Lauro was trying to make trouble. His persuasive eloquence was creating doubt in the minds of the mill-hands. He had caught their attention. His violence against the union leader made him seem dramatic.
The Agent knew that many of the DOACs probably were honest men, working for what they considered the betterment of the nation. These were the ones who had been fooled and tricked by DOAC propaganda — men like the slain Gordon Ridley. Possibly Di Lauro was such a man, too. Again, he might have the cleverness to cover criminal motives with the cloak of sincerity. Whatever his real character, he was in a tight spot now. The union leader was rising angrily, fists clenched, demanding that the workers ignore Di Lauro and return to their jobs.
The men were uncertain, bewildered, torn between loyalty to a union they felt might have betrayed them, and the convincing arguments of the bearded agitator.
Di Lauro was a solid man, built to stand physical punishment, well able to give it out. The union leader had the same muscular proportions. They glared at each other. Intense hate shone in their eyes.
“Comrades, this man is a four-flusher, a crook, a trouble-maker,” cried the union leader. “You don’t know him, and neither do I. Listen to him and you’ll have a lot of grief on your hands. The best way to get ahead in this world is to work. Don’t forget the tough times you’ve all been through! You guys are lucky to have jobs. There’s a lot that would like to be in your shoes. Go back to your jobs now and let this bird whistle through his whiskers alone.
“He knows how to sling the lingo — but don’t let that fool you. Get back to the mill — an’ tonight you can drink your beer, take your missus to a movie or play with the kids. What more does a guy need to be happy?”