Chapter VI: The Plot Against Organized Labor

As the day wore on members of the Criminology Club, in their assumed capacity of dock hands, heard with irritating frequency the announcement of the strike meeting called for that night. The sudden change of attitude of the shipowners toward the 'longshoremen was startling and puzzling. Harrison Grant confessed his bewilderment to himself even as he tried to dispel it by joining the small groups that gathered here and there, listening for the meager information their conversation contained. The talk was mostly of an argumentative nature, discussion rising magically over the soaring cost of living, their long hours, and the wrongs, fancied or otherwise, heaped upon them by the shipowners. In each little group, Grant noticed, when excitement lagged or one more cool-headed than the rest counselled less haste and more caution, less hot-headed talk and more cool thought, that at least one of the group was ready to stir them up into argument again. But in these troublesome agitators, neither Grant nor his confreres could recognize any of the paid agents of the German government known to them.

The sinking of the lighter had become the main topic of conversation. During the noon hour excitement and agitation ran high. The 'longshoremen resented being accused of sinking the lighter. Vehemently group after group disclaimed any such guilt. And while one group, hot in its denials, still seemed to believe that the shipowners would listen to their denials of guilt, time and again Grant heard references to the sinking of the lighter as though it had been the work of the 'longshoremen and as such was a commendable act in view of the wrongs done them. These agitators he knew were a foreign element.

The air was permeated with the strike fever, and the fever was fed by remarks, actions, hints, constantly passing among the workmen but none of them traceable to men of known German leanings. Passing Billy Cavanaugh, Grant signalled to him to stop a moment, and, while he mopped his perspiring forehead, confided his doubts to him.

"Strike meeting tonight and they don't know the real reason for their strike! And we've got to find out for 'em and put a stop to it today."

Billy stared at him hopelessly. "What are you going to do? Germany is behind this but she is hiding so tight we can't find her." The Criminology Club could see hidden in this wild maze of misunderstanding the hands of Von Rintelen, Von Bernstorff, Albert, Von Papen, Boy-Ed and Von Lertz as the 'longshoremen could not; they could see the hands, but could not shackle them.

The German dock foreman, upon whom Von Rintelen had called the night before, was rushing his inexperienced crew. The work of loading the _Arsulus_ had gone forward with a rush. Burly laborers, ignorant of the crime in which they were being used as tools, loaded crates and boxes of produce into the hold of the _Arsulus_. Reinforced here and there by men with whom the foreman was familiar, and who were well aware of their share in the crime, driven and roared and cursed at by the foreman, the laborers bent to their task. And the cargo of the _Arsulus_ piled high against the hold on the water-side of the vessel. Her hawsers were pulling at their moorings. She creaked and rattled with the wash of the current, and listed slightly in her slip. But in the seething maelstrom of activity these things passed unnoticed.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Grant picked up the word that the men at Union Headquarters had taken up the question of a strike with the shipowners once more. That they were seeking to convince them that there should be one more conference before the strike was called. And at last word came that the shipowners had consented to their pleas and would confer with them.

The quitting bell clanged and the men of the day shift dropped their trucks. For a brief space comparative quiet reigned where all had been noise, clatter, ear-splitting crashes, combined with shouts of men in a fever heat of excitement.

Grant, Cavanaugh, Sisson and Stewart of the Criminology Club joined the hurrying ranks and wedged themselves into the hall where the Union meetings were held, amid a crowd of perspiring, cursing, excited 'longshoremen.

The chairman of the Shipowners Committee was speaking. As his voice was raised a silence fell upon the crowd.

"Men, we want to be fair. You say that the 'longshoremen did not sink our lighter. We will grant that there may be some mistake here. We received your letter of last night and acted as we saw best. Your chairman and others here assure us that they sent no letter; if this is the case we will listen to you. Now talk quickly. State your demands."

Instantly the hall was a bedlam of noise. Men shouted, trying to make themselves heard. Grant saw the men who had been foremost in spreading agitation among the groups on the docks now striving to add to the confusion and clamor by hurling epithets at the Shipowners Committee and urging the men at their sides to increase their demands.

Disgusted, and seeing no solutions here to the problem that absorbed their minds, Grant signalled to Cavanaugh.

"Get Stewart and Sisson and get out of here. We'll get back to the docks. This is likely to last all night and then not amount to anything."

Grant slipped out hurriedly, knowing that the others would follow him. Ahead of him slouched two men. As he passed, one stopped to scratch a match against the building. It's flare lighted a face strongly Teutonic, and as the match died down and was tossed away Grant slowed up in the darkness and strained his ear to catch their conversation.

They spoke in German. "We did good work at our dock today." Out of the darkness on the cool night air the words came clearly, though gutturally, to Grant's ears.

"Yes? What kind?"

"Loading cargo. Dock Fourteen."

They passed out of earshot. A moment later Grant heard the quick steps of Cavanaugh and the other two operatives, and soon they were swinging along to the dock. That there had been a note of pride or at least boastfulness in the voice of the man he had heard speaking by the wall, Grant was not slow to discern. To see that a man of his type, whom Grant classed with the agitators of the day on the docks, would not feel any great pride over the loading of a ship's cargo, did not take great powers of discernment. Grant with a mind trained to pick up the faintest clue leaped to the conclusion that here was a thread that led to something which could be grasped. Evidently something had taken place that day on the dock which the Criminology Club had overlooked.

"Dock Fourteen" he announced briefly to the others and silently they followed him. The great hulk of the _Arsulus_ reared itself into the darkness of the night above the brightly lighted dock.

"Wait here unless I call," said Grant. He scrambled aboard and peered down the hatchway. His eyes swept the dark interior of the hold. One side was black, but in the side toward the water piles upon piles of packing boxes, baskets and clean-crated produce showed dimly.

A voice at his elbow startled him.

"Anything wrong here?" To Grant the figure of the dock foreman, shock-headed, heavy-jawed, with heavy arms swinging loosely, was typically bestial. With a quick sense of distaste he straightened.

"Wrong? Somewhat! Unless this is a new style of loading a vessel. How long since they have been loading the cargo on one side? Looks like incompetence or--" but the foreman seemed indisposed to listen to Grant's ideas on the matter, for a second later Grant had crumpled under his heavy fist and was sliding down the steep stairway.

The foreman leaned forward and surveyed the three figures of the Criminology Club men on the dock. Picking up a balehook he laid it within easy reach, then cupping his hands about his mouth he called in a somewhat subdued but clearly audible voice, "Help. Help!"

He saw the three men leap forward to the ship's side. He flattened himself against a pile of boxes. A moment more and the men had passed him and were clambering down the hatch. As the last one disappeared he sprang to the hatchway and battened it. Grant, Cavanaugh, Stewart and Sisson were prisoners.

The German dock foreman uttered a shrill whistle. It was answered in a moment and a figure joined him hurriedly.

"Wait until I'm off the dock and safe. Then cut the hawsers." It was the foreman who spoke and the other nodded. His huge figure disappeared down the length of a warehouse. The man he had left reached for an axe which lay on a pile of boxes. There was no sound except a straining and creaking as he hacked at the hawsers of the _Arsulus_. Grant and his men inside the hatchway were beating at the door in an effort to break it open. Suddenly they felt the movement of the vessel as it listed sharply. They heard the clattering and crashing of trucks, benches and tools falling from their places sliding over the floor of the hold. The vessel trembled as the last hawser parted and with a sudden lurch the _Arsulus_ capsized, carrying with her to what seemed certain death the four members of the Criminology Club.

Perhaps to death, but a death they would fight to the last! Boxes and bales tumbled and crashed about. A porthole on the underside burst under the pressure of water and a geyserlike stream spouted up. The men knew that the water was flowing in, that it was only a matter of a short time before the vessel would be submerged and that to the chill shadows of the hold would be added the shadow of death! Scrambling from one box to another they eluded the ever-rising wave of water. At last they had reached the highest point of vantage they could find. And for a short time at least the waters seemed at a standstill. Above them was the cold steel side of the vessel. Below them the churn and rush of water.

While Harrison Grant and his friends fought for their lives in the hold of the wrecked _Arsulus_, the conference at the Headquarters of the Union proceeded. Order was being formulated out of chaos, the 'longshoremen's demands were being gathered into shape, and it seemed that a settlement agreeable to all was about to be reached. Suddenly the telephone on the table jangled. One of the Union officials answered it, then turned it over to the Chairman of the Shipowners Committee.

"It's for you."

There was a moment's silence while he fumbled with the receiver, his greeting, and then another silence while the voice of the speaker at the other end of the line came to their ears in squeaky accents.

As they watched him, the Chairman's face hardened.

"Here, say that over again. No! Well they've reached the limit. This means the end." The receiver banged into its socket and the chairman faced the group of tense men at the table.

"Gentlemen, the _Arsulus_ has just been sunk at its dock. You were warned that if another depredation occurred we would lock you out whether you struck or not." His fist crashed to the table. "That ship was loaded so it would capsize. A million dollars worth of property has been destroyed. You will see that we can take no other action. Negotiations are at an end. We will fight you now to the finish. I must bid you good evening." Calmly and coldly he threaded his way through the crowds of 'longshoremen into whose minds the greatness of this new blow, just struck, was beginning to penetrate.

There was a sudden burst of sound as men tried to make themselves heard, seeking for recognition, yelling, shouting. Again and again the gavel crashed to the table for order. Finally, reluctantly it came.

The president of the 'Longshoremen's Union looked down at the upturned faces of his men.

"Boys, this meeting is not of our choice. Strange things have happened. We must remember, however, in our excitement and resentment that in the past the shipowners have treated us with a large measure of fairness. Now we must face these new problems. The Chairman of the shipowners' committee has just announced to us that they will refuse to treat with us----"

"Then let's strike. Give them their answer. Strike!"

It was the German dock foreman who had leaped to his feet and was striding up and down the aisle in defiance of the gavel beating for order. One after another the 'longshoremen joined in his cry, hypnotized by his apparent earnestness, eager to follow his evident leadership.

"Strike, Strike! We'll bring these shipowners to their senses. What have they done for us?"

In the overturned hulk of the _Arsulus_, still fighting the death that seemed imminent, the members of the Criminology Club racked their brains for a means of escape from the waters threatening to engulf them.

Grant reached out a hand in the darkness and encountered a clenched fist. "Cavanaugh, is that you?"

"Yes," the reply bordered on a gasp.

"Some kind of crating here. I've got a balehook I picked up somewhere."

"A balehook? Give it to me."

Cavanaugh handed the implement to Grant, who dragged himself to the pinnacle of the debris and began a systematic tapping on the steel hull of the vessel with the handle of the heavy hook.

In a moment the operatives deciphered the message he was sending in Morse Code.

"Send help! Send help!" he signalled over and over, and when his arm was about to fail, Cavanaugh scrambled to his side and took up the tapping. How long they waited they could not tell. Time dragged and the waters began to rise again while the splashing about of floating boxes, drifting among the debris drowned out the outside noises. Grant, reaching up with the balehook to begin his signalling once more was startled to see a tiny spot of red glowing above his head in the darkness. A moment more and the spot changed to white and he lurched sideways as a hissing drop of molten steel sung past his ear and dropped into the water with a burst of steam.

A greenish flame showed through the steel, the flame of an acetylene torch, lighting the watery, floating hold like a glint of summer lightning. And as they watched it, the hole grew and grew. At last a mass of steel dropped into the water and through the widened hole, Grant caught a glimpse of the stars twinkling in the sky. A shadow fell across the opening and they heard a voice bellowing to them above the sound of the water.

"Who's there?"

"Harrison Grant, Cavanaugh, Stewart, Sisson!" Four masculine voices shouted the necessary information.

"Oh, all right, gentlemen! Hold tight until the edges have cooled. Just a minute now."

Five minutes later the four members of the Criminology Club, bruised and battered, wet and ragged, stood upright on the hull of the capsized vessel, under the bright stars, with the cool breath of the river blowing into their grateful nostrils. The lights from the docks glinted on the buttons and stars which adorned the coats of their rescuers. Grant leaned forward and peered into the face of one of the patrolmen.

"Leary! So you're the one who does the Desperate Desmond act and rescues gentlemen in distress?"

"Yes Mr. Grant. And do you feel like answering any questions?"

"If they are necessary."

"They're necessary all right. If you'll just come over here on the dock, please. Muldoon's got a prisoner. Saw him running away from the dock here and tripped him up. He'll confess, all right."

Grant followed the patrolman into the warehouse. Muldoon clutched a cringing form. "That's no one I know, Muldoon. He is probably a confederate."

"He said he did it all, Mr. Grant."

"A favorite tale with these German spies, Muldoon. Here you!" He grasped the spy suddenly. "I want you to tell the truth and to tell it quick. Where's the foreman of this dock?"

The spy swallowed with evident effort, and then gasped out:

"Gone to a labor meeting."

"He gave you orders to cut those hawsers didn't he?"

The spy's eyes wavered, and then, held by Grant's glance, came back:

"Yes."

"Why?"

The spy shrugged his shoulders. "He had orders to sink the ship."

"From whom?"

"I don't know. He wanted them to think the 'longshoremen did it."

"And bring about a strike? Very simple. Now we'll go over to the labor meeting and you can tell the people you see there this same little story."

The spy with a sudden jerk tried to free himself, but Muldoon's burly fist clenched on his shoulder.

The 'longshoremen's meeting had reached its climax, and now a quiet had fallen. Human nature cannot keep itself at a high pitch of excitement indefinitely. The reaction had come. Silence reigned as Grant and his companions, and the two policemen, leading the ashy-faced prisoner, entered the hall. The voice of the clerk was raised as they took places against the back wall of the room.

"And now that the speeches have been finished, it is moved and seconded that a vote shall be taken to determine whether a general strike be called by the 'longshoreman against the shipowners of----"

A shout from Grant brushed the droning voice of the clerk aside.

"Stop! No vote must be taken until this man tells his story."

As though stirred by a giant hand, the assemblage recoiled. Men rose from their seats to see the person whose temerity thus interrupted the vote of their Union. Down the aisle the German dock foreman, whose vociferousness of a short time before had helped to keep the evening in an uproar, passed a hand over his face and slid into his seat again.

With dragging feet the spy was roughly shoved down the aisle by the two policemen, followed by Grant. They climbed to the platform and faced the listening mass of men.

For a moment Grant looked down on them in silence. Then he spoke:

"You men are laboring under a delusion. I am here to prove it to you, and this--gentleman," he ironically waved a hand toward the spy, "will help me." He turned to the spy. "Where is the man who gave you orders to turn that boat over? Remember, I know who he is. I want you to tell them."

The prisoner glanced over the audience fear-fully. He lifted a limp hand and pointed.

"There!"

Halfway down the hall the huge form of the dock foreman rose and started with a rush toward the door. But his path was blocked. Hands shot out to seize his and pinion them, struggling, to his sides. Fighting and cursing they carried him to the platform and faced him toward the spy.

Ten minutes of excited talking followed, hot with denials and accusations bandied between the foreman and the spy. Suddenly the dock foreman turned to his audience.

"He's right! I told him to cut the hawsers to sink the vessel!"

The president of the 'Longshoremen's Union broke into the silence that followed the confession.

"Phone the shipowners at once!" he called to his secretary.

The dock foreman was talking again.

"It was the intention to fasten the blame for the depredation on the 'longshoremen. We knew if that ship was turned over nothing could stop a strike. And we want a strike."

"Who hired you?" Grant cut in sharply.

"A man named Gates."

"First name?"

"I don't know."

"Address?"

"I don't know."

"No I don't suppose so." Harrison Grant smiled sarcastically. It was not the first time that he had questioned a German spy--only to find out that he knew nothing and that he was willing to confess and accept blame that the higher powers of Imperial Germany might continue their work of devastation and strife.

"All right. You've told enough. Now Mr. President, you undoubtedly have some action to take." Grant bowed to the president of the Union and stepped down from the platform.

The president took the floor. Relief was written large on his smiling countenance.

"Men, we must declare ourselves. This man has confessed that an effort has been made to make us allies of Germany in an attempt to tie up shipping and paralyze American industries. Do you consent to be tools of Imperial Germany or do you prefer to be free Americans?"

In a moment the hall resounded with shouts.

"Americans! Americans!"

The president turned as his secretary touched him on the elbow. He took a slip of paper handed him and raised his hand for silence.

"The shipowners announce that because of the removal of this very serious charge against you, they are willing to grant the demands of the 'longshoremen!"

It was as though a whirlwind had struck a forest. The mass of men went wild. Shouts resounded while men tossed their hats into the air, slapped each other on the back, wrung each other's hands. Grant watched them for a few moments, smiling. Another blow by Germany had been averted. It was worth the horror and danger of the last hour. His work for the night was over. He turned to go.

With thoughts free from the 'longshoremen and their difficulties settled, his mind reverted to the subject nearest his heart, and one which even in moments of greatest danger and suspense or wildest excitement, he was ever conscious of. Dixie Mason's dark eyes seemed to look wistfully at him from the darkness.

Dixie's little jaunt to the Ten Mile House with Von Lertz had almost proved highly worth the necessity of enduring his attentions for several hours. They had danced and dined and danced again, and Von Lertz had ordered many drinks. As he imbibed drink after drink he became with each one a little less careful, a shade more loquacious. But he dropped no word of proceedings that she recognized as of any importance. Dixie grew a little discouraged and tired as the time passed. She was about to suggest the necessity of returning to the city when a door slammed noisily. In a state of nervous tension, Dixie started, upsetting the small glass of cordial that had been served to her. The bright colored liquid ran in a quick stream toward the edge of the table, toward her. Dixie drew back.

"Wipe it up quick! I don't want it to get on me!"

There was no waiter near. Von Lertz whipped out a clean handkerchief from his pocket. Unnoticed by him a small leather-colored booklet slipped from his pocket with the handkerchief and dropped to the floor. Dixie's quick eyes saw it and while she thanked Von Lertz with a gratitude that, under different circumstances, he would have thought somewhat profuse for the service rendered, Dixie slipped her foot over the little book.

The slamming door had admitted two new-comers, a man and a girl. The girl Dixie recognized at once as a member of the Secret Service and catching her eye, she signalled to her to come over.

Von Lertz, ever on the alert for new conquests, lost no time in asking the girl to dance with him. Dixie had known this would happen. As the girl and Von Lertz circled away from the table, she excused herself to the girl's escort, leaned over, picked up the little note-book and left the room. A moment later in the dressing-room she started wide-eyed and with quickening breath at a report in which were jotted down items, all planning death and destruction and horror of a vastness beyond comprehension.