“A quitter, huh!”
“I’m not an employee!” howled Quade. “I’m a salesman who happened to be on the grounds. I want to get out of here.”
“You mean you’re a company spy. You want to make a report to the bosses. Well, you’re just out of luck. We’ve chased the bosses out of the grounds. There ain’t no one comin’ in or goin’ out. Not until the strike’s settled. See those boys outside? They’re to keep quitters inside as well as strike breakers out. Some of ’em’d be downright mad at anyone who tried to leave these grounds. You figure you’d like to go argue with them?”
Quade saw the belligerent faces of several strikers. He shook his head. “I guess not,” he said. “But look, who’s running things in here? I’d like to talk to him.”
“I ain’t sayin’ who is and who ain’t, but maybe Steve Murphy could tell you who’s running things.”
Quade sized up the layout. The plant of the Bartlett Cash Register Company occupied perhaps five acres. The building was set back from the street a considerable distance and there was more than a hundred feet of open ground all around. A high, barbed-wire-topped steel fence ran completely around the grounds. And it was entirely surrounded by pickets.
He went back to the recreation room. “Who’s Steve Murphy?” he asked a sit-down striker.
The man looked around the room. “That’s him over there, the fat guy with the red hair.”
Steve Murphy was a former prize fighter who had gone to fat. He stood five feet six and weighed over 200 pounds.
“What do you want?” he barked.
“I’m Oliver Quade. You heard me a little while ago, making that spiel. I don’t work here. I just happened to be here when the strike was called. Naturally I want to get out of here.”
“So do we; we’re losing money every minute we strike. Maybe we’ll lose the strike and our jobs. But that ain’t gonna stop us. We’re going to stick it out. We knew this strike was being pulled and we got food here for a month if necessary. Those two cars that were backed in on the siding this morning, they’re full of supplies. So, buddy, you just sit tight with us. Ain’t no one comin’ in and no one goin’ out. That’s the rules.”
“Who makes the rules for you?”
“Union headquarters.”
“And who’s the head of your union? I want to see him.”
“That’s Gaylord. But you can’t see him. He’s on the outside, doing the negotiating with the bosses. He’s smart, Gaylord is.”
“But there must be someone in charge of the five hundred men in here.”
“There is. We figured this thing out beforehand and we organized the men into companies of 75 each. I’m a company commander.”
“And who’s the general?”
“Olinger. Bob Olinger. He’s the big boss on the inside. He tells us captains what to do.”
“Then Olinger is the man I want to see. Where’ll I find him?”
“In the office.”
The Chief of the sit-down strikers was about thirty-one. He ran a lathe in the machine shop, but if you met him outside the plant you’d probably have guessed him to be a lawyer. He was lean almost to the point of emaciation. He wore glasses, had an unruly mop of hair and a prominent nose.
“Your face is unfamiliar,” he said to Oliver Quade. “How do you happen to be inside this plant?”
“Ah,” said Quade, “that’s the crux of the whole situation. I’m not a Bartlett employee and I don’t want to be in this plant. I want out — in the worst way.”
“The worst way would be on a stretcher. You probably mean the best way.” He smiled at his own wit.
“You bandy words,” retorted Quade. “You shouldn’t do that with me. I’m the Human Encyclopedia.”
“And what is a human encyclopedia?”
“Me. I know the answers to all questions. I’ve read the encyclopedia, twenty-four volumes of them, from cover to cover, four times.”
“How interesting. I knew a man who read Gone With The Wind standing up.”
“He doesn’t belong in my club. Now how about it — do I get a safe conduct pass through the lines?”
“No. This strike is the culmination of weeks of planning. Every man here signed up for the duration of the siege. We made an agreement among us; not a man leaves and none comes in. No matter who.”
“But you can tell your men I’m not one of you. That I’m an innocent bystander.”
“About the innocent part I can’t be sure. You’re a glib sort, Quade. You might be one of those human encyclopedias. Again, you might be a company spy. I couldn’t take the chance. Stick around.”
Quade groaned. “How long is the strike apt to last?”
Olinger shrugged. “Who knows? Old Bartlett and his directors are a mighty stubborn lot. We wouldn’t be on strike if they weren’t. It’s all up to them. Bartlett’s got spies all through the plant. And now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Quade turned to leave the office. Halfway to the door he stopped. “Perhaps,” he said, “the strike won’t be so bad.”
The inspiration for the comment was a girl. She stood in the open doorway, looking questioningly at Quade. He grinned. She was a darned pretty girl. Take away that denim work apron and turn a few beauticians loose on her for an hour and she’d be ready for a picture that would make a society editor really mean it when he wrote: “Beautiful deb.”
“Ruth,” Olinger said, “I thought you were going to leave the plant?”
“You thought wrong, Bob,” said the girl. “Every girl in my department stuck, so I stuck with them!”
Olinger sighed. “All right, but please remember the rules. The women are to remain on the second floor. We don’t want any spies to tell stories about immoralities and orgies and such. It would hurt our cause… Uh, this is Mr. Quade. Miss Ruth Larson.”
“You’re the spellbinder who was giving the men in the recreation room cat fits a while ago,” said Ruth Larson. “The word got up to us. When you get a few minutes come upstairs and amuse the female sitter-downers.”
“Is there any money among them? I seldom talk without a monetary audience.”
The office door slammed open and another girl burst in. She was as frightened as Quade ever hoped to see anyone. “Bob!” she cried. “There’s a dead man in the stock room! He’s been shot!”
“Shot?” cried Bob Olinger, aghast. “What do you mean, Martha?”
“I almost stepped on him!” the girl babbled. “It was horrible!”
She swayed and Quade leaped to her side. He caught her and helped her to a swivel chair. Bob Olinger and Ruth Larson gathered around.
“I went into the stock room and there he was lying — in that pool of blood!”
“Don’t talk about it now,” said Olinger. “I’ll go see what’s what. Ruth, stay here with Martha.”
Olinger did not go directly to the stock room. He went out into the plant first and gathered together four men, his strike captains.
The dead man in the stock room lay between two rows of crates containing cash registers, ready for shipment. The body lay face downward.
Olinger, his lips a straight line, turned the body over with his foot. Then he recoiled.
“It’s Mr. Hocker!”
“Hocker?” cried the ex-prizefighter, Murphy. “You mean Hocker, one of the bosses?” He sounded very awed.
“Yes. The vice-president.”
Pete Walsh, one of the strike captains, grunted. “Something screwy about this. Bob, I thought you herded out all the office gang.”
“I did, but naturally, we didn’t count each one. Hocker must have been out in the plant at the time.”
“Which was unfortunate for him,” said Oliver Quade. “And for you, too.”