Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia

Death Sits Down

It was dark in the stock room. The murderer pulled on a string that dangled before him and a bulb overhead bathed him with yellow, malignant light. The murderer wanted his victim to see his face before he struck.

The murderer said, “Do you know who I am, John Hocker?”

John Hocker lifted his scared face from the rifle that was pressing into his stomach and looked into the face of the murderer. He gasped. “You! How did you get here?”

“That’s too long a story to tell,” replied the murderer. “In about ten minutes things are going to happen in the plant of the Bartlett Cash Register Company and my presence will be required to play an active part in those things. I thought, though, that I’d kill you first.”

John Hocker trembled even more than he had when the murderer had stepped out of the deeper gloom of an aisle a moment ago and thrust the gun into his middle. “You can’t kill me!” he cried, hysterically. “I’ve never done anything to you. There’s no reason—”

“There are half a million reasons,” said the murderer. “All of them dollars.”

Then he pulled the trigger and the steel-jacketed slug tore into John Hocker’s entrails, smashed his spine and thudded into a packing case behind, where it hit a cash register and made a metallic “ting.”

Hocker was dead before his body thudded to the concrete floor. But, just to make sure, the murderer put the rifle to the dead man’s head and pulled the trigger a second time.

Then he walked coolly to another aisle. He lifted a board from a packing case and stuck the rifle into the box. He then peeled off a cheap pair of canvas gloves and tossed them in on top of the rifle. After that he replaced the board on the case.

He moved unhurriedly. The two rifle shots had made plenty of noise but the doors of the stock room were thick. And the murderer knew that no one should be in adjoining rooms. Everyone in the great plant of the Bartlett Cash Register Company should be elsewhere at this moment. For the reason the murderer had hinted to John Hocker before he had blasted him into eternity.

The joke was really on Oliver Quade. Only he didn’t know it. He thought it was on the employees of the Bartlett Cash Register Company. A couple of hundred of them were gathered in the big plant recreation room.

Quade chuckled as he climbed up on a bench and looked out over a sea of faces. They thought he was going to entertain them. Well, he was, but they were going to pay for it. He didn’t know what these two hundred men knew.

He began talking in his normal speaking voice. It was like the roar of an angry surf.

“I’m Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,” Quade boomed. “I have the greatest brain in the country. I know the answers to all questions. I know physics as well as Einstein, I know history better than Ridpath and I know more about economics than Professor Lemo.

“What? You don’t believe it? Try me out. Ask me a question, someone. On any subject. History, science, mathematics, sports… You!” He stabbed a forefinger at an open-mouthed worker. “Ask me any question, sir — about the cash register business, if you like.”

The man flushed at being singled out of the crowd, but he attempted a swagger. “Uh, all right, who invented the cash register?”

“James Ritty, of Ohio,” Quade shot back. “He received a patent for it in 1879. Someone else now, ask me any question.”

“Who was Robert Raikes?” someone yelled.

Quade grinned. “The father of the Sunday School. He started the first one in Gloucester, England, in 1780… Next!”

“What is aphasia?” someone asked.

“Speechlessness.”

Then came a good one. “What is althing?”

Quade threw up his hands. “I defy anyone but the asker to answer that one. Is althing something to eat, wear, ride, or is it a city, river or mountain?”

Three or four persons made guesses but Quade shook his head each time.

“Althing is the name for the parliament of the Kingdom of Iceland. It was formed in the year 930 and has been in existence ever since except for a short period from 1798 to 1874.”

The questions came fast and furious after that. And Quade shot back the answers. The working men asked the distance to the sun and moon, the batting averages of different baseball players; historical dates and scientific questions. Quade answered them all. Then suddenly he called a dramatic halt.

“That’ll be all the questions for the moment. Now, I’ll show you how you can all learn for yourselves the answers to questions anyone can put to you.” He stopped and opened a valise. He brought out a thick volume and waved it aloft. “It’s all here, the knowledge of the ages, condensed, classified. The Compendium of Human Knowledge, the greatest, most authoritative—”

Then a bell drowned out Oliver Quade’s voice. It roared its stentorian metallic clangor in the recreation room and in every room and building of the huge Bartlett Cash Register Company plant.

Quade scowled and waited for the noise to subside. It didn’t for a full thirty seconds. By then Quade had lost his audience. The two-hundred-odd men in the room had gathered into clumps and when the bell stopped they all seemed to be talking at once, loudly.

Quade caught two words. He leaped down and caught a man’s arm. “What do you mean—‘sit down’?”

“That bell,” the man replied. “We been waitin’ for it. It’s the signal for our strike. We’re sitting down now — until we win!”

Quade gasped. “Sit-down strike! You mean everyone here’s going to sit down?”

“You bet; three hundred of us. And a thousand outside, to make sure no damn strike breakers get in here.”

“Excuse me,” said Quade. “I just remembered I’ve got to see a dog about a man.” He tossed the book into his valise, caught it up and left the building hurriedly.

Then he saw the reason for the throngs that had been on the street outside, a half hour ago, when he’d entered the plant of the Bartlett Cash Register Company. They were strikers. They carried placards now, all reading:

BARTLETT CASH REGISTER COMPANY

ON STRIKE

There were plenty of men inside the grounds. None molested Quade. Not until he got near the front gate. He found it closed, locked with a padlock. “Hey,” he said to a man standing nearby. “I’ve got to get outside.”

“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.”

Olinger looked dully at Quade for a moment, then suddenly he gasped.

“We’ll be blamed! They’ll say one of us murdered him. It’ll lick us!”

“What do you mean, lick us?” snarled Ford Smith, an unshaven wild-eyed man of about thirty. “You hardly ever see a big strike without someone getting hurt.” At the moment Ford Smith looked very much like a soapbox orator inciting a crowd.

Olinger’s eyes glinted. “Cut out that kind of talk! If the men hear you they’ll do things. Every man in this plant was picked for the sit-down part of it because he agreed to play a passive part. I’ll stand for no rioting, no sabotage. Get that, all of you!” He glared around the circle composed of Steve Murphy, Pete Walsh, Ford Smith and Henry Jackson — his four strike captains.

“Don’t look at me!” growled Pete Walsh. “I didn’t kill this bozo.” Walsh was young, too, about thirty-five. Quade, sizing him up, guessed that he could make things very interesting for Murphy, the ex-prizefighter.

Henry Jackson, the last member of the group, was of a different mold. He was a dour-looking man, his tight-lipped mouth grimly set. Quade sympathized with the strike leader, Olinger. The workers had elected him leader, probably because he had a reputation for integrity and intelligence. But they had played him a scurvy trick in the selection of his four captains.

Quade said, “You’ve still got a corpse. What’re you going to do about it?”

Olinger clenched his fists. “We’ve got to notify the police and they’ll come here in swarms. The newspaper publicity resulting from it’ll ruin us.”

“If we lose now,” said Jackson, “we’re licked for good. We’ll never get the set-up we had this time.”

“The blood hasn’t congealed yet,” said Quade. “That means he was killed during the past half-hour — since the sit-down.”

“You would make it worse,” groaned Olinger. “Well, we’ve got to decide what to do.”

“If you find the murderer—” Quade began, but Ford Smith snarled at him:

“You keep your trap shut. You’ve got no business here in the first place. And anyway, I’ve got my suspicions about you.”

“And I’ve got mine about you!” snapped Quade.

Olinger said, “I don’t want news of this to get out. Quade, you’re in this, so stick around. Jackson, what do you think we’d better do?”

“What else is there to do? As strikers, we’re within our rights. Covering up a murder — no!” Jackson looked as if he’d been expecting the worst to happen and now felt justified.

“I don’t agree with you, Henry,” cut in Pete Walsh. “We tell the cops right now and we might just as well walk out of here. Call the strike off.”

“And you, Smith, what’s your opinion?” asked Olinger.

“I say bury him and keep our mouths shut!”

Olinger looked questioningly at Steve Murphy.

“I side with Jackson.”

Olinger sighed. “That’s two for and two against. Which leaves the deciding vote up to me. All my life I’ve been a law-abiding person. But the folks in this plant voted me their leader; they’re counting on me to see them through. I can’t let them down. While I’m absolutely in favor of keeping within the law, this time I’ve got to go against it. We keep this quiet and go on with the strike!”

Walsh and Smith nodded agreement. Murphy and Jackson sulked for a while, but finally agreed to abide by the decision of the majority.

Olinger said to Quade, then: “And you, Quade, unless you want to be locked up in some store room somewhere, you’ll promise to keep your mouth shut?”

“I’m the world’s greatest talker — when I’m paid to talk,” retorted Quade. “But no being paid, there’s a zipper on my mouth. But what about the girls?”

“I think I can count on them not to talk,” Olinger said.

Pete Walsh winked at the others. Olinger saw the wink and reddened. “Let’s get back to our business!” he snapped. “Walsh, you and Jackson remove — this! Hide the body in a box somewhere!”

“Not me,” said Walsh, backing away. “I’ll touch ’em when they’re alive and I’ll sling ’em around when they’re sick, but when they’re dead, Mrs. Walsh’s boy, Peter, don’t touch them!”

“You big cream-puff!” snorted Ford Smith. “I’ll help Steve.”

The others returned to the office. Quade looked out of the front window. The office was on the second floor and afforded an excellent view of the street. Scores of pickets were parading back and forth outside the fence and across the street several hundred sympathizers stood and watched. In between them and the pickets, on the street, patrolled fifty or sixty uniformed policemen, all with pistols belted on the outside of their uniforms.

Beyond the street, approximately a hundred yards from the cash register plant office was a three-story brick building. In an upper window a man was waving a couple of white flags on short poles.

“Man over there, signaling, Olinger,” Quade remarked.

Olinger came swiftly to the window. “That’s headquarters. We’ve disconnected the phones.” He watched quietly for a while, then said, “It’s Gaylord, boys. He says Bartlett’s having a powwow with the mayor and the city officials. He’ll let us know the results.”

Steve Murphy’s piggish eyes, almost concealed in his fat cheeks, gleamed. “Ain’t the conference private?”

Olinger grinned. “We’ve got a spy in the mayor’s office.”

Ford Smith, who had just come in, looked nastily at Quade. “And I’ll bet a dime there’s spies in here, too!”

“Mr. Smith,” Quade said bluntly, “I don’t think I like you!”

“I’ll hold your coat, Smith,” jeered big Pete Walsh.

But Ford Smith did not want to fight Quade. He glowered at him and retreated. Quade looked out of the windows again. “Better break out your flags, Olinger. Gaylord wants to know if things are O.K. over here?”

Olinger looked at Quade in astonishment. “How do you know?”

“I understand the code.”

“No,” said Olinger. “You don’t understand that code. It’s not the regular Semaphore code.”

“I know that,” replied Quade. “It’s the old Prussian Army code. The one they used so effectively during the Franco-Prussian War. It’s practically obsolete today, which is why you and Gaylord studied it, I suppose.” He grinned. “You remember I told you I was the Human Encyclopedia. I know everything.”

Olinger got a couple of white flags from a desk drawer. “You know too much, Quade. Would you mind leaving this room, now? I want to talk to Gaylord, privately!”

“I’ll go see how the boys in the back room are making out.”

They were making out all right. Quade found poker games going on in almost every room of the plant. There were plenty of checker boards in sight, too; even chess. The recreation room was the scene of a tremendous crap game. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits. It was the first afternoon of the strike.

At five o’clock Olinger announced that the mayor’s conference had broken up in a disagreement. Bartlett and his officials had decided to fight the strike. There was much cursing at that. Olinger stilled it by announcing there would be a dance immediately after supper. “But we’ll keep it in this recreation room!” he warned.

There was a big cafeteria in the plant for it was located out of the city a ways; the strikers had taken it over and drawn lots as to who would cook. There was plenty of food, well-cooked.

Later, the fifty female sit-down strikers came down from the second floor. There were musicians and musical instruments.

Quade did not dance. He wasn’t in the mood. This plant, he felt, was a smoldering volcano. The body of John Hocker was hidden in a packing box in the stock room, an overt move outside the plant, anything, might be a spark that would set off the volcano.

Around eight-thirty, a man came into the recreation room, whispered in Bob Olinger’s ear. Olinger left the room, and returned fifteen minutes later, his forehead furrowed. Quade saw him whisper to Murphy, Walsh, Smith and Jackson, in turn. They left the room with extravagant casualness. Quade slipped after them.

“You stay here!” snapped Smith.

“Oh, let him come along,” said Olinger. “He’s in as deep as us.”

They went to the office, and Olinger got out the signal flags, wigwagged rapidly for five minutes. Then he stopped to watch the windows across the street…

“Bartlett claims we’re holding Hocker a prisoner here,” Olinger reported. “Says Hocker was in the plant today. His family claims he never came home from the office. They want us to let the police in here.”

“Nothing doing!” cried Walsh. “If we’re in this so deep, let’s fight it out.”

“We’ll have to,” said Olinger. “We couldn’t let them find Hocker’s body after denying that he was here.” Olinger signaled the refusal. Then he turned around.

“Gaylord’ll keep them out. He realizes the importance of not letting the police crash in here. But the Bartlett officials voted to fight us. Hocker, who’s dead, was ordinarily sympathetic to our cause. Samuel Sharp, the next biggest stockholder after Bartlett, is inactive in the business. Besides, he’s in New York. Cassoway, the treasurer, is on the fence. So when Hocker was killed, our cause was hurt. Now, Bartlett says he’ll not even arbitrate until we leave the plant.

“If we leave, we’re licked. Bartlett’d get in a flock of strikebreakers. If we last two weeks, we can win. There’s talk that the company isn’t any too well fixed. If we hold up production for two weeks, Bartlett will surrender on our terms. He can’t stand a shutdown more than that. The orders the company has will go to a competitor.”

“Say, Bartlett could shut up this business right now and never have to worry about the rent,” Walsh growled. “I see by the paper the other day where that dizzy daughter of his is figuring on marrying herself a phony duke.”

Something clicked in Oliver Quade’s brain. With one of the finest memories in existence, he never forgot a name or face and yet… a while ago he had seen a face and had not been able to identify it. But now he knew…

Quade slipped out of the office and returned to the recreation room. Many of the strikers had retired for the night, but there were still quite a few dancers there. Ruth Larson was among them.

Quade went up to her. “Would you mind stepping aside with me?”

“Why, Mr. Quade!” she mocked him. “It’s against the rules to go out on the veranda.”

“I know it — Miss Bartlett!”

She caught her breath. “How did you know?”

“I saw your picture in a newspaper, once. I never forget a face, and when one of the lads mentioned Bartlett’s daughter being in Europe, I tumbled to your name. Why—”

She colored. “A lark, I guess you’d call it.”

“No. I wouldn’t. Ruth Bartlett wouldn’t work in her father’s plant. How long — a month?”

“Two.”

“Bob Olinger?”

She bit her lip. Then, “Yes, he’s the reason. I met him three months ago at a schoolmate’s home. I was just one of several rich girls there, to him. He couldn’t tell one of us from another, but I—”

“So you got a job here, where you’d see him. Your father know?”

“Oh, no! He thinks I’m in Europe. A girl chum of mine sends him a telegram every week, signing my name. No one here knows me, none of the office help or the officials.”

“No.” She looked down at her denim work apron. “There are four hundred girls in this plant. Half of them dress like this. In the assembly room where I work, there are a hundred girls. We work alike, look alike, and none of the officials ever look close at a factory hand.”

Quade shook his head. “But why’d you stay here?”

Before she could answer, Pete Walsh bore down on them. “Time to break up,” he said, “Olinger’s orders.”

Quade watched her walk off.

In the machine shops Quade found a couple of hundred folding cots, already set up. He appropriated one, loosened his shoe laces and stretched out. He was asleep in a few minutes.

Breakfast consisted of coffee and bread.

Having eaten, Quade went to the office on the second floor. He found Olinger and his four captains holding a council of war.

“I judge by your faces the strike isn’t going so good this morning,” he greeted the strikers.

“It’s now 7:30,” said Olinger. “In twenty minutes a force of strikebreakers will try to crash through the line. They’ll be escorted by a hundred special deputies and police. There’re eight hundred of our men outside those gates, besides a thousand sympathizers. They don’t intend to let those strikebreakers through the gates.”

Quade whistled. “Does Bartlett know of your attitude?”

“Gaylord — across the street — warned him. Bartlett’s gotten in touch with the governor. The governor has refused to act until the sheriff requests it. Sheriff Spiess is a fool. He thinks we’re bluffing.”

“I still think the boys should have some guns,” cut in Ford Smith. “Them deputies is armed. They’re professional gunmen, spoiling for a fight. Everyone of them was shipped in here by that strike-breakin’ outfit in New York.”

“You’re a captain,” suggested Henry Jackson, sarcastically. “Would you like to go down there and lead the men?”

Pete Walsh jeered and Ford Smith flushed angrily. “You think I’m afraid! Let me tell you—”

Jackson turned to the window. “The strikebreakers are coming!”

The pickets and sympathizers outside saw them, too. The picket lines stopped, stiffened into a formation along the fence.

Olinger snapped orders to his captains. “Walsh, Smith, get down among the men quickly. They’re not to leave the plant. Jackson, Murphy, you two get out in front of the doors. See that no one leaves! Our men are not to get mixed in outside, no matter what happens!”

The four captains ran from the room. Olinger stared out the window and Quade saw the worried look on the young strike leader’s face.

Then the epic outside took Quade’s full attention. A fleet of trucks was coming slowly up the street, surrounded by a convoy of police cars. All along the front of the plant, outside the high steel wire, the strikers were three deep, their arms linked together in a chain. If they held…

On the other side of the street were hundreds and hundreds of friends and relatives of the strikers. Over on the other side, in the brick building, the windows were black with union officials, organizers, strike chieftains.

The trucks and their convoys stopped when they came to within a hundred feet of the main gate. One of the police cars rolled ahead. Several men stepped out of the line of the strikers, went to talk with the officials in the open car. The din of the pickets subsided. Everyone seemed to want to hear what the dickering would lead to: fight or parley.

“That’s the fool sheriff, Speiss!” mumbled Olinger. “I hope he listens to reason!”

The parley went on for a full minute. The sheriff, conspicuous by his light gray Stetson, waved his hands and shouted. The strikers on the street argued and waved their hands too.

“As long as they talk,” Quade said, “things will be all right. Talking men don’t fight.”

Then a gun cracked somewhere and the sheriff reeled and fell back against a couple of his deputies. “I’m hit!” he cried.

Hell broke loose then. A couple of deputies in the car threw up riot guns and blazed away — straight into the chain of pickets.

The strikers surged toward the cars and a hail of lead from other automobiles met them. Tear gas cartridges popped and exploded everywhere into clouds of gray smoke. Above it all, the screams and yells and cries of two thousand men and women. And the scuffing and rushing and turmoil!

It was hell. It lasted only a half minute, but that was long enough to strew a number of bodies along the street.

“Oh, God!” cried Bob Olinger in the plant. “It happened!”

“That first bullet,” Quade gritted. “It came from this building. Upstairs!”

Olinger blinked stupidly. Then: “Of course! The sheriff was facing this way when he was hit. He jerked backwards from the impact. Lord! Who—”

“The same man who did for Hocker…. Olinger, you’ve got to get that man. There’s going to be plenty of hell about that out there. If you don’t get the person responsible for it—”

“I know that. But how can I find one man among three hundred?”

“He’s got a gun, a rifle. You ought to find it.”

“In a plant of this size?”

Quade scowled. “Olinger, have you thought that perhaps all of this, the murder of Hocker, that shot, are all part of an insidious plot?”

“To make us lose the strike?”

“Not exactly — Look, the trucks are backing away.”

“But the police and deputies are staying. They’re driving back our men.”

“What if they try to drive you out of here?”

Olinger swung around. “I don’t think they’ll try that. The men outside are unarmed, out in the open. They can’t fight against a hundred guns. But in here — no, I don’t think they’ll try that. Anyway, not with the sheriff out of it.”

“But the National Guard!”

Olinger swore. “Above all, Gaylord and the rest of us didn’t want the National Guard here. The governor was opposed to our strike in the first place.”

“He’s a fair man, though. You’ll get a square deal from him. Perhaps it’ll be a good thing if the Guard does come,” Quade said.

“Oh, they’ll come all right. I understand a couple of companies were already mobilizing last night, just in case.”

“And then comes the investigation — and they’ll find the body here.”

Olinger’s shoulders stiffened. “We’re licked? Is that what you mean?”

Quade was looking out of the window. “The flags, Olinger. Gaylord says the shot came from the fourth floor, directly over us. But it was too far away to recognize who did the shooting.”

“Let’s go!”

The room on the fourth floor was a typists’ office. The door was unlocked; the room was empty.

“He’s gone!” cried Olinger.

“He’s done his work. You didn’t expect him to stick around.” Quade was looking around the floor. Olinger watched him, puzzled. Quade suddenly stooped and picked up something.

“The empty shell,” he said. “It’s a thirty-thirty — the same gun that killed Hocker. Hardly be two such guns in the plant. Now to find the gun.”

“You don’t think he’d leave it here, do you?”

Quade shrugged. “Where else? It’s daylight now and he’d hardly take a chance walking through the plant with a rifle. He probably brought it up here last night and hid it. Let’s see, where would I hide a rifle in here?”

He looked around the room. There were steel lockers and filing cabinets and many desks. He frowned. “Perhaps under a desk, fastened there with a couple of bent nails or string…”

Olinger, too, got down on his knees and began looking under desks. It was Quade, though, who found the gun — under a desk.

“A thirty-thirty repeating rifle,” he commented, examining the stock critically. He sighed. “He wiped it off. No fingerprints.”

Quade worked the lever of the rifle. The gun tossed out four loaded cartridges; he put them in his pocket.

They returned to the main office. The four strike captains were there. Olinger told them about the bullet coming from the fourth-floor window. The captains looked at the gun in Quade’s hands.

“The man who fired from that window was the same one who killed John Hocker,” said Olinger.

“Gaylord signaling again,” said Jackson by the window.

Olinger stepped to the window, looked across to union headquarters. “Spiess is alive, but badly wounded,” he translated. “Five of our boys got hurt, two killed. Sheriff Spiess has sent the call to the governor. Two companies of Guardsmen will be here this evening.”

Pete Walsh and Ford Smith swore lustily. Steve Murphy’s forehead washboarded. “That’ll mean an investigation, huh?”

Olinger shrugged. “I don’t see how we can prevent it. I’m only hoping — Damn!” He was still looking out of the window. “The chief of police wants to know if he can come in to look for Hocker. Gaylord signals he insists.”

“We can’t let the cops in,” said Pete Walsh. “Tell Gaylord no. We’ll stick. We agreed to sit down until Bartlett gave in.”

Olinger got his flags, signaled. After a moment there was a reply. “Gaylord’s coming over.”

“Ah,” said Henry Jackson, sardonically. “The big mucky-muck is going to risk crossing the road.”

Andy Gaylord did come over. He was a small man but a dynamic one. His speech was as crisp as his body. He greeted the strike chieftains briefly, then jerked his head toward Oliver Quade.

“Who’s this?”

“An innocent bystander,” said Quade. “I happened to be in the plant yesterday when the strike was called and the boys wouldn’t let me out.”

“Thin story,” snapped Gaylord. “You’re probably one of Bartlett’s spies. Somebody’s been in touch with him… Where’s Hocker, Olinger?”

“Dead. Murdered.”

Gaylord cursed. “That’s what Bartlett thought. Who did it? The same one who fired that shot at Spiess?”

Olinger nodded. At that moment Ruth Bartlett came into the office. “Bob!” she cried. “Martha—” Then she saw Andy Gaylord.

Andy Gaylord’s eyes flashed sparks. “What’s she doing here?”

Olinger looked surprised. “Why, you know there are fifty girls sitting down here.”

“Yes, but this is Bartlett’s daughter!”

Bob Olinger reeled back as if struck with a fist. “Bartlett’s what?”

“Daughter. She’s Ruth Bartlett. You didn’t know?… You are, aren’t you?”

Ruth Bartlett’s nostrils flared. “Yes. But—”

“Ruth!” cried Olinger. “You — how? Oh, hell!”

His face was strained — and angry, Quade thought. He knew then that Olinger was in love with the girl. In love with Ruth Larson, rather. He couldn’t afford to love Ruth Bartlett.

“I’ve been working in the plant for two months,” said Ruth Bartlett. “No one knew who I am. I’ve been living with Martha.”

“There’s your spy, Olinger!” Jackson said.

“No,” Quade said. “I recognized Miss Bartlett last night. I believe Miss Bartlett’s intentions here are okay. She’s siding with you, Olinger. She isn’t the spy!”

“What the hell do you know about it?” snarled Pete Walsh. “For all we know you’re in Bartlett’s pay yourself, you—”

“Look,” said Oliver Quade patiently. “You can say anything you like to me. But not in front of Miss Bartlett.”

“Miss Bartlett,” Gaylord said. “You’ve got to leave at once.”

“She can’t go!” said Smith. “She knows about Hocker!”

“It’s about that I came here, now,” cried Ruth. “That is, not about Mr. Hocker, but Martha! I can’t find her anywhere.”

Quade looked at Olinger and saw fear in the young strike leader’s eyes. Olinger said, with forced coolness: “Take a look in the cafeteria, Ruth. I think I saw her there a little while ago.

“I looked there a half hour ago. Was it since then?”

“Yes.”

Olinger lied. He hadn’t been in the cafeteria during the past half hour. Olinger wanted to get Ruth out of here. Before…

Ford Smith said, “She found Hocker, remember? Maybe the guy killed her, too.”

Ruth Bartlett screamed and Olinger stepped up to Smith and said furiously, “Keep your mouth shut!”

Smith recoiled, but Pete Walsh took up his battle. “You know that’s what we’re all thinking, Olinger!”

“Find that girl, Olinger,” said Gaylord. “Find her at once. There’s too much happening around here.”

“I’m doing my best. Want me to quit?” cried Olinger. “All right. I will. Get one of the others to run things here.”

Quade saw the quick look Andy Gaylord shot around at the strike captains before he replied hurriedly to Olinger. “No, no, Olinger. Don’t be so touchy. You’re handling things nicely. I got to get back to the other side.” He popped out of the room.

Olinger ran his fingers through his thick black hair. He looked at Ruth Bartlett and his face became strained. “All right, Ruth, you may as well know the worst. Someone from in here started that slaughter outside. Shot Sheriff Spiess from a window. That’s the gun, there.”

“How many bullets fired from it?” asked Ruth.

“Three,” Quade replied. “Two for Hocker and one outside.”

Relief flooded Ruth Bartlett’s face. “Then Martha—”

“Probably around the building somewhere.”

“We’ll have some of the boys look for her in a minute,” said Olinger.

Ruth smiled her thanks, and left the office. Then the strike captains lit into Olinger. “We’re licked on all sides,” said Steve Murphy. “Bartlett’s daughter in our ranks, spies, murders, mysterious riflemen…” He sighed heavily.

“I’ve got an idea,” said Ford Smith. “One that’ll cinch the strike for us. Bartlett’s daughter is here. Suppose we send the old man a message, saying if he gives in, nothin’ happens to his girl. But if he don’t…”

Bob Olinger was too slight to hit Smith. Smith would fight back and probably lick Olinger. So Quade beat Olinger to the punch. He smacked Smith alongside the jaw; a short, vicious punch that slammed him to the floor. He didn’t get up.

Pete Walsh snarled, “I say Smith’s idea isn’t bad. There’s twelve hundred men working here. Some’ve already been killed. If you think one girl is worth—”

Quade had to put a half nelson on Olinger to keep him from charging the bigger Walsh.

“I’m warning you, all of you!” howled Olinger. “If any of you so much as touches Ruth Bartlett, I’ll kill him myself!”

“No one’s going to touch her,” said Henry Jackson. “Steve and me’ll see to that, won’t we, Steve?”

The ex-prizefighter spat, “You damn right, Henry. I’m going to see Ford and Pete after the strike. I want to talk some things over.”

Quade headed Olinger for the door. “Come on, Olinger, we’ve got to look for Martha White.”

On the fourth floor they found her, behind a couple of cases. Her neck was broken. Her face wasn’t pretty to see. Quade covered Martha’s body with wrapping paper. “Olinger,” he said, “you’d better arbitrate with Bartlett.”

“I’m willing,” moaned Olinger. “It’s him that won’t. Gaylord’s made concessions. Our demands are damn reasonable, but Bartlett won’t meet them.”

“You mentioned other officials of the company. How much voice have they?”

“It’s a corporation. Bartlett owns controlling interest, did rather. I hear some of his stock is mortgaged now. Hocker, Samuel Sharp and Cassoway were the main stockholders. Hocker’s dead, Sharp has never been an active owner. Cassoway isn’t strong enough to buck Bartlett.”

“But every day the strike lasts, Bartlett loses money.”

“So do we. And it hurts us more than it does Bartlett.”

“I don’t know; if he’s had to mortgage his stock he can’t be so well fixed. If the strike runs two or three weeks and Bartlett pays all those strikebreakers and there was sabotage…”

“Sabotage!”

“I’ve been dreading it every minute since we found Hocker’s body. Look, do you figure one of the workmen would murder Hocker and Martha White, then shoot down the sheriff so the armed deputies would kill a few helpless fellow workers?” Olinger looked at Quade in astonishment. “But who would—”

“My contention is that the one who’s making all the trouble is doing it to prolong the strike. For one reason: To cripple Bartlett.”

“You mean one of Bartlett’s partners?”

“Or the one who holds the mortgage on Bartlett’s stock. If we knew who that was…”

They returned to the main office. And there they found a delegation of workers, a dozen or so. Ford Smith and Pete Walsh were as thick as thieves with them.

“The boys in the shop figure they got some say around here,” Ford Smith said.

One of the workers said, “We voted you the leader, Bob, and we ain’t complainin’. But in view of what happened outside we figure—”

“You want to quit?”

“Hell, no! Them was our buddies. But we’re sore and we want you and the others here to be damn sure and not knuckle under to Bartlett. We’re ready to fight the deputies and the strikebreakers. If they come bargin’ in, we’ll give them more than they bargained for.”

Bob Olinger shook his head. “Now, wait a minute, boys. You want to fight fire with fire. Well, that’s a good motto, but not for a strike. We decided on a peaceful sit-down strike. You start any rough stuff and the National Guard will be turned loose on us. What chance will we have then? Use your heads, boys, no matter what happens.”

“You see, fellows, he’s stuck on that Bartlett girl,” cut in Ford Smith.

“So you told them about her. All right, Smith, you can run things from now on. The boys haven’t confidence in me any more. I’m pulling out.”

Disgusted Quade walked out of the office. He went down to the recreation room. More than a hundred of the sit-down strikers were gathered around, playing games. Quade got up on a bench and began speaking. But today he was selling a human commodity, not books.

“Men,” he boomed, “your delegation has just elected a new leader for you. Ford Smith, who isn’t one-tenth the man Bob Olinger is… Shut up, until I finish! Smith wants to fight. He wants you to arm yourselves with wrenches and clubs and fight the National Guardsmen who are armed with machine guns, rifles, hand grenades and tear gas. Listen!” Quade’s voice carried to every ear in the room.

“You’ve fought a losing battle to now; you’re still fighting it. Because you’ve traitors in your own ranks, spies!”

“What about you?” someone yelled. “You don’t belong here.”

“No,” retorted Quade. “But I’m going to tell you some things. Last night John Hocker, vice president of this company, was murdered in this plant. With a rifle. The same rifle that was used to shoot Sheriff Spiess outside and which started that slaughter. The person who fired those shots was one of you; he also killed another worker in here, Martha White, this morning. We just found her body.”

Yells and curses went up, but Quade roared it all down. “Are you mad now? Well, you’re going to be a damn sight madder when Ford Smith gets to running things and fights the police and the National Guard. You’re going to be so mad a lot of you are going to get yourselves killed. And that’s going to make the rest of you even madder, those of you who’re left. You don’t want that. That’s why you need a leader who has a cool head, a calm one. Bob Olinger!”

Quade was the greatest salesman in the country. He could sell anything. He sold those sit-down strikers Bob Olinger…. He sold him so well to the men who had lost faith in him that they almost raised the roof.

When Ford Smith came into the room with the delegates he was hooted out. A few minutes later Olinger came in and received a real ovation.

And then, in the midst of it, Henry Jackson dashed up to Olinger. “Bob! Two carloads of National Guard officers just rolled up outside. They’re taking over!”

Major Parker of the National Guard came up to the Bartlett plant an hour later. Olinger, Quade, Jackson, Walsh and Murphy met the officer by the office entrance.

“I’ve just conferred with Gaylord, the union leader,” the major announced crisply. “Two companies of my men will be here within the hour. You understand, we’re here merely to preserve law and order. Martial law hasn’t been declared. We will not interfere with the strike in any way. That is up to the civil authorities.”

“What about us here in the plant?” asked Olinger.

“You remain in status quo,” replied the officer. “What’s already happened — that’s in the hands of the civil authorities. But from now on, preventing violence is our task.”

Olinger waved toward the street. “What about our pickets?”

“Only enough will be permitted so they won’t obstruct traffic — about twenty.”

“And suppose Bartlett tries again to run in his strikebreakers?”

Major Parker shook his head. “Legally, he can bring in men to work in his plant. But I’ve strongly advised him to avoid trouble. He told me strikebreakers wouldn’t come in.”

“Good!” said Bob Olinger. “Then there shouldn’t be any more trouble.”

When the Major had walked away Quade said softly to Olinger: “No more trouble? You forget, we’ve still got a murderer running around loose in here. He’s killed twice, and he’ll kill again if we don’t get him first.”

Olinger nodded grimly.

Henry Jackson stepped up to Quade and whispered, “I’ve found something in the foundry, Mr. Quade. Something important.”

“What?”

Jackson sighed. “Better come along and see. I’d rather the others didn’t know just yet.”

The foundry was in the rear of the plant. Quade let Jackson walk through the door. He started to follow — and then the world exploded on Quade’s head. He toppled into oblivion.

He came to the hard way. Pain lanced from his head, into his neck and shoulders, down into his body. But deep down in his indomitable unconsciousness a clarion call urged him on. He tore open his eyes and almost swooned again from the pain the effort caused.

He moved his muscles and then suddenly he was fully conscious. He discovered that he was lying on a concrete floor and that his arms and legs were tightly bound, his arms behind his back.

Acrid fumes stung Quade’s nostrils. He saw then that he was in the foundry. The strong odor was sulphuric acid, used extensively in a brass foundry. Five feet away from Quade, lay Henry Jackson, similarly trussed. Blood was smeared on the strike captain’s face, but he was conscious.

Quade looked steadily at him. “You, too?”

“He must have been hiding just outside the foundry door. I stepped through just ahead of you. I heard a thud as he hit you, started to turn and then he hit me.”

“You didn’t see his face?”

“No. When I came to a minute ago, I found myself like this.”

Quade was fully conscious now and the pain in his head was lessening. “What was there here in the foundry you wanted to show me?”

“A bomb. I accidentally discovered it. It was there on the bench. It’s gone, now!”

Quade looked at the work bench. His eyes went higher then and he saw a wall clock. It registered 3:45.

“The Guard’s due here at four o’clock. I guess the bomb’s intended for them. And then there’ll be holy hell to pay. Jackson, when you asked me to come here to the foundry I suspected a trap. That’s why I let you walk ahead, isn’t it?”

“I guessed a trap too. Well, you know that it wasn’t me, anyway.”

“Oh, no,” said Quade. “I know now that it was.”

“Who?”

“You’ve been much too clever, Jackson. When all the others were squawking about this and that, you were always the noble one.”

“You’re crazy. Olinger held out for peace—”

“Yeah, but you’re not Olinger. He’s an idealist.”

“If I’m supposed to be the villain of the piece, Quade, how come I’m tied up here beside you?”

“Like I said, your damnable cleverness. You made Smith sore at me because I discredited him with the workers. He had Napoleon ideas. Then, to have suspicion thrown away from you, you had him scratch you up a bit and tie you and leave you here a while beside me.”

Jackson sighed heavily. “You’re too smart, Quade. But I provided for that, too.” He kicked upwards with his bound feet, until they touched his fingers. Quade, watching, saw him dig a finger nail into his shoe and pull out a tiny blade. Jackson, looking at Quade, grinned sardonically.

“I had this ready, just in case.” He sawed his bound wrists against the blade. It cut through the rope. Jackson’s hands came free and he pulled out the blade entirely from the heel and cut through the ropes binding his ankles.

“Since you know, there’s no reason for me to wait here,” he said sardonically. “It was just for an alibi anyway. In about five minutes the bomb’s going off. No one’ll know how it went off. They’ll think someone threw it from a window. Smith, figuring I was tied up here, would never guess I was responsible for it. Now, I’ve a different plan. There’ll be plenty of fighting when the militia charges the plant. Maybe you and Smith can be accidentally killed… So long, Quade! I’ve got something very important to do — since you made me change my plans.”

Jackson came across, kicked Quade viciously in the face and hurried from the foundry.

Quade waited only until the door had slammed after Jackson. He knew the whole thing now. Jackson had planted the bomb during the night, probably buried it in the ground or placed it in a box which was in plain sight and unsuspected. He had counted on being tied up with Quade during the time the bomb went off. Now, he’d be conspicuous around Olinger and the other captains; his hands empty.

Only Quade knew and Quade was a prisoner here in the foundry. No one would think to look for him during the coming excitement. During the height of it, Jackson would come back, finish Quade with a bullet and then remove the ropes from his wrists and ankles. When he was found eventually, he’d be merely “another victim of the riot.”

Quade looked again at the clock and suddenly started rolling his body. He reached the bench, sat up. Then with his back against it and his feet flat on the floor he began edging up. He reached his feet.

On the bench, three feet from the edge, was a copper vessel. From the smell of it Quade knew that it contained sulphuric acid. He turned so his back was to the bench. Then he bent forward and groped behind his back for the vessel of acid. He got hold of it, dragged it to the edge of the bench.

Then, drawing a deep breath, he tilted the vessel and let the acid slosh to the floor. It splashed against his trouser leg, stung through to his legs. There’d be burns there; the acid would eat away the cloth, but that would take hours. And Quade didn’t have hours.

By the weight of the vessel Quade guessed when there was about a half pint or pint left in it. He gripped the thing securely and began hopping. It was quite a feat. Once or twice he almost lost his balance.

He hopped twenty feet or more, then crouched slowly and set the copper vessel on the concrete floor. He straightened, with one hand groped for a water faucet. He found it and hesitated a moment. This was the crucial moment. It might work — and it might not work. If it worked, Quade would suffer intense physical agony. If it didn’t work — a horrible death.

He turned the water faucet. Only for an instant, then turned it back again.

There was a roar behind him. The water hitting the acid in the copper kettle ignited it. Water acts that way on sulphuric acid. You can mix sulphuric acid with water by pouring the acid into the water slowly, and stirring constantly. But you can’t dash a quantity of water into the acid — not without a terrific conflagration.

Flames leaped from the kettle, scorched Quade’s legs. Grimly he held his bound wrists into the flame. Fire seared his hands; perspiration came out on his forehead, but Quade stood, with his teeth gritted together.

The chances were even that he would burn to death, be mutilated so badly he would be physically incapacitated. But he had to take the gamble.

And he won. A strand of rope gave; another. Then Quade jerked his wrists apart. He cried out from the pain as the burning rope bit into the already seared flesh — but the rope gave.

He fell to the floor, away from the fire. His clothing was burning but he smothered it quickly. He burned the rope from around his ankles. Then he leaped to his feet. The clock said three minutes to four!

Running out of the foundry Quade pounded through the machine shops. He burst into the recreation room, noted with apprehension that it was entirely empty, then started for the door which led to the stairs and the office. That was as far as he got.

A terrific explosion rocked the building. Quade wheeled sharply to the door leading out to the side of the building. He burst out into a milling, wild-eyed hysterical crowd of men.

The stampede of them almost knocked Quade off his feet. He smashed a man furiously in the face, bowled another off his feet, then seeing a vantage spot, leaped through and made the front of the crowd.

The sight that met his eyes made him sick. Just inside the fence, almost directly under the office windows, was a deep hole in the ground. All around it milled men in uniforms. Officers were shouting commands, the men were forming ranks.

But on the ground lay two huddled bodies. And Quade saw blood on the face of another uniformed man being led away by two of his comrades.

He saw all that. And then a solid rank of Guardsmen formed. Quade heard the sharp commands of an officer.

“Fix bayonets!”

Quade pivoted frantically. The sit-down strikers were no longer milling. They saw the threat of the khaki formation but they were not retreating!

“Clear the grounds and the plant!” came the National Guard officer’s terse command. “Squads, wedge!”

With smooth precision, the men formed a wedge of each squad, one man in the front, three flanking him diagonally on each side and an eighth closing up the rear. Bayonets glistened.

Then the three hundred disorganized, massed sit-down strikers began rumbling; shouts of defiance went up.

Quade knew that there would be slaughter here. He was between the strikers and the Guardsmen. He would be swept out of the way, probably bayoneted. But he held his ground. He threw up his hands, cried out to the National Guard officer.

“Wait a minute! The man responsible for that bomb — he’s up there in the window. He’s not one of these men!”

In the second floor office windows were several white faces, that of Bob Olinger — Peter Walsh, Murphy, Ford Smith — and Henry Jackson. Olinger and Jackson were crowded into one window, the others into another. Quade pointed at the window containing Olinger and Jackson.

“Olinger!” he cried at the top of his voice. “Grab Jackson! Bring him down here!”

“Get out of the way, you!” roared the National Guard officer at Quade.

Quade took a step forward, half turned. Jackson’s head disappeared from the window. Olinger lunged backwards, disappeared, and then Jackson appeared again. In his hands was the thirty-thirty repeating rifle.

“Here it is, Quade!” Jackson yelled. The rifle snapped to his shoulder — crashed! But no bullet struck Quade; none even kicked up dirt around him.

Jackson was still framed in the window, but the rifle was dropping from his numbed hands… and Jackson’s face was a horror of blood.

He fell forward, hung half in the window and half out.

“The gun back-fired!” someone said hoarsely, in the sudden stillness.

Quade took the opportunity to spring up to the National Guard officer. “Hold your men. There won’t be any fight now. That was the man responsible for all the trouble! He shot Sheriff Spiess this morning, killed two people in the plant, and buried that time bomb here in the yard!”

The officer looked at Quade in astonishment. Then his eyes snapped. “Lieutenant, take over. Keep the men as they are!” He caught hold of Quade’s arm. “Lead me inside!”

The sit-down strikers were still massed to the side of the building. They were silent now, though. Quade and the Guard officer rushed to the door and began pounding up the stairs to the office.

When they reached the second-floor office Jackson lay in the room. Around him were Olinger and the surviving strike captains. Jackson wasn’t dead — yet. His eyes were staring glassily up at the circle of faces. His jaws were working horribly.

“Quade!” he choked. “Oliver Quade, where is he?”

“Here I am,” said Quade, pushing into the circle.

For a second Jackson’s eyes lost their glassiness. “Quade — wish — you were going with me!” And then a bubble of blood formed on his lips, burst, and Jackson was dead.

Quade looked around the circle of faces. “I fixed that gun this morning. Figuring the killer might have other cartridges around. I was afraid he might try shooting at the troops like he did at the sheriff this morning. I fixed the breech so that when the cartridge exploded, it burst in his face. Messy job…”

“Not as messy as that bomb,” said Bob Olinger. “It was Jackson all along then!”

Quade nodded. “Jackson — or Samuel Sharp. Yes, the inactive member of the Bartlett Corporation. He wasn’t known around here, I guess. He had a deal with another cash register company to bankrupt this firm so they could buy it for almost nothing. He lost!”

“And so have we!” said Bob Olinger wearily. “The sit-down strike is broken.”

“I don’t know about that,” said the National Guard officer. “I heard only fifteen minutes ago that Bartlett’s ready to arbitrate. I guess when he learns about this man’s scheme, he’ll be willing to meet you folks half-way…”

Oliver Quade smiled, walked away. He went to the recreation room for his valise full of books — the books he had started out to sell. It was empty. His sales talk had been so convincing the strikers had helped themselves.

On the way downstairs he bumped into Ruth Bartlett and Bob Olinger, folded in each other’s arms.

“If you need help,” Quade quipped, “remember, I’m the Human Encyclopedia.”

“I think he knows all the answers,” Ruth Bartlett said.