Leroy Scott

THE EXPOSURE

Tom's arrangement with the detective agency was that Baxter and Foley were to be watched day and night, and that he was to have as frequent reports as it was possible to give. Just before six o'clock that same afternoon he called at the office for his first report. It was ready—a minute account of the movements of the two men between one and five. There was absolutely nothing in it of value to him, except that its apparent completeness was a guarantee that if anything was to be found the men on the case would find it.

Never before in Tom's life had there been as many hours between an evening and a morning. He dared not lessen his suspense and the hours by discussing his present move with friends; they could not help him, and, if he told them, there was the possibility that some word might slip to Foley which would rouse suspicion and destroy the thousandth chance. But at length morning came, and at ten o'clock Tom was at the detective agency. Again there was a minute report, the sum of whose worth to him was—nothing.

He went into the street and walked, fear and suspense mounting higher and higher. In ten hours the union would meet to decide, and as yet he had no bit of evidence. At twelve o'clock he was at the office again. There was nothing for him. Eight more hours. At two o'clock, dizzy and shaking from suspense, he came into the office for the third time that day. A report was waiting.

He glanced it through, then trying to speak calmly, said to the manager: "Send anything else to my house."

Tom had said to himself that he had one chance in a thousand. But this was a miscalculation. His chance had been better than that, and had been made so by Mr. Baxter's shrewd arrangement for his dealings with Foley, based upon his theory that one of the surest ways of avoiding suspicion is to do naturally and openly the thing you would conceal. Mr. Baxter's theory overlooked the possibility that suspicion might already be roused and on watch.

Tom did not look at the sheet of paper in the hallway or in the street; with three thousand union men in the street, all of whom knew him, one was likely to pounce upon him at any minute and gain his secret prematurely. With elation hammering against his ribs, he hurried through a cross street toward the little park, which in the last five months had come to be his study. The sheet of paper was buttoned tightly in his coat, but all the time his brain was reading a few jerky phrases in the detail-packed report.

In the park, and on a bench having the seclusion of a corner, he drew the report from his pocket and read it eagerly, several times. Here was as much as he had hoped for—evidence that what he had suspected was true. With the few relevant facts of the report as a basis he began to reconstruct the secret proceedings of the last three weeks. At each step he tested conjectures till he found the only one that perfectly fitted all the known circumstances. Progress from the known backward to the unknown was not difficult, and by five o'clock the reconstruction was complete. He then began to lay his plans for the evening.

Tom preferred not to face Maggie, with her demands certain to be repeated, so he had his dinner in a restaurant whose only virtue was its cheapness. At half past seven he arrived at Potomac Hall, looking as much his usual self as he could. He passed with short nods the groups of men who stood before the building—some of whom had once been his supporters, but who now nodded negligently—and entered the big bar-room. There were perhaps a hundred men here, all talking loudly; but comparatively few were drinking or smoking—money was too scarce. He paused an instant just within the door and glanced about. The men he looked for were not there, and he started rapidly across the room.

"Hello, Keating! How's your strike?" called one of the crowd, a man whom, two months before, he himself had convinced a strike should be made.

"Eat-'Em-Up Keating, who don't know when he's had enough!" shouted another, with a jeer.

"Three cheers for Keating!" cried a third, and led off with a groan. The three groans were given heartily, and at their end the men broke into laughter.

Tom burned at these crude insults, but kept straight on his way.

There were also friends in the crowd,—a few. When the laughter died down one cried out: "What's the matter with Keating?" The set answer came, "He's all right!"—but very weak. It was followed by an outburst of groans and hisses.

As Tom was almost at the door the stub of a cigar struck smartly beneath his ear, and the warm ashes slipped down inside his collar. There was another explosion of laughter. Tom whirled about, and with one blow sent to the floor the man who had thrown the cigar. The laugh broke off, and in the sudden quiet Tom passed out of the bar-room and joined the stream of members going up the broad stairway and entering the hall.

The hall was more than half filled with men—some sitting patiently in their chairs, some standing with one foot on chair seats, some standing in the aisles and leaning against the walls, all discussing the same subject, the abandonment of the strike. The general mood of the men was one of bitter eagerness, as it was also the mood of the men below, for all their coarse jesting,—the bitterness of admitted defeat, the eagerness to be back at their work without more delay.

Tom glanced around, and immediately he saw Petersen coming toward him, his lean brown face glowing.

"Hello, Petersen. I was looking for you," he said in a whisper when the Swede had gained his side. "I want you by me to-night."

"Yah."

Petersen's manner announced that he wanted to speak, and Tom now remembered, what he had forgotten in his two days' absorption, the circumstances under which he had last seen the Swede. "How are things at home?" he asked.

"Ve be goin' to move. A better house." After this bit of loquacity Petersen smiled blissfully—and said no more.

Tom told Petersen to join him later, and then hurried over to Barry and Jackson, whom he saw talking with a couple other of his friends in the front of the hall. "Boys, I want to tell you something in a minute," he whispered. "Where's Pete?"

"The committee's havin' a meetin' in Connelly's office," answered Barry.

Tom hurried to Connelly's office and knocked. "Come in," a voice called, and he opened the door. The five men were just leaving their chairs.

"Hello, Pete. Can I see you as soon's you're through?" Tom asked.

"Sure. Right now."

Connelly improved the opportunity by offering Tom some advice, emphasized in the customary manner, and ended with the request: "Now for God's sake, keep your wind-hole plugged up to-night!"

Tom did not reply, but as he was starting away with Pete he heard Foley say to the secretary: "Youse can't blame him, Connelly. Some o' the rest of us know it ain't so easy to give up a fight."

Tom found Barry, Petersen and the three others waiting, and with them was Johnson, who having noticed Tom whispering to them had carelessly joined the group during his absence. "If you fellows'll step back here I'll finish that little thing I was telling," he said, and led the way to a rear corner, a dozen yards away from the nearest group.

When he turned to face the six, he found there were seven. Johnson had followed. Tom hesitated. He did not care to speak before Johnson; he had always held that person in light esteem because of his variable opinions. And he did not care to ask Johnson to leave; that course might beget a scene which in turn would beget suspicion. It would be better to speak before him, and then see that he remained with the group.

"Don't show the least surprise while I'm talking; act like it was nothing at all," he began in a whisper. And then he told them in a few sentences what he had discovered, and what he planned to do.

They stared at him in astonishment. "Don't look like that or you'll give away that we've got a scheme up our sleeves," he warned them. "Now I want you fellows to stand by me. There may be trouble. Come on, let's get our seats. The meeting will open pretty soon."

He had already picked out a spot, at the front end on the right side, the corner formed by the wall and the grand piano. He now led the way toward this. Half-way up the aisle he chanced to look behind him. There were only six men. Johnson was gone.

"Take the seats up there," he whispered, and hurried out of the hall, with a fear that Johnson at that minute might be revealing what he had heard to Foley. But when he reached the head of the stairway he saw at its foot Foley, Hogan, and Brown starting slowly up. With sudden relief he turned back and joined his party. A little later Connelly mounted the platform and gave a few preliminary raps on his table, and Johnson was forgotten.

The men standing about the hall found seats. Word was sent to the members loitering below that the meeting was beginning, and they came up in a straggling body, two hundred strong. Every chair was filled; men had to stand in the aisles, and along the walls, and in the rear where there were no seats. It was the largest gathering of the union there had been in three years. Tom noted this, and was glad.

All the windows were open, but yet the hall was suffocatingly close. Hundreds of cigars were momently making it closer, and giving the upper stratum of the room's atmosphere more and more the appearance of a solid. Few coats were on; they hung over the arms of those standing, and lay in the laps of those who sat. Connelly, putting down his gavel, took off his collar and tie and laid them on his table, an example that was given the approval of general imitation. Everywhere faces were being mopped.

Connelly rapped again, and stood waiting till quiet had spread among the fifteen hundred men. "I guess you all know what we're here for," he began. "If there's no objection I guess we can drop the regular order o' business and get right to the strike."

There was a general cry of "consent."

"Very well. Then first we'll hear from the strike committee."

Foley, as chairman of the strike committee, should have spoken for it; but the committee, being aware of the severe humiliation he was suffering, and to save him what public pain it could, had sympathetically decided that some other member should deliver its report. And Foley, with his cunning that extended even to the smallest details, had suggested Pete, and Pete had been selected.

Pete now rose, and with hands on Tom's shoulders, calmly spoke what the committee had ordered. The committee's report was that it had nothing new to report. After carefully considering every circumstance it saw no possible way of winning the strike. It strongly advised the union to yield at once, as further fighting meant only further loss of wages.

Pete was hardly back in his seat when it was moved and seconded that the union give up the strike. A great stamping and cries of "That's right!" "Give it up!" "Let's get back to work!" joined to give the motion a tremendous uproar of approval.

"You have heard the motion," said Connelly. "Any remarks?"

Men sprang up in all parts of the crowd, and for over an hour there were brief speeches, every one in favor of yielding. In substance they were the same: "Since the strike's lost, let's get back to work and not lose any more wages." Every speaker was applauded with hand-clapping, stamps, and shouts; an enthusiasm for retreat had seized the crowd. Foley was called for, but did not respond. Other speakers did, however, and the enthusiasm developed to the spirit of a panic. Through speeches, shouts, and stamping Tom sat quietly, biding his time.

Several of the speakers made bitter flings at the leadership that had involved them in this disastrous strike. Finally one man, spurred to abandon by applause, ended his hoarse invective by moving the expulsion of the members who had led the union into the present predicament. So far Foley had sat with face down, without a word, in obvious dejection. But when this last speaker was through he rose slowly to his feet. At sight of him an eager quiet possessed the meeting.

"I can't say's I blame youse very much for what youse've said," he began, in a voice that was almost humble, looking toward the man who had just sat down. "I helped get the union into the strike, yes, an' I want youse boys"—his eyes moved over the crowd—"to give me all the blame that's comin' to me."

A pause. "But I ain't the only one. I didn't do as much to bring on the strike as some others." His glance rested on Tom. "The fact is, I really didn't go in for the strike till I saw all o' youse seemed to be in for it. Then o' course I did, for I'm always with youse. An' I fought hard, so long's there was a chance. Mebbe there's a few"—another glance at Tom—"that'd like to have us keep on fightin'—an' starve. Blame me all youse want to, boys—but Buck Foley don't want none o' youse to starve."

He sank slowly back into his chair. "You did your best, Buck!" a voice shouted, and a roar of cheers went up. To those near him he seemed to brighten somewhat at this encouragement.

"Three cheers for Keating!" cried the man who had raised this shout in the bar-room, springing to his feet. And again he led off with three groans, which the crowd swelled to a volume matching the cheers for Foley. Connelly, in deference to his office, pounded with his gavel and called for silence—but weakly.

Tom flushed and his jaw tightened, but he kept his seat.

The crowd began once more to demand Foley's views on the question before the house. He shook his head at Connelly, as he had repeatedly done before. But the meeting would not accept his negative. They added the clapping of hands and the stamping of feet to their cries. Foley came up a second time, with most obvious reluctance.

"I feel sorter like the man that was run over by a train an' had his tongue cut out," he began, making what the union saw was a hard effort to smile. "I don't feel like sayin' much.

"It seems to me that everything worth sayin' has been said already," he went on in his previous humble, almost apologetic, tone. "What I've got to say I'll say in the shadow of a minute. I size up the whole thing like this: We went into this strike thinkin' we'd win, an' because we needed more money. An' boys, we ought to have it! But we made a mistake somewhere. I guess youse've found out that in a fight it ain't always the man that's right that wins. It's the strongest man. The same in a strike. We're right, and we've fought our best, but the other fellows are settin' on our chests. I guess our mistake was, we wasn't as strong when we went into the fight as we thought we was.

"Now the question, as I see it, is: Do we want to keep the other fellow on our chests, we all fagged out, with him mebbe punchin' our faces whenever he feels like it?—keep us there till we're done up forever? Or do we want to give in an' say we've had enough? He'll let us up, we'll take a rest, we'll get back our wind an' strength, an' when we're good an' ready, why, another fight, an' better luck! I know which is my style, an' from what youse boys've said here to-night, I can make a pretty good guess as to what's your style."

He paused for a moment, and when he began again his voice was lower and there was a deep sadness in it that he could not hide. "Boys, this is the hardest hour o' my life. I ain't very used to losin' fights. I think youse can count in a couple o' days all the fights I lost for youse. [A cry, "Never a one, Buck!"] An' it comes mighty hard for me to begin to lose now. If I was to do what I want to do, I'd say, 'Let's never give in.' But I know what's best for the union, boys ... an' so I lose my first strike."

He sank back into his seat, and his head fell forward upon his breast. There was a moment of sympathetic silence, then an outburst of shouts: "It ain't your fault!" "You've done your best!" "You take your lickin' like a man!" But these individual shouts were straightway lost in cries of "Foley!" "Foley!" and in a mighty cheer that thundered through the hall. Next to a game fighter men admire a game loser.

This was Tom's moment. He had been waiting till Foley should place himself on record before the entire union. He now stood up and raised his right hand to gain Connelly's attention. "Mr. Chairman!" he called.

"Question!" "Question!" shouted the crowd, few even noticing that Tom was claiming right of speech.

"Mr. Chairman!" Tom cried again.

Connelly's attention was caught, and for an instant he looked irresolutely at Tom. The crowd, following their president's eyes, saw Tom and broke into a great hiss.

"D'you want any more speeches?" Connelly put to the union.

"No!" "No!" "Question!" "Question!"

"All in favor of the motion——"

The desperate strait demanded an eminence to speak from, but the way to the platform was blocked. Tom vaulted to the top of the grand piano, and his eyes blazed down upon the crowd.

"You shall listen to me!" he shouted, breaking in on Connelly. His right arm pointed across the hall to where Foley was bowed in humiliation. "Buck Foley has sold you out!"

In the great din his voice did not carry more than a dozen rows, but upon those rows silence fell suddenly. "What was that?" men just behind asked excitedly, their eyes on Tom standing on the piano, his arm stretched toward Foley. A tide of explanation moved backward, and the din sank before it.

Tom shouted again: "Buck Foley has sold you out!"

This time his words reached the farthest man in the hall. There was an instant of stupefied quiet. Then Foley himself stood up. He seemed to have paled a shade, but there was not a quaver in his voice when he spoke.

"This's a nice little stage play our friend's made up for the last minute. He's been fightin' a settlement right along, an' this is his last trick to get youse to put it off. He's sorter like a blind friend o' mine who went fishin' one day. He got turned with his back to the river, an' he fished all day in the grass. I think Keating's got turned in the wrong direction, too."

A few in the crowd laughed waveringly; some began to talk excitedly; but most looked silently at Tom, still stunned by his blow-like declaration.

Tom paid no attention to Foley's words. "Fifty thousand dollars was what he got!" he said in his loudest voice.

For the moment it was as if those fifteen hundred men had been struck dumb and helpless. Again it was Foley who broke the silence. He reared his long body above the bewildered crowd and spoke easily. "If youse boys don't see through that lie youse're blind. If I was runnin' the strike alone an' wanted to sell it out, what Keating's said might be possible. But I ain't runnin' it. A committee is—five men. Now how d'youse suppose I could sell out with four men watchin' me—an' one o' them a friend o' Keating?"

He did not wait for a response from his audience. He turned to Connelly and went on with a provoked air: "Mr. Chairman, youse know, an' the rest o' the committee knows, that it was youse who suggested we give up the strike. An' youse know I held out again' givin' in. Now ain't we had enough o' Keating's wind? S'pose youse put the question."

What Foley had said was convincing; and, even at this instant, Tom himself could but admire the self-control, the air of provoked forbearance, with which he said it. The quiet, easy speech had given the crowd time to recover. As Foley sat down there was a sudden tumult of voices, and then loud cries of "Question!" "Question!"

"Order, Mr. Chairman! I demand the right to speak!" Tom cried.

"No one wants to hear you, and the question's called for."

Tom turned to the crowd. "It's for you to say whether you'll hear me or——"

"Out of order!" shouted Connelly.

"I've got facts, men! Facts! Will it hurt you to hear me? You can vote as you please, then!"

"Question!" went up a roar, and immediately after it a greater and increasing roar of "Keating!" "Keating!"

Connelly could but yield. He pounded for order, then nodded at Tom. "Well, go on."

Tom realized the theatricality of his position on the piano, but he also realized its advantage, and did not get down. He waited a moment to gain control of his mind, and his eyes moved over the rows and rows of faces that gleamed dully from sweat and excitement through the haze of smoke.

What he had to say first was pure conjecture, but he spoke with the convincing decision of the man who has guessed at nothing. "You've heard the other men speak. All I ask of you is to hear me out the same way. And I have something far more important to say than anything that's been said here to-night. I am going to tell you the story of the most scoundrelly trick that was ever played on a trade union. For the union has been sold out, and Buck Foley lies when he says it has not, and he knows he lies!"

Every man was listening intently. Tom went on: "About three weeks ago, just when negotiations were opened again, Foley arranged with the bosses to sell out the strike. Fifty thousand dollars was the price. The bosses were to make a million or more out of the deal, Foley was to make fifty thousand, and we boys were to pay for it all! Foley's work was to fool the committee, make them lose confidence in the strike, and they of course would make the union lose confidence and we'd give up. That was his job, and for it he was to have fifty thousand dollars.

"Well, he was the man for the job. He worked the committee, and worked it so slick it never knew it was being worked. He even made the committee think it was urging him to give up the strike. How he did it, it's beyond me or any other honest man even to guess. No one could have done it but Foley. He's the smoothest crook that ever happened. I give you that credit, Buck Foley. You're the smoothest crook that ever happened!"

Foley had come to his feet with a look that was more of a glaring scowl than anything else: eyebrows drawn down shaggily, a gully between them—nose drawn up and nostrils flaring—jaws clenched—the whole face clenched. "Mr. President, are youse goin' to let that man go on with his lies?" he broke in fiercely.

The crowd roused from its tension. "Go on, Keating! Go on!"

"If he goes on with them lies, I for one ain't goin' to stay to listen to 'em!" Foley grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and started to edge through to the aisle.

"If you leave, Buck Foley, it's the same as a confession of guilt!" shouted Tom. "Stay here and defend yourself like a man, if you can!"

"Against youse?" He laughed a dry cackling laugh, and his returning self-mastery smoothed out his face. And then his inherent bravado showed itself. On reaching the aisle, instead of turning toward the door, he turned toward the platform and seated himself on its edge, directing a look of insouciant calm upon the men.

"Whatever lies there are, are all yours, Buck Foley," Tom went on. He looked again at the crowd, bending toward him in attention. "The trick worked. How well is shown by our being on the point of voting to give up the strike. Little by little our confidence was destroyed by doubt, and little by little Foley got nearer to his money—till to-day came. I'm speaking facts now, boys. I've got evidence for everything I'm going to tell you. I know every move Foley's made in the last thirty-six hours.

"Well, this morning,—I'll only give the big facts, facts that count,—this morning he went to get the price of us—fifty thousand dollars. Where do you suppose he met Baxter? In some hotel, or some secret place? Not much. Cunning! That word don't do justice to Foley. He met Baxter in Baxter's own office!—and with the door open! Could anything be more in harmony with the smooth scheme by which he fooled the committee? He left the door wide open, so everyone outside could hear that nothing crooked was going on. He swore at Baxter. He called him every sort of name because he would not make us any concession. After a minute or two he came out, still swearing mad. His coat was buttoned up—tight. It was unbuttoned when he went in. And the people that heard thought what an awful calling-down Baxter had got.

"Foley went first to the Independence Bank. He left seventeen thousand there. At the Jackson Bank he left fifteen thousand, and at the Third National eighteen thousand. Fifty thousand dollars, boys—his price for selling us out! And he comes here to-night and pretends to be broken-hearted. 'This is the hardest hour of my life,' he says; 'and so I lose my first strike.' Broken-hearted!—with fifty thousand put in the bank in one day!"

There was a tense immobility through all the crowd, and a profound stillness, quickly broken by Foley before anyone else could forestall him. There was a chance that Tom's words had not caught hold—his thousandth chance.

"If that fool is through ravin', better put the motion, Connelly," he remarked the instant Tom ended, in an even tone that reached the farthest edge of the hall. No one looking at him at this instant, still sitting on the edge of the platform, would have guessed his show of calmness was calling from him the supreme effort of his life.

Voices buzzed, then there rose a dull roar of anger.

It had been Foley's last chance, and he had lost. He threw off his control, and leaped to his feet, his face twisted with vengeful rage. He tossed his hat and coat on the platform, and without a word made a rush through the men toward Tom.

"Let him through, boys!" Tom shouted, and sprang from the piano. Petersen stepped quickly to his side, but Tom pushed him away and waited in burning eagerness in the little open space. And the crowd, still dazed by the revelations of the last scene, looked fascinated upon this new one.

But at this moment an interruption came from the rear of the hall. "Letter for Foley!" shouted a voice. "Letter for Foley!"

Foley paused in his rush, and turned his livid face toward the cry. The sergeant-at-arms was pushing his way through the center aisle, repeating his shout, his right hand holding an envelope aloft. He gained Foley's side and laid the letter in the walking delegate's hand. "Messenger just brought it! Very important!" he cried.

Foley glared at Tom, looked at the letter, hesitated, then ripped open the envelope with a bony forefinger. The crowd looked on, hardly breathing, while he read.