Bertram Atkey

“ The Honorable John noted the unmasked approval with which the workmen who heard greeted the exclamation, and moved on.
“Ripe as red apples for a strike,” he told himself. “They'd come out for next to nothing. Not that we shall be here to see it!”
Then, lighting a cigar with the air of a man who had done a good day's work, he went on to the furnished house—a new white-and-red detached villa standing alone on the cliff not far from the valley—where Sing should be engaged in getting things ready for the partners' occupation that evening. ”

“ They moved away to the swarm that were working on the esplanade. There was a small crowd collecting at a spot where a little steam crane was hoisting big blocks of granite up to the level of the esplanade, and toward this crowd the two crooks proceeded. They saw that Mr. Walcher was the center of the group, and that he was talking loudly to a person who seemed to be a sort of foreman. It appeared that the foreman was straining the crane cable beyond its capacity—to the risk of the navvies working below.
“Yeh say it aint none of my business,” shouted Honest Jim Walcher. ”

“ Be good lads and we'll take care of you—that's what.”.
He smiled affably and waved them away.
“What I like about us, Squire,” he said, “is our neatness. We don't steal—hardly ever, I mean. We just hike off with stuff that has been stolen by some real first-hand thieves. And that's what I call neatness. Look at that five hundred. Walcher bullied that out of Fairborn and Company—by threatening 'em with a strike, the low hound. ”

“ On the same day the Baroness expected to get a check for anything from a hundred upward from Percival Fairborn upon guaranteeing that by using it in judicious bribery in the right place, she and her fiancé could get the men back to work at once: the word “hundred” on the check she proposed altering to “thousand,” and adding a modest '0' to the figure line, she would cash it and step from the curb outside the bank into the motor which, containing Walcher and Fitzair, and their accumulation of plunder, would be waiting to convey them out of Harromouth without delay. ”

“ So, if you're wise, we'll call it five 'undred, and I'll square the men with it unofficially.' He said he'd think it over, and let me know this afternoon.”
“Well, you made a fool of yourself, Walcher,” snapped another voice in reply—obviously the voice of a better class man. “That's the worst of dealing with little stiffs like you—you can only think in hundreds. Why didn't you ask five thousand—a serious strike would cost Fairborn and Company twice that, and even the potty little half-hearted strike that you could engineer would lose 'em thousands. ”

“ By the time he had finished the first quart, Honest Jim, vaguely striving to live up to the almost hopeless standard of power which the partners seemed to believe he possessed, had admitted that he fancied he could bring the two thousand or more workmen employed by Fairborn and Company out on strike any day he liked. ”

“ We know that you are all right if you are only left alone. The pair we are after are this Baroness and Captain Fitzair. They have played this sort of game all over England—and this time we want to get them red-handed. You needn't look nervous—we aren't detectives. We shall arrest nobody. We work behind the scenes. But what we say, Scotland Yard does. Understand? Home Office. Don't be afraid—we'll look after you. But you've got to help us get that couple red-handed. See?”
MR. WALCHER, rather pale but reassured by the friendly tone of these two “agents” from the Home Office, nodded nervously. ”

“ With the sole exception of a smartly dressed lady who had alighted from a long olive-green fast-looking motor at the end of a new, and as yet unbuilt-upon road, and was strolling toward the low cliffs—evidently an intending visitor taking a preliminary look at Harromouth,—the clerk was the only person to be seen on the cliff at that hour. ”

“ Brass impatiently. “To business—the check, my man, the check.”
Mr. Walcher produced a check and deferentially handed it to the Honorable John, who scrutinized it and passed it to the Colonel. “Five hundred—dated today—payable to bearer—signed Fairborn and Company—No. K 290232,” muttered the Colonel. “It seems in order.” He touched a bell, and a burly person entered—a big, fleshy man with a heavy face and bloodshot eyes. He was dressed in the uniform of a police inspector. ”

“ And I say it's the business of any 'uman bein' to protest on behalf of these honest toilers around me when I sees their lives being risked every minute of the day so as yeh can squeeze a few extra shillin's out of it for yer bloated capitalist employers. These honest workers whose union I 'ave the privilege to represent aint beasts of burden—no, nor no slaves, neither. ”

“ Fairborn,' I says, 'take it from me that the men'll come out in a week if they aint squared one way or the other way. I can square 'em,' I says, 'cheaper than you can. I aint been “Honest Jim” Walcher, chief travelin' representative of the South of England's Navvy's Union for five years, without learning about navvies,' I says. 'It'll cost a good five 'undred pound to do it, though,' I says. 'Things have gone too far. They're beginning to reckon that another three ha'pence an hour's their rights,' I says. ”

“ And don't leave anything lying about—see? When we leave this place, we shall leave quick. We shall probably hop it at a sixty-mile-an-hour clip—and there wont be time to go over the place with a fine-tooth comb. So leave nothing about. Have you brought the old brandy round from the hotel? You have? Then kindly fetch it along here, there's a good lad.”
THE clock was chiming eleven that night, when the partners and Mr. Walcher finished their liqueurs and coffee and withdrew into the drawing-room.
“And now to business,” said the Honorable John, eying the agitator severely. ”

“ This done, they returned to the hotel and sent for the manager and chef. Breakfast had been a failure; but that, as Mr. Brass remarked, had been the hotel's fault. If lunch was a failure, it would be their own fault. ”