“It’s all news to me, Yvonne. Doesn’t Acey Smith know?”
“She—she seems to be a friend of his.” The woman’s voice bore traces of deep agitation. “He spends a lot of time in her company.”
Yvonne Kovenay had risen. She bade Slack a hurried good-day and whisked out of his office.
Slack, staring speculatively at the door through which she had vanished, muttered to himself: “So Acey Smith has a flame, and that Kovenay girl he employs as head of his intelligence bureau is wild with jealousy. H’m, there’s real breakers ahead for Smith, or I miss my guess—and, if there’s a nasty fuss at this particular time I can see where I get a crisp order from J.C.X. to forthwith dispense with the services of a certain crafty superintendent. I can see that.”
But it was not possible pitfalls for Acey Smith which weighed heavily on the self-centred J. J. Slack—it was the nightmare of the coming strike of North Shore seamen that hung like a black cloud over him—the strike that he would have to precipitate and take the blame for. Until now he had understood the company’s stand-pat attitude was meant to be a temporary bluff only, and that the grievances of the men would be met before the strike actually came off. The orders he had just received dissipated all such fond illusions. His part in it would validate the total labour vote in his constituency. Good heavens, it meant ruin—complete ruin!
For a long period Slack paced the floor of his office. Futilely he tried to devise a way out. Five-thirty passed and the clerks in the outer office departed. Still he walked the floor. Yes—there was one way open. He would fight—bluff it through against this insane policy. Suddenly he came to a mental decision. He flung himself into his swivel chair and buried his face in his hands.
“I won’t do it! I won’t do it!” he spat out savagely. “I’ll see J.C.X. in hell first!”
“Why—in hell?”
III
At the mocking tones Slack looked up and into a face whose black, commanding eyes rivetted his very soul; whose straight, firm-set mouth was drawn to a hair-line in its wisp of a smile.