It was from Henry Tuttle, on the company's legal stationery, enclosing the affidavits relating to Pelham's activities in the New Haven strike.
The letter was burned, the ashes scattered.
The next afternoon's Register informed Pelham of the company's terms, which were to take back all except the ringleaders, some twenty in number—he noticed the names of Jensen and the committeemen heading it—at the old rate, with an agreement from each man binding him not to join the union. The strikers under arrest, continued the account, would be discharged in all probability, except in cases of serious nature.
The same paper contained the sparse outline of another story, which Pelham read with a growing horror.
At three-thirty the previous afternoon, an old man had entered the mining company's office, and asked for Paul Judson.
"What name?"
His watery blue eyes danced peculiarly beneath stringy white hair. "He doesn't know me. It's important."
"We must have your name."
Fumbling first on one foot, then the other, he eyed the uninterested clerk closely. At length he made up his mind. "My name is Duckworth—Christopher Duckworth, tell him. I've come about the settlement of the strike."
She marked down the name, snapping to the drawer. "He's out of town to-day."