"I have been waiting for him to begin," growled the War Minister.

"We are at your service, Mr. Dawson," said the Prime Minister graciously.

Dawson, standing stiffly at attention, had closely followed the conversation, and, as it proceeded, his heart sank. He despaired of discovering courage and quick decision in the group of Ministers before him. Yet when called upon he made a last effort. If the country were to be saved, it must be saved by its people, not by its politicians, and he was a man of the people, resolute, enduring, long suffering.

"Gentlemen," said he, "we are threatened with a strike in the Northern shops and shipyards which will cripple the country. It will begin within forty-eight hours. I can stop it if I go North to-night with the full powers of the Government in my pocket, and with the means for which I ask. All the authorities in the North, civil, military and naval, have approved of my plans. I ask only leave to carry them out."

"Your plans are?" snapped the War Minister.

"To get my blow in first," said Dawson simply.

The First Lord again looked at Dawson, and a glint of fighting light flashed in his tired eyes. "Thrice armed is he who has his quarrel just; and four times he who gets his blow in first. How would you do it, Mr. Dawson."

"Yes, how?" eagerly inquired the War Minister.

"I have served," said Dawson, "in most parts of the world. When in West Africa one is attacked by a snake, one does not wait until it bites. One cuts off its head."

"You have served?" asked the War Minister. "In what Service?"

"The Red Marines," proudly answered Dawson.

"Ah!" The War Minister was plainly interested, and Dawson had, during the rest of the interview, no eyes for any one except for him and for the First Lord. He recognised these two as brother fighting men. The others he waved aside as civilian truck. "Ah! The Red Marines. Long service men, the best we have. So you would cut off the snake's head before it can bite."

"To-morrow afternoon," explained Dawson, "I must attend a meeting of shop stewards, over two hundred of them. They contain the head of the snake. Give me powers, a proclamation of martial law which I may show them, and I will cut off the snake's head."

"You soldiers are always prating about martial law," grumbled the Prime Minister. "We have given to you the amplest powers under the Defence of the Realm Act and the Munitions Act to punish strikers. Those are sufficient. I have no patience with plans for enforcing a military despotism."

"Excuse me, sir," said Dawson patiently, as to a child, "but if a hundred thousand men go out on strike, your Acts of Parliament will be waste paper. You cannot lock up or fine a hundred thousand men, and if you could you would still be unable to make them work. No means have ever been devised to make unwilling men work, except the lash, and that is useless with skilled labour. No one in the North cares a rap for Acts of Parliament, but there is a mystery about martial law which carries terror into the hardest heart and the most stupid brain. I want a signed proclamation of martial law, but I undertake not to issue it unless all other forms of pressure fail. I must have it all in cold print to show to the shop stewards when I strike my blow. Without that proclamation I am helpless, and you will be helpless, too, by Friday next. This is Wednesday. Unless I cut off the snake's head to-morrow, it will bite you here even in your sheltered London."

The Prime Minister fumbled once more with the papers before him, but they gave him no comfort. All advised the one measure of giving full authority to Dawson and of trusting to his energy and skill. "Dawson is a man of the people, and knows his own class. He can deal with the men; we can't." So the urgent appeals ran.

"And if you do not succeed? If you proclaim martial law and we have to enforce it, where shall we be then?"

"No worse off than you will be anyhow by Friday," said Dawson curtly.

"So you say. But suppose that we think you needlessly fearful. Suppose that we prefer to wait until Friday and see; what then?"

"You will see what has not been seen in our country for over a hundred years," retorted Dawson. "You will see artillery firing shotted guns in the streets."

The Prime Minister shrugged his shoulders, but the War Secretary turned to his pile of maps and picked up one on which was marked all the depots and training camps in the northern district. "How many men do you want?" he asked.

"No khaki, thank you," replied Dawson. "It is not trained, and the workmen are used to it. To them khaki means their sons and brothers and friends dressed up. I want my own soldiers of the Sea Regiment in service blue. I want eighty men from my old division at Chatham."

"Eighty!" cried the War Minister—"eighty men! You are going to stop a revolution with eighty Red Marines!"

"I could perhaps do with fewer," explained Dawson modestly. "But I want to make sure work. Give me eighty Marines, none of less than five years' service, a couple of sergeants, and a lieutenant—a regular pukka lieutenant. Give them to me, and make me temporarily a captain in command, and I will engage to cut off the snake's head. You can have my own head if I fail."

The Great War Minister rose, walked over to Dawson, and shook his embarrassed hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dawson," said he. The First Lord, now fully awake, sat up and stared earnestly at the detective. Those two, the chiefs of the Navy and the Army, had grasped the startling fact that for once they were in the presence of a Man. The others saw only a rather ill-dressed, intrusive, vulgar police officer.

"I have rarely met a man with so economical a mind," went on the War Minister, who resumed his seat. "If you had asked me for eight thousand, I should not have been surprised." He turned to the Prime Minister. "If our resolute friend here can stop a revolution with eighty Red Marines, let him have them in God's name."

"Oh, he can have the Marines," growled the Prime Minister—"if the First Lord agrees. They are in his department. And if it pleases him to dress up as a temporary captain, that is nothing to me; but I draw a firm line at any proclamation of martial law."

"Well," asked the War Minister of Dawson, "what say you?"

"I must have the proclamation, my lord," replied Dawson. "Not to put up in the streets, but to show to the shop stewards. They won't believe that the Cabinet has any spunk until they see the proclamation signed by you. They know that what you say you do."

["Great Heavens," I said to Dawson, when he recounted to me the details of his surprising interview with the War Committee, "tact is hardly your strong suit. You could not have asked more plainly to be kicked out. The flabbier a Cabinet is, the more convinced are its members of adamantine resolution."

"If I had to go down and out," replied Dawson, "I had determined to go fighting. I was there to speak my mind, not to flatter anybody."]

The silence which followed this awful speech could be felt. The Prime Minister gasped, flushed to the eyes, and half rose to dismiss Dawson from the room. He himself thought for a moment that all was lost, when through the tense atmosphere ran a ripple of gay laughter. It was the First Lord who, with instant decision, had taken the only means to save his new friend Dawson. He has a delightfully infectious silvery laugh, and the effect was electrical. The War Minister opened his great mouth, and bellowed Ha! Ha! Ha! The Minister of Munitions put his head down on the table and shrieked. Even the Home Secretary, a severe, humourless, legal gentleman, cackled. The Prime Minister, whose perceptions were of the quickest, saw that anger would be ridiculous in the midst of laughter. He admitted the First Lord's victory, and forced a smile.

"You are not a diplomatist, Mr. Dawson," said he reprovingly.

"Like Marcus Antonius," whispered the First Lord, as he wiped his eyes delicately, "he is a plain, blunt man."

The War Minister pulled a sheet of paper towards' him and began to write. He scribbled for a few minutes, made a few corrections, and then read out slowly the words which he had set down. All present saw that the moment of acute crisis had arrived.

"That is all that I want," said Dawson. "If you will sign that paper, my lord, I need not trouble you gentlemen any longer."

"I am one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State," observed the War Minister. "Shall I sign, sir?"

"I believe," remarked the Home Secretary primly, "that if one has regard for strict historical accuracy there is but one Secretary of State, and that I am that one."

"I will not trouble you," said the War Minister.

"I am technically responsible for the country over which I am supposed to rule," put in the Scottish Secretary plaintively. "I speak, of course under correction, but north of the Border my signature might—"

"You are not a Secretary of State," growled the War Minister, "and your seat is not safe. No one shall sign except myself, for I have no need to seek after working-class votes. Dawson and I will face this music."

"And if I decline to permit you to sign?" asked the Prime Minister blandly. "This is not a Cabinet meeting, and we have no power to commit the Government to so grave a step."

"You will require to fill up the vacant position of Secretary for War," came the answer.

"And also the humble post of First Lord of the Admiralty," murmured that high officer of State. "We are up against realities, and Cabinet etiquette can go hang for me."

The War Minister again read aloud what he had written, signed it carefully and deliberately, and rising up, handed it to Dawson. "Get it printed at once and go ahead, Mr. Dawson."

"Captain Dawson, R.M.L.I.," corrected the First Lord, who also rose and warmly shook hands with the new captain. "You shall be gazetted at once. I will see the Adjutant-General myself and give orders to Chatham."

"You have both made up your minds?" inquired the Prime Minister.

"Quite," said the War Secretary. The First Lord nodded.

"Very good," replied the Prime Minister; "I consent. We must above all things preserve the unity of the Cabinet in these circumstances of grave national crisis."

"Clear out, Dawson," whispered the First Lord.

Dawson cleared out.



CHAPTER XVI

DAWSON STRIKES

It was a little past noon, and Dawson had much work to do before he could be free to speed north by the midnight train. First he skipped across to the Yard and into the private room of his firm friend the Chief. To him he showed the potent proclamation and recounted the methods of its extraction. "I thought that I was in a company of jackals," said he at the end; "but I was wrong—two of them were lions."

"We should be in a bad way if there were no lions," commented the Chief. "Those two, and another who is dead, saved South Africa; there are one or two more, but not many. What shall you do with this?"

"We will set it up on our own private press, and run off a couple of hundred placards. The secret must not leak out; I am playing for surprises."

The Chief struck a bell, the order was given, and Dawson's priceless proclamation vanished into the lower regions.

"Now?" inquired the Chief.

"Chatham," explained Dawson, "to pick up my men—and to get my uniform." When telling the story, Dawson again and again described to me his uniform, with which I happened by family association to be intimately acquainted. He did not spare me a badge or a button. I am convinced that no girl wore her first ball-dress with half the palpitating pride with which Dawson surveyed himself in his captain's kit. When I chaffed him gently, and hinted that the stars of a captain were cheaply come by in these days, he had one retort always ready, "Not in the Red Marines." He did not value his office of Chief Detective Inspector a rap beside that temporary rank of Captain of Red Marines. He had, you see, been a private in that proud exclusive Corps, and its glory for him outshone all human glories.

He flew away to Chatham as fast as a deliberate railway service permitted, and found upon arrival that an urgent telegram from the Adjutant-General had preceded him. Dawson was shown at once to the Commandant's quarters, and there explained his requirements. "Eighty men, two sergeants, and a regular lieutenant. Not one of less than five years' service. Also a sea-service kit with a captain's stars for me. The mess-sergeant will fit me out. He trades in second-hand uniforms."

"You have the advantage of me, Mr. Dawson," said the Commandant, smiling, "in your profound knowledge of the functions of a mess sergeant."

"I was a recruit here, sir, when you were a second lieutenant. I know the by-ways of Chatham and the perquisites of mess-sergeants. I was a sergeant myself once."

"I remember you, Dawson," said the Commandant kindly, "and am proud to see one of us become so great a man. By the regulations a temporary officer should wear khaki."

"No khaki for me, sir, please," implored Dawson. "I should not feel that I belonged to the old Corps in khaki. In my time it was the red parade tunic or the sea-service blue."

"Wear any kit you please. This is your day, not mine. I have been ordered to place myself and all Chatham at your disposal, though what your particular game is I have not a notion. I won't ask any questions now, but please come and dine with me in mess when you return, and let me have the whole story."

"I will, sir," cried Dawson heartily, "and thank you very much. I have waited at the mess, but never dined with it The old Corps is going with me to do a pretty bit of work, different from anything that it has ever done before."

"That would not be easy; we have been in every scrap on land or sea since the year dot."

Dawson looked round carefully, and then whispered, "Those eighty Marines of mine are going to cut off a snake's head and stop a bloody revolution. They've done that sort of thing many times at the ends of the earth, but never, I believe, in England."

"I wish that I were again a lieutenant," growled the Commandant, "for then I would volunteer to come with you."

"You shall choose my second-in-command yourself, sir," conceded Dawson handsomely.

Captain Dawson chose his men with discrimination. All those above five years' service were paraded in the barrack square, and Dawson, assisted by the Commandant, to whom his men were as his own children, picked out the eighty lucky ones at leisure. Those who were rejected shrugged their stiff square shoulders and predicted disaster for the expedition. In one small detail Dawson changed his plans. He had intended to take two sergeants only, but in Chatham there were four who had served with him in the ranks, and he could not withstand their pleadings. When all was settled, Dawson went to the Commandant's quarters to be introduced to his second-in-command, and surprised there that officer endeavouring to squeeze his rather middle-aged figure within the buttoned limits of a subaltern's tunic. Since the senior officers of Marines never go to sea, the Commandant's own official uniform was the field-service khaki of a Staff officer. "It is all right," explained he, laughing. "I have become a lieutenant again, and am going north with you. But I wish that your friend the mess-sergeant had a pattern B tunic which would meet round my middle. My young men must be devilish slim nowadays. I have been on to the A.-G. by 'phone. He pretends to be derisory, but I am convinced that really he is desperately jealous. He would love to go too. You seem, my good Dawson, to have stirred up Whitehall and Spring Gardens in a manner most emphatic."

"But you can't serve under me, sir," cried Dawson, aghast.

"Can't I!" retorted the new Lieutenant. "If admirals can joyfully go afloat as lieut.-commanders, as lots of them are doing, what is to prevent a Colonel of Marines serving as a subaltern? I am on this job with you, Dawson, if you will have me."

"With four sergeants and eighty Marines," said Dawson slowly, "you and I could have held Mons."

"We could that," cried the Colonel-Lieutenant, who had by now completed the reduction of his rank to that of Captain Dawson's subordinate. "Nothing, nothing, is beyond the powers of the Sea Regiment!"

At about 11.30 that night the wide roof of St. Pancras echoed to the disciplined tramp of Dawson's detachment, which marched straight to coaches reserved by order from Headquarters. "Marines don't talk," said Dawson, "but I am not taking risks. I don't want to sully the virtue of my old Sea Pongos by mixing them up with raw land Tommies." Dawson and his subaltern were moving towards the sleeping-coach in which a double berth had been assigned to them, when two tall gentlemen in civilian dress slipped out of the crowd and stood in their path. Dawson, at the sight of them, glowed with pride, his chest swelled out under his broad blue tunic, and his hand flew to the peak of his red-banded cap. The Colonel-Lieutenant gasped. "Good luck, Dawson," whispered the bigger of the strangers; "I would give my baton to be going north with you."

"Colonel —— has given up his crowns," replied Dawson, as he introduced his companion.

The Field-Marshal smiled and shook hands with the sporting Commandant. "This is all frightfully irregular," said he, "but I sympathise. Still, if I know our friend Dawson here, there won't be any fighting. You have no idea of his skill as a diplomatist. He tells the truth, which is so unusual and startling that the effect is overwhelming. He is a heavy human howitzer. I envy you, Colonel."

"I have not a notion what we are to be at," said the Colonel.

"I am not very clear myself. It is Dawson's picnic, not ours, and we have given him a free hand. You won't get any fighting, but there will be lots of fun."

Meanwhile the First Lord had drawn Dawson to one side. "Good luck, Captain Dawson; you have not wasted any time, and I have the best of hopes. We had a beautiful row after you left us this morning. It did my poor heart good. The P.M. declares that if you put martial law into force, he will hand in his checks to the King. So, my poor friend, you carry with you a mighty responsibility. But stick it out, don't hesitate to follow your judgment, and wire me how you get on."

"Don't worry, sir," said Dawson, "I shall not fail. If it had not been for you and his lordship here, I should not have had this great chance. I won't let you down."

"Sh!" whispered the other. "Not so loud. We are conspirators, strictly incog., dressed in the shabbiest of clothes. We had to see you off, for I enjoyed the tussle of this morning beyond words. I would not for anything have missed the P.M.'s face when he found himself driven to act suddenly and definitely. I am eternally your debtor, Captain Dawson of the Red Marines."

"My word," exclaimed the Colonel-Lieutenant, when the visitors had slipped away like a couple of stage villains, with soft hats pulled down over their eyes—"the Field-Marshal and the First Lord! You have some friends, sir."

"I am only a ranker," said Dawson humbly, "with very temporary stars; not a pukka officer and gentleman like you. I hope that you do not mind sharing' a sleeper with me?"

"I should be proud to share with you the measliest dug-out in a Flanders graveyard," replied the Colonel emphatically. The two officers, so anomalously associated, entered their berth the best of friends and talked together far into the night. And as they talked, the Colonel, now a Lieutenant, made the same discovery which had startled Dawson's two powerful supporters of the morning. In the police officer, rough, half-educated, vain, tender of heart, he also had discovered a Man. "But for me and my Red Marines," said Dawson, as they turned in for some broken sleep, "those poor fools up yonder would get themselves shot in the streets. But I shall save them, and in saving them I shall save the country."

* * * * *

It was the afternoon of the following day, just twenty-four hours after Dawson had commandeered the resources of Chatham, and the scene was a public hall in a big industrial city. In the body of the room sat two hundred and thirty-four men—shop stewards and district trade union officials—and their faces were gloomy and anxious. They had come for a last meeting with the officers of the Munitions Dept, and to declare that the men whom they represented were resolved not to permit of any further dilution of labour. The great majority of them were not unpatriotic, their sons and brothers and friends had joined the Forces, and had already fought and died gallantly, but they were intensely suspicious. To them the "employer," the "capitalist," was a greater, because more enduring and insidious, enemy than the Germans. Dilution of labour had become in their eyes a device for destroying all their hardly won privileges and restrictions, and for delivering them bound and helpless to their "capitalist oppressers." To this sorry pass had the perpetual disputes of peace brought the workmen under stress of war! Rates of pay did not enter into the dispute—never in their lives had they earned such wages—its origin led in a queer perverted sense of loyalty to the trade unions, and to those members who had gone forth to fight. "What will our folks say," asked the men of one another, "when they come home from the war, if we have given away in their absence all that they fought for during long years?" When it was attempted to make clear that the lives of their own sons in the trenches were being made more hazardous by their obstinacy, they shook their heads and simply did not believe. "We can make all the guns and the shells that are wanted without giving up our rules. We value our sons' lives as much as you do. We love our country as much as you do. The capitalists are using a plea of patriotism to get the better of us." It was a pitiful deadlock—honest for the most part; yet it was a deadlock which, as Dawson said, brought very near the day when English artillery would be firing shotted guns in English streets.

At a small table on a low platform at one end of the room sat three civilians, and a few feet away, sitting a little back, was an officer whose uniform and badges attracted the eyes of the curious. None of the workmen knew this brown-skinned man with the small, dark moustache who looked so very professional a soldier, yet Dawson knew them, every man of them, and had moved among them in their works many times. Ten of those present were actually his own agents, working among their fellow unionists and agitating with them—hidden sources of information and of influence at need—and yet not one of those ten knew that the Marine Captain upon the platform was his own official chief. The chairman rose to speak to the men for the last time, and Dawson sat listening and studying a small slip of paper in his hand.

The chairman said nothing that the men had not been told many times during the past few days, but there was in his speech a note of solemn appeal and warning which was new. The hearers shuffled their feet uneasily, for most of them felt uneasy; they were, as I have said, most of them honest men. But when the chairman had sat down, and the men began, one after another, to reply, it appeared at once that there was present an element not honest, even seditious. Dawson smiled to himself, and studied his slip of paper, for the snake, whose head he had come to cut off, was beginning to rear itself before him. Hints began to appear that there was a strong minority at least which was unwilling both to fight and to work for a country which was none of theirs—"What has this country done for us that we should bleed and sweat for it? It has starved us and sweated us to make profits out of us, and now in its extremity slobbers us with fair words." At last one man rose, a thin-faced, wild-eyed man, who, under happier conditions, might have been a preacher or a writer, and delivered a speech which was rankly seditious. "The workers," he declared, "are being shackled, gagged, and robbed. Our enemy is not the German Kaiser. Our enemy consists of that small, cunning, treacherous, well-organised, and highly respectable section of the community who, by means of the money power, compels the workers to sweat in order that their bellies may be full and their fine ladies gowned in gorgeous raiment. They pass a Munitions Act to chain the worker to his master. They 'dilute' labour to call into being an invisible army which can be mobilised at short notice to defeat the struggles of striking artisans. The attack of the masters must be resisted. The workers must fight. There is a fascinating attraction in the idea of meeting force with force, violence with violence. It is undeniable that many of the more thoughtful among the toilers would consider that their lives had not been spent in vain if they organised their comrades to drilled and armed rebellion."

The speaker paused. He was encouraged by a few cheers, but the mass of his hearers were silent. He glanced at Dawson, whose face was set in an expressionless mask. Cheers came again, and he went on, but with less assurance. "The worker's labour power is his only wealth. It is also his highest weapon. But the workers need not think of using this weapon so long as they are split and divided into sects and groups and crafts. To be effective they must organise as workers. An organisation that would include all the workers, skilled and unskilled, throughout the entire country, would prove irresistible. But as matters stand at present I do not advocate armed rebellion. I advocate and herewith proclaim a general strike."

He sat down, and there was a long silence. The die had been cast. If the meeting broke up without the emphatic assertion of the Government's authority, then a general strike upon the morrow was as certain as that the sun would rise. It was for this moment, this intensely critical moment, that Dawson had worked and fought in London, and for which he was now ready. The chairman sighed and wiped his face, which had become clammy. He looked at Dawson, who nodded slightly, and then rose.

"I call," said he solemnly, "upon Captain Dawson. He is now in supreme authority."

Dawson sprang to his feet, alert, decided, and picked up a large roll of papers which had rested behind him upon his chair. He placed the roll upon the table and faced the audience, who knew at once, with the rapid instinct of a crowd, that the unexpected was about to happen. Dawson pulled down his tunic, settled himself comfortably into his Sam Browne belt, and rested his left hand upon the hilt of his sword.—It was a pretty artistic touch, the wearing of that sword, and exactly characteristic of Dawson's methods. I laughed when he told me of it.—There were two doors to the room—one upon Dawson's left hand, the other at the far end behind the workmen. He raised his right hand, and the chairman, who was watching him, pressed an electric bell. Then events began to happen.

The doors flew open, and through each of them filed a line of smart men in blue, equipped with rifles and side arms. Twenty men and a sergeant passed through each door, which was then closed. The ranks of each detachment were dressed as if on parade, and when all were ready, Dawson gave a sharp order. Instantly forty-two rifle-butts clashed as one upon the floor, and the Marines stood at ease. At this moment the door at the far end might have been seen to open, and an officer to slip in who, though white of hair, had not apparently reached a higher rank than that of lieutenant. "It was all very fine, Dawson," he explained afterwards, "your plan of leaving me outside with the rest of the Marines, but it wasn't good enough. I didn't come north to be buried in the reserves."

"You should have obeyed orders," replied Dawson severely.

"I should," cheerfully assented the Colonel-Commandant of Chatham, "but somehow I didn't."

While Dawson's body-guard of Marines was getting into position before the doors, the workmen, surprised and trapped, were on their feet chattering and gesticulating. The unfamiliar appearance of the blue-uniformed men, not one of whom was less than five feet nine inches in height, their well-set-up figures and stolid professional faces, gave a business-like, even ominous flavour to the proceedings which chilled the strike leaders to the bone. They would have cheered an irruption of kilted recruits in khaki tunics as the coming of old friends, and would have felt no more than local patriotic hostility towards a detachment of English or Irish soldiers. But these blue men of the Sea Regiment, an integral part of the great mysterious silent Navy, had no part or lot with British workmen "rightly struggling to be free." They represented some outside authority, some potent, overpowering authority, as no khaki-clad soldiers could have represented it. The surprise was complete, the moral effect was staggering, and Dawson, who had counted upon both when he brought his Marines north, smiled contentedly to himself. He stepped forward, with that little slip of paper in his hand, and began to read from it. One by one he read out twenty-three names, the very first being that of the man who had made the speech which I have reported.

As name after name dropped from Dawson's lips, the wonder and terror grew. Who was this strange officer who could thus surely divide the goats from the sheep, who was picking out one after another the self-seekers and fomenters of sedition, who, while he omitted none who were really dangerous, yet included none who were honest though mistaken? As the list drew towards its end, quite half the listeners were smiling broadly. They could not have drawn up a more perfect one themselves, and they did not love most of those whose names were found upon it.

"Now," said Dawson, when he had finished, "I must ask all those gentlemen to step forward." Not a man moved. "Let me warn you that every man whose name I have read out is personally known to me. If I have to come and fetch you, I shall not come alone." There was still some hesitation, and then those upon the proscribed list began to move forward. They would willingly have hidden themselves, had that been possible, but to be known and to be dragged out by those hard-faced Marines would have added humiliation to terror. They came forth, until all the twenty-three were ranged up before Dawson. Then the man, whose name was first upon the list, rasped out, "What is your authority for this outrage upon a peaceful meeting? I demand your authority."

"You shall have it," serenely replied Dawson. And, going up to the pile of papers which he had laid upon the table, he drew one forth and held it up so that all might see. It was a large placard, boldly printed, a proclamation in cold, terse language of Martial Law, signed by the Secretary for War himself.

"Martial Law! This is sheer militarism," cried the first of those arrested.

"For you and for these other twenty-two upon my list it is Martial Law," replied Dawson. "But for the rest it will be as they choose themselves. Sergeant, remove the prisoners." A sergeant stepped out, the line of Marines before the door divided, and the prisoners were led away. Dawson put the proclamation back upon the table, squared his shoulders, and turned towards his audience, now silent, subdued, and purged. His plans were working very well.

"I am no speaker," he began; "I am a man of the people, one of yourselves. I have made my own way, and though I wear the uniform and stars of a Captain of Marines, I am really an officer of police, Chief Detective Inspector Dawson of Scotland Yard." He paused to allow time for this astonishing fact to sink in. So that was why he had known the names and faces of all the ring-leaders of sedition! And if he knew so much, what more might he not know! Even the most innocent among his audience began to feel loose about the neck.

"I know you all," he went on. "There is not a man among you whom I do not know. You—or you—or you." He addressed those near to him by name. "We sympathise with you and have reasoned with you. But you proved obdurate. The King's Government must be carried on; the war must be carried on if our country is to be saved. And those who have given power to me—the power which you have seen set out upon these papers, the powers of Martial Law—will exercise them unflinchingly if there appears to be no other way. But there is another and a better way. You must obey the laws which Parliament has passed for the defence of the country and for the provision of munitions. Your rights are protected under them. After the war is over, your privileges will be restored. For the present they must be abandoned. Willingly or unwillingly they must be abandoned. I said just now that it is for you to choose whether Martial Law shall take effect or not. The moment those placards are posted in the streets the military authorities become supreme, but they will not be posted if you have the sense to see when you are beaten. What I have to ask, to require of you, is that to-morrow, at the mass meeting of the men which is to be held, you will advise them to surrender unconditionally, to work hard themselves, and to allow all others to work hard. There must be no more holding up of essential parts of guns, no more writing and talking sedition. Our country needs the whole-hearted service of us all. If you here and now give me your promise that you will use every effort—no perfunctory, but real effort—to stop at once all these threats of a strike, I will let you go now and wish you God-speed. If you fail, then Martial Law will be proclaimed forthwith. Make this very clear to the men. Tell them that you have seen the proclamation, signed by the Field-Marshal himself, and that I, Captain and Chief Inspector Dawson, will post the placards in the streets with my own hands. If you will not give me your promise—I do not ask for any hostages or security, just your promise as loyal, honourable men—I shall arrest you all here and now, and deport you all just as those twenty-three have been arrested and will be deported. You will not see those men for a long time; you know in your hearts that you are well quit of them. If I arrest you all, I shall not stop my arrests at that point. There are many others—many who are not workmen from whom has come money for your strike funds and to offer bail when arrests have been made. I shall pick them all up. Nothing that you can now do will affect the fate of those who have been taken from this room. Whatever loyalty you may owe to them has been discharged, and I will give you a quittance. Their chapter has been closed. What you have to consider now is the fate of yourselves and of many beside yourselves, of all those who look to you for advice and guidance. Take time, talk among yourselves, consult one another. I am not here to hurry you unduly, but before you are allowed to leave this room there must be a complete and final settlement."

He sat down. The men split into groups, and the buzz of talk ran through the room. There was no anger or excitement, but much bewilderment. They had come to the meeting as masters, strong in numbers, to dictate terms, yet now the tables had been turned dramatically upon them. No longer masters, they were in the presence of a Force which at a word from Dawson could hale them forth as prisoners to be dealt with under the mysterious shuddering powers of Martial Law. They thought of those twenty-three, a few minutes since so potent for mischief, now bound and helpless in the hands of the Blue Men from the Sea.

At last an elderly grey-locked man stepped forward, and Dawson rose to meet him. "We admit, sir," said he, "that you have us at a disadvantage. We did not expect this Proclamation nor those Marines of yours. We did not believe that the Government meant business. We thought that we should have more talk, talk, and we are all sick of talk. We are true patriots here—you have taken away all those who cared nothing for their country—and we feel that if you are prepared to use Martial Law and the forces of the Crown against us, that you must be very much in earnest. We feel that you would not do these terrible things unless the need were very urgent. We do not agree that the need is urgent, but if you, representing the Government, say that it is, we have no course open to us but to submit. If we now surrender unconditionally and promise heartily to use every effort to bring the mass of the men to our views, will you in your turn give us your personal assurance that all our legitimate grievances will be fully considered, and that every effort will be made to meet them? You may crush us, sir, but you will not get good work from men whose spirit has been broken."

"I cannot make conditions," replied Dawson gently, "but ask yourselves why I brought my Marines all the way from Chatham to deal with this meeting? Was it not that I would not put upon you the pain and humiliation of arrest at the hands of your own sons and brothers? Though I stand here with gold stars on my shoulders I am one of you. My father worked all his life in the dockyard at Portsmouth, and I myself as a boy have been a holder-on in a black squad of riveters. I can make no conditions, but if you will leave yourself entirely in my hands, and in those of my superiors, you may be assured that there will be no attempt made to crush you, to break your spirit."

As he said these words an inspiration came to him, and by sure instinct he acted upon it. Jumping down from the platform, he approached the old sad-faced spokesman, and shook him hard by the hand. Then he moved along among the other workmen, addressing them by name, chatting to them of their work and private interests, and showing so complete and human a regard for them that their hostility melted away before him. This man, who had conquered them, was one of themselves, a "tradesman" like them, one of the Black Squad of Portsmouth, a fellow-worker. He was no tool of the hated "capitalist." If he said that they must all go back to work unconditionally, well they must go. But he was their friend, and would see justice done them. Presently Dawson was handing out cigarettes—of which he had brought a large supply in his pockets, Woodbines—and the meeting, of which so much was feared, had apparently turned into, a happy conversazione. For half an hour Dawson pursued his campaign of personal conciliation, and then went back to his place upon the platform.

"Go in peace," he cried. "Come again to-morrow afternoon and tell me about the mass meeting. There will be more cigarettes awaiting you, and even, possibly, a bottle or two of whisky."

The men laughed, and one wag called out, "Three cheers for holder-on Dawson." The cheers were given heartily, the Marines stood aside from the doors, and the room rapidly emptied. The officials of the Munitions Department and the Colonel, who was Dawson's insubordinate subaltern, crowded round him spouting congratulations. He soaked in their flatteries as was his habit, and then delivered a lesson upon the management of men which should be printed in letters of gold. "Men are just grown-up children," said he, "and should be treated as children. Be always just, praise them when they are good, and smack them when they are naughty. But if when they are naughty you spare the rod and try to slobber them with fine words, they will despise you utterly, and become upon the instant naughtier than ever."

"What about that mass meeting to-morrow?" asked the Colonel.

"I shall not be there, but ten of my men will be. Have no fears of the mass meeting. The snake's head is off—by to-morrow it will be two hundred miles away—and though the body may wriggle, it will be quite harmless. After two or three hours of talk and vain threats the meeting will collapse, and we shall get unconditional surrender."

And so it happened. The talk went on for four solid hours—vain, vapouring talk, during which steam was blown off. At the end the surrender, as Dawson predicted, was unconditional.

That evening of the morrow a telegram sped away over the long wires to the south addressed to the Secretary of the Admiralty.

"Please tell First Lord that the snake is dead. I am returning the Marines carriage-paid and undamaged. My commission as a Captain is no longer required. Dawson."

Back flashed a reply from the Minister himself: "To Captain Dawson, R.M.L.I. Adjutant-General insists that you retain rank and pay until the end of the war. So do I. You have done a wonderful piece of work for which you will be adequately punished in official quarters. But you will suffer in good company."

Though Dawson thus became entitled to call himself Captain for the duration of the war, he never used the rank or the uniform again. Once more, to my knowledge, he served in his well-beloved Corps, but it was then not as Captain, but as private, during his long watch in the Malplaquet, of which I have told the story earlier in this book.



CHAPTER XVII

DAWSON TELEPHONES FOR A SURGEON

I have never been able to plan this book upon any system which would hold together for half a dozen consecutive chapters. I am the victim of my characters who come and go and pull me with them tied to their chariot wheels. When I wrote the first story of the "Lost Naval Papers"—which, by the way, were not lost at all—I had not made the personal acquaintance of William Dawson. When I wrote of my own encounters with Dawson and of my share, a humble share, in his researches, my dear Madame Gilbert had not met me and subdued me into a drivelling worship of her shining personality. While I was amusing myself trying to convey to the reader the frolicsome atmosphere which Madame carries about with her and in which she hides the workings of her big heart and brain, I was ignorant of the adventures of the two battle-cruisers and of Dawson's encounter with the War Committee, and of his triumph over the revolting workmen of the north. I have therefore written, as it were, from hand to mouth, more as one who keeps a vagabond diary than as one who consciously plans a work of art. It is as a diary of personal experiences that this book should be regarded. It has no merit of constructive skill, for I have never known what the future would yield to me of material. When Dawson parted with me to return south to the Yard, and to his deserted family in Acacia Villas, Primrose Road, Tooting, I did not expect to see him again for months, possibly years. But a turn came to the wheel of my destiny as it had done to his. I also was plucked from my northern place of exile and transported joyfully to the south country, whither I have always fled whenever for a few days or weeks I could loosen the bonds which tied me to the north. Now that those bonds have fallen entirely from me, and I am back in my southern home—whether for good or for evil rests upon the lap of the high gods—I have been able unexpectedly to resume contact with Dawson and to bring this, discursive book to some kind of a conclusion. It cannot really end so long as Dawson and Froissart and Madame Gilbert live and remain in friendly association with me. They have become parts of my life, and if I have not outraged their feelings beyond forgiveness by what I have written of them, I have hopes that I shall meet all of them often in the future and that they will tell me many more stories of their exploits.

* * * * *

As soon as I had settled myself in London I took the earliest opportunity of calling upon Dawson at the Yard. He was absent, but his Deputy, who knew my name, received me kindly. He explained that it would not be easy to find Dawson. "We never know where he is or what he is doing. I suppose that the Chief knows; certainly no one else. How can one be Deputy to a man who never tells one what he is doing or where he may be found?" I agreed that the post seemed difficult to fill adequately. "I wish I could chuck it as Froissart did when he went back to Paris. Have you ever seen Madame Gilbert?" he inquired eagerly. I observed that Madame did me the honour to be my friend. "So you know her, do you? She's a clinker of a woman. Hot stuff, but a real genuine clinker. She could do what she pleased with old man Dawson; make him fetch and carry like a poodle. She's the only woman born who ever turned Dawson round her fingers." I observed rather stiffly that Madame Gilbert was a lady for whom I had a very high regard, and that the expression "Hot stuff" was hardly respectful. "Hum!" said the Deputy, eyeing me with interest. "So she has made a fool of you like she has of the rest of us. Even the Chief gets down on his rheumaticky old knees and kisses the carpet of his room after she has trodden on it."

The Deputy tended to become garrulous, and I cut him short with an inquiry for Dawson's exact address. He lived in Acacia Villas, but I was without the precise number. The Deputy told me, and promised to inform Dawson of my visit at the earliest moment. "It may be to-day, or next week, or next month. It may not be till the War is over"—an expression which has come into colloquial use as a synonym for the Greek Kalends. I thanked the officer, and withdrew somewhat annoyed.

It appeared that Dawson was not far away, for a letter from him reached me two days later at my club. It was an invitation to visit his home and to dine with him on the following Sunday at one o'clock. Enclosed was a plan designed to assist me in penetrating the mazes of Tooting. That Sunday was a beautiful day in May, and I wandered down with plenty of time to spare to provide against the danger of being "bushed." But with the aid of Dawson's thoughtful plan I found Primrose Road without difficulty. The hour was then 12.15, and the house deserted. Dawson and his family were at chapel. I had forgotten what I had heard months before of Dawson's fervour as a preacher upon Truth until reminded of it by a constable whose beat passed the house. "If you are looking for Chief Detective Inspector Dawson," said he, "I can show you where to find him in chapel. He will be holding forth just now." The opportunity of seeing Dawson as he really was—known certainly only to his wife and to God—and of seeing him as a preacher, spurred me into active interest. "My relief is coming now," said the constable; "as soon as I have handed over I will show you the way."

As we walked together the policeman revealed to me the admiration inspired by Dawson in his humble subordinates. "There is nothing that man can't do," said he. "He is a skilled mechanic, a soldier—some say he has a general's uniform hid away in his house—an electrical engineer, and a telegraph operator. He has been all over the world in the Royal Navy, and could if he liked be commanding a ship now. He's the friend of Ministers and Secretaries of State. He's the best detective that the Yard ever knew, and he preaches to folk here like—like the Archangel Gabriel come to trot 'em off to Hell. I'm a Wesleyan, myself, but I often go to hear the Chief Inspector. He makes one come out in a cold sweat, and gives a man a fine appetite for dinner. He shakes you up so that you feel empty," he explained.

I observed that if Dawson were so great a stimulus upon appetite, he would not be popular with the Food Controller. The policeman, though he had heard of the Food Controller, was unconscious of his many activities, which shows how little the world knows of its greatest men. It also suggests that police constables do not read newspapers.

The chapel was a building illustrative of the straight line and plane. It was fairly large, and so full that the crowd of worshippers bulged out of the doors. Though we could not force our way inside, we could hear the booming of a voice which was scarcely recognisable as that of Dawson. Waves of emotion ran so strongly through the congregation that we could feel them beat against the fringes by the doors. "The Chief Inspector is on his game to-day," whispered the constable. "He's hitting them fine." From which I judged that the constable had in his youth come from the north, where golf is cheap. It was a disappointment that I could not get in, but perhaps well for the reader. The temptation to record a genuine sermon by Dawson might have proved too much for me. Presently the voice ceased to boom, the congregation squeezed out hot and oily, like grease from a full barrel, and I waited for Dawson to appear. "Don't speak to him now," directed my guide. "Let him get up to his house. He can't talk for half an hour after holding forth; there's not a word bad or good left in his carcase."

After all the worshippers had gone there issued forth a party of three: a man, a woman, and a little girl. "There he is," said the constable, nudging me. "Who?" asked I. "The Chief Inspector. There he is with Mrs. Dawson and their little girl." I stared and stared, but failed to recognise my friend of the north. I was too far away to see his ears, and his face was quite strange to me.

"I hope," I whispered primly to the constable, "that Mrs. Dawson is sure he is her husband."

"She ought to be. Aren't you sure?"

"Not yet; I am not near enough to see properly. That Dawson, is not a bit like those others whom I know."

"That Dawson! Those others! Is there more than one Chief Inspector Dawson?" asked the man, wondering.

"I should say about a hundred," replied I, and left him gasping. I fear that he now thinks that either I am quite mad or that Mrs. Dawson is a pluralist in husbands.

I gave the Dawson family sufficient time to reach their home, and to recover the power of speech, and then walked gravely to the door as if I had just arrived. One becomes contagiously deceptive in the vicinity of Dawson.

The stranger, who was the real undisguised Dawson, welcomed me to his home. The house was a small one and the family kept no servant. I do not know what income the Chief Inspector draws from the Yard, but am sure that it is absurdly inadequate to his services. The higher one rises, the less work one does and the more pay one gets—provided that one begins more than half-way up the ladder. For those like Dawson who begin quite at the bottom, the rule seems to be inverted: the more work one does, the less pay one gets. I should judge my own ill-gotten income at twice or three times that of Dawson—which even that cautious judge, Euclid, would declare to be absurd.

He led me to the parlour, which was well and tastefully furnished—Dawson has seen good houses—and we waited there while Mrs. Dawson dished up the dinner. "Please sit there, Dawson, facing the light," said I. "Let me have a good look at you." He complied smiling, and I examined his features with grave attention. Dawson, the real Dawson as I now saw him for the first time, is a very fair man. His pale sandy hair can readily be bleached white or dyed a dark colour. He uses quick dyes which can be removed with appropriate chemicals. His hair and moustache, he told me, grow very quickly. His complexion, like his hair, is almost white, and his skin curiously opaque. His blood is red and healthy, but it does not show through. His skin and hair are like the canvas of a painter, always ready to receive pigments and ready also to give them up when treated with skill. I began to understand how Dawson can make to himself a face and appearance of almost any habit or age. He can be fair or dark, dark or fair, old or young, young or old, at will. He carries the employment of rubber and wax insets very far indeed. His nose, his cheeks, his mouth, his chin may be forced by internal packing to take to themselves any shape. I made a hasty calculation that he can change his appearance in seven hundred and twenty different ways. "So many as that?" said Dawson, surprised when I told him. "I don't think that I have gone beyond sixty." I assured him that on strict mathematical principles I had arrived at the limiting number, and it gave him pleasure to feel that so many untried permutations of countenance remained to him. In actual everyday practice there are rarely more than six Dawsons in being at the same time. He finds that number sufficient for all useful purposes; a greater number, he says, would excessively strain his memory. He has, you see, always to remember which Dawson he is at any moment. When he was pulling my leg, or that of his brave enemy Froissart, the number multiplied greatly, but, as a working business rule, he is modestly content with six. "I suppose," I asked, "that here in Acacia Villas you are always the genuine article."

"Always," he declared with emphasis. "Once," he went on, "I tried to play a game on Emma. I came home as one of the others, forced my way into the house, and was clouted over the head and chucked into the street. When I got back to the Yard to alter myself—for I had left my tools there—Emma had been telephoning to me to get the wicked stranger arrested for house-breaking. I never tried any more games; women have no sense of humour." He shuddered. Dawson is afraid of his wife, and I pictured to myself a great haughty woman with the figure and arms of a Juno.

But when Clara—who asked kindly after my little Jane—had summoned us to the dining-room, I was presented to a small, quiet mouse of a woman whose head reached no higher than Dawson's heart. This was the redoubtable Emma! "Did she really clout you over the head and chuck you into the street?" I whispered. "She did, sir!" he replied, smiling. "She threw me yards over my own doorstep."

Between Dawson and his little wife there is a very tender affection. In her eyes he is not a police officer, but an inspired preacher. She knows nothing of his professional triumphs, and would not care to know. She, I am very sure, will never trouble to read this book. To her he is the lover of her youth, the most tender of husbands, and a Boanerges who spends his Sabbaths dragging fellow-creatures from the Pit. The God of Dawson and of his Emma is a pitiless giant with a pitchfork, busily thrusting his creatures towards eternal torment; Dawson, in Emma's eyes, is an intrepid salvor with a boat-hook who once a week arduously pulls them out. Dawson married Emma when he was a sergeant of Marines, and I think that he has shown to her his uniform with the three captain's stars. To me she always spoke of him as "the Captain," though I could not be quite sure whether she meant a Captain of Marines or a Captain in the Army of Salvation. Dawson, his Emma, and Clara are very happy, very united, and I am glad that I saw them in their own home. I am helped to understand how tender is the heart which beats under Dawson's assumed cloak of professional ruthlessness. At first I wholly misjudged him, but I will not now alter what I then wrote. My readers will learn to know their Dawson as I learned myself.

Whenever in the future I wish to hear from Dawson of his exploits I shall not seek him at his own house. He is an artist who is highly sensitive to atmosphere. In Acacia Villas the police officer fades to shadowy insignificance, even in his own mind. Then, he is a husband, a father, and a mighty preacher. He will talk of his disguises, and in general terms of his work, but there is no fiery enthusiasm for manhunting when Dawson gets home to Tooting. I shall seek him at the Yard, or upon the hot trail; then and then only shall I get from him the full flavour of his genius for detection. Dawson, away from home, is so vain as to be unconscious of his vanity; Dawson at home is quite extraordinarily modest. He defers always to the opinion of Emma, and she, gently, kindly, but with an air of infinite superiority, keeps his wandering steps firmly in the path of truth. He is, I am told, a most kindling preacher, but it is Emma who inspires his sermons.

Once only during my visit did I see a flash of the old Dawson, the Dawson of the Malplaquet, and of the War Committee, and that was just before I left. We were in the parlour smoking, and I was getting rather bored. Conjugal virtue, domestic content and happiness, are beautiful to look upon for a while, but I confess that in a remorseless continuous film ("featuring" Dawson and Emma) I find them boresome. There is little humour about Dawson and none at all about his dear Emma. I would gladly exchange fifty virtuous Emmas for one naughty Madame Gilbert. We had been talking idly of our sport together and of his different incarnations. Suddenly he sprang from his chair and his pale face lighted up. "Now that I have you here, Mr. Copplestone, I shall not let you go until you tell me by what trick you can always see through my disguises. Would you know me now as Dawson?"

"Of course," said I. "There is no difficulty. If you painted your face black and your hair vermilion, I should still know you at once."

"You have promised to tell me the secret. Tell me now."

I considered whether I should tell. It was amusing to have some hold over him, but was it quite fair to Dawson to keep him in ignorance of those marks of ear by which I could always be certain of his identity. He had been useful to me, and I had made free with his personality. Yes, I would tell him, and in a few sentences I told.

He gripped his ears with both hands; he felt those lobes so firmly secured to his cheekbones, and those blobs of flesh which remained to him of his wolfish ancestors. He fingered them carefully while he thought. At last he made up his mind. "It is the Sabbath," said he, "but when I am on duty I work ever upon the Sabbath day. It is now my duty to—" He reached for the telephone book, took off the receiver, and called for a number.

"What are you doing?" I asked, though I ought to have known.

"I am making an appointment with a surgeon," said Dawson.



THE END