"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 009 - The Czar of Fear" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Tugg folded his hands and looked pious. "Some months ago, because of terrible business conditions, we
were forced to cut the wages of our employees. Much against our wishes, of course."

"I thought business was picking up," Doc remarked.

Tugg acquired the expression of a man who had been served a bad egg unexpectedly.

"Business is terrible!" he said emphatically. "It's worse now, too, because all of my employees went out
on a strike! And the workmen in the other factories and mines went on strikes. It's awful! Conditions are
frightful!"

Doc Savage asked gently: "Did the other concerns cut wages before or after you did?"

Judborn Tugg swallowed a few times. He was startled. With that one question, Doc Savage had grabbed
the kernel of the whole situation in Prosper City.

The truth was that Tugg Co. had cut wages first, and the other concerns had been forced to do the same
in order to meet the low prices at which their competitor was offering goods for sale. Tugg Co. had
turned itself into a sweatshop, paying their employees starvation wages.

When this had happened, there had been no necessity for it. Business had indeed been picking up. The
whole thing was part of a plot conceived by that mysterious, unknown being, the Green Bell.

Other concerns in Prosper City had been forced to cut wages, although not as much as Tugg Co. But the
cuts had been enough to give agitators hired by Tugg Co. an argument with which to cause numerous
strikes. The hired agitators had even been directed to urge the strike at Tugg Co. who paid them.

For months now, the agitators, under the direction of Slick Cooley, had kept all business at a standstill.
Any factory which tried to open up was bombed, burned, or its machinery ruined. Every workman who
sought to take a job was threatened or beaten, or if that failed, the Green Bell had a final and most
horrible form of death, which was in itself an object lesson to other stubborn ones.

The whole thing was part of the scheme of the unknown master mind, the Green Bell. No one knew what
was behind it. Judborn Tugg, if he knew, was not telling anybody.

Tugg carefully avoided Doc Savage's weird eyes, and decided to handle the bronze man warily.

"We were all forced to cut wages about the same time," he lied uneasily. "But the salary whacks were not
at the bottom of the trouble. It is all the fault of the agitators."

WHEN TUGG paused, Doc Savage said nothing. He had settled in a comfortable chair. Several of these
were in the outer office. There was also an expensive inlaid table and a massive safe. A costly rug was
underfoot.

Adjoining, was a library containing one of the most complete collections of scientific tomes in existence,
and another room which held an experimental laboratory so advanced in its equipment that scientists had
come from foreign countries, just to examine it. The presence of these rooms was masked by a closed
door, however.