THE GLASS KEY by Dashiell Hammett

A door opened and a man came in, He was a young man in baggy grey clothes. His ears and nose were very large. His indefinitely brown hair needed trimming and his rather grimy face was too deeply lined for his years.

“Come in, Hinkle,” O’Rory said. “This is Beaumont. He’ll give you the dope. Let me see it when you’ve shaped it up and we’ll get the first shot in tomorrow’s paper.”

Hinkle smiled with bad teeth and muttered something unintelligibly polite to Ned Beaumont.

Ned Beaumont stood up saying: “Fine. We’ll go over to my place now and get to work on it.”

O’Rory shook his head. “It’ll be better here,” he said.

Ned Beaumont, picking up hat and overcoat, smiled and said: “Sorry, but I’m expecting some phone-calls and things. Get your hat, Hinkle.”

Hinkle, looking frightened, stood still and dumb.

O’Rory said: “You’ll have to stay here, Beaumont. We can’t afford to have anything happen to you. Here you’ll have plenty of protection.”

Ned Beaumont smiled his nicest smile. “If it’s the money you’re worried about”–he put his hand inside his coat and brought it out holding the money–“you can hang on to it till I’ve turned in the stuff.”

“I’m not worried about anything,” O’Rory said calmly. “But you’re in a tough spot if Paul gets the news you’ve come over to me and I don’t want to take any chances on having you knocked off.”

“You’ll have to take them,” Ned Beaumont said. “I’m going.”

O’Rory said: “No.”

Ned Beaumont said: “Yes.”

Hinkle turned quickly and went out of the room.

Ned Beaumont turned around and started for the other door, the one through which he had come into the room, walking erectly without haste.

O’Rory spoke to the bulldog at his feet. The dog got up in cumbersome haste and waddled around Ned Beaumont to the door. He stood on wide-spread legs in front of the door and stared morosely at Ned Beaumont.

Ned Beaumont smiled with tight lips and turned to face O’Rory again. The package of hundred-dollar bills was in Ned Beaumont’s hand. He raised the hand, said, “You know where you can stick it,” and threw the package of bills at O’Rory.

As Ned Beaumont’s arm came down the bulldog, leaping clumsily, came up to meet it. His jaws shut over Ned Beaumont’s wrist. Ned Beaumont was spun to the left by the impact and he sank on one knee with his arm down close to the floor to take the dog’s weight off his arm. –

Shad O’Rory rose from his chair and went to the door through which Hinkle had retreated. He opened it and said: “Come in a minute.” Then he approached Ned Beaumont who, still down on one knee, was trying to let his arm yield to the strain of the dog’s pulling. The dog was almost flat on the floor, all four feet braced, holding the arm.

Whisky and two other men came into the room. One of the others was the apish bow-legged man who had accompanied Shad O’Rory to the Log Cabin Club. One was a sandy-haired boy of nineteen or twenty, stocky, rosy-cheeked, and sullen. The sullen boy went around behind Ned Beaumont, between him and the door. The bow-legged ruffian put his right hand on Ned Beaumont’s left arm, the arm the dog was not holding. Whisky halted half-way between Ned Beaumont and the other door.

Then O’Rory said, “Patty,” to the dog.

The dog released Ned Beaumont’s wrist and waddled over to its master.

Ned Beaumont stood up. His face was pallid and damp with sweat. He looked at his torn coat-sleeve and wrist and at the blood running down his hand. His hand was trembling.

O’Rory said in his musical Irish voice: “You would have it.”

Ned Beaumont looked up from his wrist at the white-haired man. “Yes,” he said, “and it’ll take some more of it to keep me from going out of here.”

3

Ned Beaumont opened his eyes and groaned.

The rosy-checked boy with sandy hair turned his head over his shoulder to growl: “Shut up, you bastard.”

The apish dark man said: “Let him alone, Rusty. Maybe he’ll try to get out again and we’ll have some more fun.” He grinned down at his swollen knuckles. “Deal the cards.”

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