THE GLASS KEY by Dashiell Hammett

He said: “Wait.”

She halted and confronted him again. His smile was friendly now, ingratiating. Her face was a tinted statue’s.

He said: “Politics is a tough game, snip, the way it’s being played here this time. The Observer is on the other side of the fence and they’re not worrying much about the truth of anything that’ll hurt Paul. They–”

“I don’t believe that,” she said. “I know Mr. Mathews–his wife was only a few years ahead of me at school and we were friends–and I don’t believe he’d say anything like that about Dad unless it was true, or unless he had good reason for thinking it true.”

Ned Beaumont chuckled. “You know a lot about it. Mathews is up to his ears in debt. The State Central Trust Company holds both mortgages on his plant–one on his house too, for that matter. The State Central belongs to Bill Roan. Bill Roan is running for the Senate against Henry. Mathews does what he’s told to do, and prints what he’s told to print.”

Opal Madvig did not say anything. There was nothing to indicate that she had been at all convinced by Ned Beaumont’s argument.

He went on, speaking in an amiable, persuasive tone: “This”–he flicked a finger at the paper on the table–“is nothing to what’ll come later. They’re going to rattle Taylor Henry’s bones till they think up something worse and we’re going to have this sort of stuff to read till election’s over. We might just as well get used to it now and you, of all people, oughtn’t to let yourself be bothered by it. Paul doesn’t mind it much. He’s a politician and–”

“He’s a murderer,” she said in a low distinct voice.

“And his daughter’s a chump,” he exclaimed irritably. “Will you stop that foolishness?”

“My father is a murderer,” she said.

“You’re crazy. Listen to me, snip. Your father had absolutely nothing to do with Taylor’s murder. He–”

“I don’t believe you,” she said gravely. “I’ll never believe you again.”

He scowled at her.

She turned and went to the door.

“Wait,” he said. “Let me–”

She went out and shut the door behind her.

7

Ned Beaumont’s face, after a grimace of rage at the closed door, became heavily thoughtful. Lines came into his forehead. His dark eyes grew narrow and introspective. His lips puckered up under his mustache. Presently he put a finger to his mouth and bit its nail. He breathed regularly, but with more depth than usual.

Footsteps sounded outside his door. He dropped his appearance of thoughtfulness and walked idly towards the window, humming Little Lost Lady. The footsteps went on past his door. He stopped humming and bent to pick up the sheet of paper holding the three questions that had been addressed to Opal Madvig. He did not smooth the paper, but thrust it, crumpled in a loose ball as it was, into one of his bathrobe-pockets.

He found and lit a cigar then and, with it between his teeth burning, stood by the table and squinted down through smoke at the front page of the Observer lying there.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR

SIR:

The Observer has come into possession of certain information which it believes to be of paramount importance in clearing up the mystery surrounding the recent murder of Taylor Henry.

This information is incorporated in several affidavits now in the Observer’s safety-deposit box. The substance of these affidavits is as follows:

1.

That Paul Madvig quarreled with Taylor Henry some months ago over the young man’s attentions to his daughter and forbade his daughter to see Henry again.

2.

That Paul Madvig’s daughter nevertheless continued to meet Taylor Henry in a furnished room he had rented for that purpose.

3.

That they were together in this furnished room the afternoon of the very day on which he was killed.

4.

That Paul Madvig went to Taylor Henry’s home that evening, supposedly to remonstrate with the young man, or his father, again.

5.

That Paul Madvig appeared angry when he left the Henry residence a few minutes before Taylor Henry was murdered.

6.

That Paul Madvig and Taylor Henry were seen within half a block of each other, less than a block from the spot where the young man’s body was found, not more than fifteen minutes before his body was found.

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