THE GLASS KEY by Dashiell Hammett

Ned Beaumont nodded. “What happened then?” he asked.

“I was furious, of course, and left him.”

“Didn’t you say anything to him?” Ned Beaumont’s eyes twinkled with imperfectly hidden mirth.

“No, and he didn’t say anything I could hear. I went upstairs and met Father coming down. While I was telling him what had happened– I was as angry with Father as with Paul, because it was Father’s fault that Paul was there–we heard Paul going out the front door. And then Taylor came down from his room.” Her face became white and tense, her voice husky with emotion. “He had heard me talking to Father and he asked me what had happened, but I left him there with Father and went on to my room, too angry to talk any more about it. And I didn’t see either of them again until Father came to my room and told me Taylor had– had been killed.” She stopped talking and looked white-faced at Ned Beaumont, twisting her fingers together, awaiting his response to her story.

His response was a cool question: “Well, what of it?”

“What of it?” she repeated in amazement. “Don’t you see? How could I help knowing then that Taylor had run out after Paul and had caught up with him and had been killed by him? He was furious and–” Her face brightened. “You know his hat wasn’t found. He was too much in a hurry–too angry–to stop for his hat. He–”

Ned Beaumont shook his head slowly from side to side and interrupted her. His voice held nothing but certainty. “No,” he said. “That won’t do. Paul wouldn’t’ve had to kill Taylor and he wouldn’t’ve done it. He could have managed him with one hand and he doesn’t lose his head in a fight. I know that. I’ve seen Paul fight and I’ve fought with him. That won’t do.” He drew eyelids closer together around eyes that had become stony. “But suppose he did? I mean accidentally, though I can’t believe even that. But could you make anything out of it except self-defense?”

She raised her head scornfully. “If it were self-defense, why should he hide it?”

Ned Beaumont seemed unimpressed. “He wants to marry von,” he explained. “It wouldn’t help him much to admit he’d killed your brother even–” He chuckled. “I’m getting as bad as you are. Paul didn’t kill him, Miss Henry.”

Her eyes were stony as his had been. She looked at him and did not speak.

His expression became thoughtful. He asked: “You’ve only”–he wriggled the fingers of one hand–“the two and two you think you’ve put together to tell you that your brother ran out after Paul that night?”

“That is enough,” she insisted. “He did. He must’ve. Otherwise– why, otherwise what would he have been doing down there in China Street bare-headed?”

“Your father didn’t see him go out?”

“No. He didn’t know it either until we heard–”

He interrupted her. “Does he agree with you?”

“He must,” she cried. “It’s unmistakable. He must, no matter what he says, just as you must.” Tears were in her eyes now. “You can’t expect me to believe that you don’t, Mr. Beaumont. I don’t know what you knew before. You found Taylor dead. I don’t know what else you found, but now you must know the truth.”

Ned Beaumont’s hands began to tremble. He slumped farther down in his chair so he could thrust his hands into his trousers-pockets. His face was tranquil except for hard lines of strain around his mouth. He said: “I found him dead. There was nobody else there. I didn’t find anything else.”

“You have now,” she said.

His mouth twitched under his dark mustache. His eyes became hot with anger. He spoke in a low, harsh, deliberately bitter voice: “I know whoever killed your brother did the world a favor.”

She shrank back in her chair with a hand thrown up to her throat, at first, but almost immediately the horror went out of her face and she sat upright and looked compassionately at him. She said softly: “I know. You’re Paul’s friend. It hurts.”

He lowered his head a little and muttered: “It was a rotten thing to say. It was silly.” He smiled wryly. “You see I was right about not being a gentleman.” He stopped smiling and shame went out of his eyes leaving them clear and steady. He said in a quiet voice: “You’re right about my being Paul’s friend. I’m that no matter who he killed.”

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