The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett Read Free Book Online Page A

hip-pocket and to get Jack's revolver out of his pocket. He had not time to level the revolver, but, holding it at a downward angle, he pulled the trigger and managed to shoot the Kid in the right thigh. The Kid yelped and fell down on the hallway floor. He lay there looking up at Ned Beaumont with frightened bloodshot eyes.
    Ned Beaumont stepped back from him, put his left hand in his trousers-pocket, and addressed Bernie Despain: "Come on out with me. I want to talk to you." His face was sullenly determined.
    Footsteps ran overhead, somewhere back in the building a door opened, and down the hallway excited voices were audible, but nobody came into sight.
    Despain stared for a long moment at Ned Beaumont as if horribly fascinated. Then, without a word, he stepped over the man on the floor and went out of the building ahead of Ned Beaumont. Ned Beaumont put the revolver in his jacket-pocket before he went down the street-steps, but he kept his hand on it.
    "Up to that taxi," he told Despain, indicating the car out of which Jack was getting. When they reached the taxicab he told the chauffeur to drive them anywhere, "just around till I tell you where to go."
    They were in motion when Despain found his voice. He said: "This is a hold-up. I'll give you anything you want because I don't want to be killed, but it's just a hold-up."
    Ned Beaumont laughed disagreeably and shook his head. "Don't forget I've risen in the world to be something or other in the District Attorney's office."
    "But there's no charge against me. I'm not wanted. You said-"
    "I was spoofing you, Bernie, for reasons. You're wanted."
    "For what?"
    "Killing Taylor Henry."
    "That? Hell, I'll go back and face that. What've you got against me? I had some of his markers, sure. And I left the night he was killed, sure. And I gave him hell because he wouldn't make them good, sure. What kind of case is that for a first-class lawyer to beat? Jesus, if I left the markers behind in my safe at some time before nine-thirty-to go by Lee's story-don't that show I wasn't trying to collect that night?"
    "No, and that isn't all the stuff we've got on you."
    "That's all there could be," Despain said earnestly.
    Ned Beaumont sneered. "Wrong, Bernie. Remember I had a hat on when I came to see you this morning?"
    "Maybe. I think you did."
    "Remember I took a cap out of my overcoat-pocket and put it on when I left?"
    Bewilderment, fear, began to come into the swarthy man's small eyes. "By Jesus! Well? What are you getting at?"
    "I'm getting at the evidence. Do you remember the hat didn't fit me very well?"
    Bernie Despain's voice was hoarse: "I don't know, Ned. For Christ's sake, what do you mean?"
    "I mean it didn't fit me because it wasn't my hat. Do you remember that the hat Taylor was wearing when he was murdered wasn't found?"
    "I don't know. I don't know anything about him."
    "Well, I'm trying to tell you the hat I had this morning was Taylor's hat and it's now planted down between the cushion-seat and the back of that brown easy-chair in the apartment you had at the Buckman. Do you think that, with the rest, would be enough to set you on the hot seat?"
    Despain would have screamed in terror if Ned Beaumont had not clapped a hand over his mouth and growled, "Shut up," in his ear.
    Sweat ran down the swarthy face. Despain fell over on Ned Beaumont, seizing the lapels of his coat with both hands, babbling: "Listen, don't you do that to me, Ned. You can have every cent I owe you, every cent with interest, if you won't do that. I never meant to rob you, Ned, honest to God. It was just that I was caught short and thought I'd treat it like a loan. Honest to God, Ned. I ain't got much now, but I'm fixed to get the money for Lee's rocks that I'm selling today and I'll give you your dough, every nickel of it, out of that. How much was it, Ned? I'll give you all of it right away, this morning."
    Ned Beaumont pushed the swarthy man over to his own side of the taxicab and said: "It was