Shad O'Rory said, 'The thanks go both ways,' and went back to his chair.
Ned Beaumont took the cigar out of his mouth. 'Here's something I want to tell you while I think of it,' he said. 'Framing Walt Ivans for the West killing won't bother Paul as much as leaving it as is.'
O'Rory looked curiously at Ned Beaumont for a moment before asking: 'Why?'
'Paul's not going to let him have the Club alibi.'
'You mean he's going to give the boys orders to forget Ivans was there?'
'Yes.'
O'Rory made a clucking noise with his tongue, asked: 'How'd he get the idea I was going to play tricks on Ivans?'
'Oh, we figured it out.'
O'Rory smiled. 'You mean you did,' he said. 'Paul's not that shifty.'
Ned Beaumont made a modest grimace and asked: 'What kind of job did you put up on him?'
O'Rory chuckled. 'We sent the clown over to Braywood to buy the guns that were used.' His grey-blue eyes suddenly became hard and sharp. Then amusement came back into them and he said: 'Oh, well, none of that's big stuff now, now that Paul's hell-bent on making a row of it. But that's what started him picking on me, isn't it?'
'Yes,' Ned Beaumont told him, 'though it was likely to come sooner or later anyhow. Paul thinks he gave you your start here and you ought to stay under his wing and not grow' big enough to buck him.'
O'Rory smiled gently. 'And I'm the boy that'll make him sorry he ever gave me that start,' he promised. 'He can—'
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.'
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.'
Ned Beaumont mumbled something about Fedink and sat up. He was in a narrow bed without sheets or bed-clothes of any sort. The bare mattress was blood-stained. His face was swollen and bruised and bloodsmeared. Dried blood glued his shirt-sleeve to the wrist the dog had bitten and that hand was caked with drying blood. He was in a small yellow and white bedroom furnished with two chairs, a table, a chest of drawers, a wall-mirror, and three white-framed French prints, besides the bed. Facing the foot of the bed was a door that stood open to show part of the interior of a white-tiled bathroom. There was another door, shut. There were no windows.
The apish dark man and the rosy-checked boy with sandy hair sat on the chairs playing cards on the table. There was about twenty dollars in paper and silver on the table.
Ned Beaumont looked, with brown eyes wherein hate was a dull glow that came from far beneath the surface, at the card-players and began to get out of bed. Getting out of bed was a difficult task for him. His right arm hung useless. He had to push his legs over the side of the bed one at a time with his left hand and twice he fell over on his side and had to push himself upright again in bed with his left arm.
Once the apish man leered up at him from his cards to ask humorously: 'How're you making out, brother?' Otherwise the two at the table let him alone.
He stood finally, trembling, on his feet beside the bed. Steadying himself with his left hand on the bed he reached its end. There he drew himself erect and, staring fixedly at his goal, lurched towards the closed door. Near it he stumbled and went down on his knees, but his left hand, thrown desperately out, caught the knob and he pulled himself up on his feet again.
Then the apish man laid his cards carefully down on the table and said: 'Now.' His grin, showing remarkably beautiful white teeth, was wide enough to show that the teeth were not natural. He went over and stood beside Ned Beaumont.
Ned Beaumont was tugging at the door-knob.
The apish man said, 'Now there, Houdini,' and with all his weight behind the blow drove his right fist into Ned Beaumont's face.
Ned Beaumont was driven back against the wall. The back of his head struck the wall first, then his body crashed flat against the wall, and he slid down the wall to the floor.
