Hammett’s T h e
G la ss K ey
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times must turn vigilante and scourge the wicked. Beaumont also directs this harsh
morality on himself. He endures savage beatings and brushes with death (includ
ing attempted suicide) as penance for his own missteps. He stoically accepts such
punishment because he has brought it on himself through folly or miscalculation.
At the end of the book Beaumont remains alive and nominally free, if sickly
and without prospects for a healthier, longer, or more fulfilling life. The narrative
leaves him staring into a blank future — represented by the empty doorway de
picted in the last sentence of the novel — and holding no expectation that his
isolation will lessen, even though he now has a female companion. If anything,
Beaumont has broken the strongest interpersonal tie in his life by ending his friend
ship with Madvig. This rupture seems far too severe for the hysterical heterosexual
love offered by Janet Henry ever to heal. Indeed, Janet’s timid sexuality seems to
have been awakened only by the collapse of her conventional class and gender
ideals. Her disenchantment sends her into the arms of Beaumont, a gambler and
political fixer who seems largely indifferent to her sexual promise.
For a bleak noir work regarded by contemporary reviewers as an apolitical
thriller, Hammett’s novel has a distinct topical edge. The novel is set during Prohi
bition (1920-33), which was enacted by Congress to uplift society by banning
alcohol and reducing crime. Instead, it created modem American “organized” crime,
caused an epidemic of public bribery, and led to widespread civic corruption and
cynicism — all of which Hammett depicts. Furthermore, The Glass Key seems
strikingly to anticipate Warren’s All the King's Men in portraying the Prohibitionera rise of a Huey Long-like political dictator. Indeed, The Glass Key may be the
first in the series of “Huey Long” disguised historical novels leading to All the
King’s Men. As has been noticed previously in Warren scholarship (Cunningham
35-36), detective-novel formal similarities exist between The Glass Key and All
the King’s Men. Beaumont is a hatchet man who serves the interests of Paul Madvig,
much as Jack Burden serves Willie Stark. Both political henchmen work as dirtytricks specialists for their bosses, who themselves rely on extortion and kickbacks
to stay in power. Ned Beaumont is political enforcer and ruthless campaign strate
gist. Jack Burden keeps a little black book containing dirt he has dug up to black
mail the Boss’ opponents.
But the similarities between Burden and Beaumont run deeper than their roles
as sleuths. Both men hold nihilistic philosophies. Jack believes in the Great Twitch,
a mechanistic godhead who controls human destiny. Under the rule of the Great
God Twitch, “all life is but the dark heave of blood and the twitch of the nerve”
(Warren 311), Jack tells us. Ned is less educated but more blunt. “I don’t believe in
anything” (169), he states flatly. Lacking belief, Beaumont clings to personal fi
delity, and his deepest loyalty is to Paul Madvig. Madvig, he says, lifted him out of
the gutter and set him on his feet again. In return Beaumont is willing to do almost