How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"You're the damndest client I ever had. What do you do? You hire me to clean town, change your mind, run me out, work against me until I begin to look like a winner, then get on the fence, and now when you think I'm licked again, you don't even want to let me in the house. […] I'm not licked, old top. I've won. You came crying to me that some naughty men had taken your little city away from you. Pete the Finn, Lew Yard, Whisper Thaler, and Noonan. Where are they now? Yard died Tuesday morning, Noonan the same night, Whisper Wednesday morning, and the Finn a little while ago. I'm giving your city back to you whether you want it or not." (26.36)
The Op calls Elihu Willsson out on his hypocrisy in one of their meetings together. Having succeeded in getting the rival gang members to kill each other off, the Op returns Personville back to Elihu, all cleaned up. But what the Op doesn't tell Elihu is how many rules he had to break in order to accomplish this goal. As readers, we're left wondering whether or not the Op feels at all responsible for the deaths that occurred.
Quote #8
"You're going to tell the governor that your city police have got out of hand, what with bootleggers sworn in as officers, and so on. You're going to ask him for help – the national guard would be best." (26.40)
The Op orders Elihu to re-establish order in Personville by replacing the entire police force and bringing in the National Guard. What are the chances that the National Guard will be able to reinstate law and order in the city? Does Hammett leave us with a hopeful image of Personville's future or a bleak one?
Quote #9
I spent most of my week in Ogden trying to fix up my reports so that they would not read as if I had broken as many Agency rules, state laws and human bones as I had. […] I might just as well have saved the labor and sweat I had put into trying to make my report harmless. They didn't fool the Old Man. He gave me merry hell. (27.94)
The Op finally admits to us that he recognizes how many rules and regulations he had broken. But we don't sense any remorse here. He's actually trying to cover up all the ways in which he twisted the law. His belief in the code that the end justifies the means raises an interesting moral dilemma. Did the Op break the law in order to uphold the law? Or is he just trying to let himself off the hook?