The Third Man (2 page)

       "A fellow called Lime," I said, and was astonished to see the tears start to this stranger's eyes: he didn't look like a man who wept, nor was Lime the kind of man whom I thought likely to have mourners—genuine mourners with genuine tears. There was the girl of course, but one excepts women from all such generalisations.

       Martins stood there, till the end, close beside me. He said to me later that as an old friend he didn't want to intrude on these newer ones—Lime's death belonged to them, let them have it. He was under the sentimental illusion that Lime's life—twenty years of it anyway—belonged to him. As soon as the affair was over—I am not a religious man and always feel a little impatient with the fuss that surrounds death—Martins strode away on his long gangly legs that always seemed likely to get entangled together, back to his taxi: he made no attempt to speak to anyone, and the tears now were really running, at any rate the few meagre drops that any of us can squeeze out at our age.

       One's file, you know, is never quite complete: a case is never really closed, even after a century when all the participants are dead. So I followed Martins: I knew the other three: I wanted to know the stranger. I caught him up by his taxi and said, "I haven't any transport. Would you give me a lift into town?"

       "Of course," he said. I knew the driver of my jeep would spot me as we came out and follow us unobtrusively. As we drove away I noticed he never looked behind—it's nearly always the fake mourners and the fake lovers who take that last look, who wait waving on platforms, instead of clearing quickly out, not looking back. Is it perhaps that they love themselves so much and want to keep themselves in the sight of others, even of the dead?

       I said, "My name's Calloway."

       "Martins," he said.

       "You were a friend of Lime?"

       "Yes." Most people in the last week would have hesitated before they admitted quite so much.

       "Been here long?"

       "I only came this afternoon from England. Harry had asked me to stay with him. I hadn't heard."

       "Bit of a shock?"

       "Look here," he said, "I badly want a drink, but I haven't any cash—except five pounds sterling. I'd be awfully grateful if you'd stand me one."

       It was my turn to say "Of course." I thought for a moment and told the driver the name of a small bar in the Kartnerstrasse. I didn't think he'd want to be seen for a while in a busy British bar full of transit officers and their wives. This bar—perhaps because it was exorbitant in its prices—seldom had more than one self-occupied couple in it at a time. The trouble was too that it really only had one drink—a sweet chocolate liqueur that the waiter improved at a price with cognac, but I got the impression that Martins had no objection to any drink so long as it cast a veil over the present, and the past. On the door was the usual notice saying the bar opened at 6 till 10, but one just pushed the door and walked through the front rooms. We had a whole small room to ourselves; the only couple were next door, and the waiter who knew me left us alone with some caviar sandwiches. It was lucky that we both knew that I had an expense account.

       Martins said over his second quick drink, "I'm sorry, but he was the best friend I ever had."

       I couldn't resist saying, knowing what I knew, and because I was anxious to vex him—one learns a lot that way, "That sounds like a cheap novelette."

       He said quickly, "I write cheap novelettes."

       I had learnt something anyway. Until he had had a third drink, I was under the impression that he wasn't an easy talker: but I felt fairly certain that he was one of those who turn unpleasant after their fourth glass.

       I said, "Tell me about yourself—and Lime."

       "Look here," he said, "I badly need another drink, but I can't keep on scrounging on a stranger. Could you change me a pound or two into Austrian money?"

       "Don't bother about that," I said and called the waiter. "You can treat me when I come to London on leave. You were going to tell me how you met Lime?"

       The glass of chocolate liqueur might have been a crystal the way he looked at it and turned it this way and that. He said, "It was a long time ago. I don't suppose anyone knows Harry the way I do," and I thought of the thick file of agents' reports in my office, each claiming the same thing. I believe in my agents: I've sifted them all very thoroughly.

       "How long?"

       "Twenty years—or a bit more. I met him my first term at school. I can see the place. I can see the notice-board and what was on it. I can hear the bell ringing. He was a year older and knew the ropes. He put me wise to a lot of things." He took a quick dab at his drink and then turned the crystal again as if to see more clearly what there was to see. He said, "It's funny. I can't remember meeting any woman quite as well."

       "Was he clever at school?"

       "Not the way they wanted him to be. But what things he did think up. He was a wonderful planner. I was far better at subjects Like History and English than Harry, but I was a hopeless mug when it came to carrying out his plans." He laughed: he was already beginning, with the help of drink and talk, to throw off the shock of the death. He said, "I was always the one who got caught."

       "That was convenient for Lime."

       "What the hell do you mean?" he asked. Alcoholic irritation was setting in.

       "Well, wasn't it?"

       "That was my fault, not his. He could have found someone cleverer if he'd chosen, but he liked me. He was endlessly patient with me." Certainly, I thought, the child is father to the man, for I too had found him patient.

       "When did you see him last?"

       "Oh, he was over in London six months ago for a medical congress. You know he qualified as a doctor, though he never practised. That was typical of Harry. He just wanted to see if he could do a thing and then he lost interest. But he used to say that it often came in handy." And that too was true. It was odd how like the Lime he knew was to the Lime I knew: it was only that he looked at Lime's image from a different angle or in a different light. He said, "One of the things I liked about Harry was his humour." He gave a grin which took five years off his age. "I'm a buffoon. I like playing the silly fool, but Harry had real wit. You know, he could have been a first class light composer if he had worked at it."

       He whistled a tune—it was oddly familiar to me. "I always remember that. I saw Harry write it. Just in a couple of minutes on the back of an envelope. That was what he always whistled when he had something on his mind. It was his signature tune." He whistled the tune a second time, and I knew then who had written it—of course it wasn't Harry. I nearly told him so, but what was the point? The tune wavered and went out. He stared down into his glass, drained what was left and said, "It's a damned shame to think of him dying the way he did."

       "It was the best thing that ever happened to him," I said.

       He didn't take in my meaning at once: he was a little hazy with the drinks. "The best thing?"

       "Yes."

       "You mean there wasn't any pain?"

       "He was lucky in that way, too."

       It was my tone of voice and not my words that caught Martins' attention. He asked gently and dangerously—I could see his right hand tighten, "Are you hinting at something?"

       There is no point at all in showing physical courage in all situations: I eased my chair far enough back to be out of reach of his fist. I said, "I mean that I had his case completed at police headquarters. He would have served a long spell—a very long spell—if it hadn't been for the accident."

       "What for?"

       "He was about the worst racketeer who ever made a dirty living in this city."

       I could see him measuring the distance between us and deciding that he couldn't reach me from where he sat. Rollo wanted to hit out: but Martins was steady, careful. Martins, I began to realise, was dangerous. I wondered whether after all I had made a complete mistake: I couldn't see Martins being quite the mug that Rollo had made out. "You're a policeman?" he asked.

       "Yes."

       "I've always hated policemen. They are always either crooked or stupid."

       "Is that the kind of books you write?"

       I could see him edging his chair round to block my way out. I caught the waiter's eye and he knew what I meant—there's an advantage in always using the same bar for interviews.

       Martins said gently and brought out a surface smile: "I have to call them sheriffs."

       "Been in America?" It was a silly conversation.

       "No. Is this an interrogation?"

       "Just interest."

       "Because if Harry was that kind of racketeer, I must be one too. We always worked together."

       "I daresay he meant to cut you in—somewhere in the organisation. I wouldn't be surprised if he had meant to give you the baby to hold. That was his method at school—you told me, didn't you? And, you see, the headmaster was getting to know a thing or two."

       "You are running true to form, aren't you? I suppose there was some petty racket going on with petrol and you couldn't pin it on anyone, so you've picked a dead man. That's just like a policeman. You're a real policeman, I suppose?"

       "Yes, Scotland Yard, but they've put me into a Colonel's uniform when I'm on duty."

       He was between me and the door now. I couldn't get away from the table without coming into range, I'm no fighter, and he had six inches of advantage anyway. I said, "It wasn't petrol."

       "Tyres, saccharin... why don't you policemen catch a few murderers for a change?"

       "Well, you could say that murder was part of his racket."

       He pushed the table over with one hand and made a dive at me with the other; the drink confused his calculations. Before he could try again my driver had his arms round him. I said, "Don't treat him roughly. He's only a writer with too much drink in him."

       "Be quiet, can't you, sir," my driver said. He had an exaggerated sense of officer-class. He would probably have called Lime "sir."

       "Listen, Callaghan, or whatever your bloody name is..."

       "? alloway. I'm English, not Irish."

       "I'm going to make you look the biggest bloody fool in Vienna. There's one dead man you aren't going to pin your unsolved crimes on."

       "I see. You're going to find me the real criminal? It sounds like one of your stories."

       "You can let me go, Callaghan, I'd rather make you look the fool you are than black your bloody eye. You'd only have to go to bed for a few days with a black eye. But when I've finished with you you'll leave Vienna."

       I took out a couple of pounds' worth of Bafs and stuck them in his breast pocket. "These will see you through tonight," I said, "and I'll make sure they keep a seat for you on tomorrow's London plane."

       "You can't turn me out. My papers are in order."

       "Yes, but this is like other cities: you need money here. If you change sterling on the black market I'll catch up on you inside twenty-four hours. Let him go."

       Rollo Martins dusted himself down. He said, "Thanks for the drinks."

       "That's all right."

       "I'm glad I don't have to feel grateful. I suppose they were on expenses?"

       "Yes."

       "I'll be seeing you again in a week or two when I've got the dope." I knew he was angry: I didn't believe then that he was serious. I thought he was putting over an act to cheer up his selfesteem.

       "I might come and see you off tomorrow."

       "I shouldn't waste your time. I won't be there."

       "Paine here will show you the way to Sacher's. You can get a bed and dinner there. I'll see to that."

       He stepped to one side as though to make way for the waiter and slashed out at me: I just avoided him, but stumbled against the table. Before he could try again Paine had landed on him on the mouth. He went bang over in the alleyway between the tables and came up bleeding from a cut lip. I said, "I thought you promised not to fight."

       He wiped some of the blood away with his sleeve and said, "Oh no, I said I'd rather make you a bloody fool. I didn't say I wouldn't give you a black eye as well."

       I had had a long day and I was tired of Rollo Martins. I said to Paine: "See him safely into Sacher's. Don't hit him again if he behaves," and turning away from both of them towards the inner bar (I deserved one more drink), I heard Paine say respectfully to the man he had just knocked down, "This way, sir. It's only just around the corner."

3

WHAT HAPPENED next I didn't hear from Paine but from Martins a long time afterwards, reconstructing the chain of events that did indeed—though not quite in the way he had expected—prove me to be a fool. Paine simply saw him to the head porter's desk and explained there, "This gentleman came in on the plane from London. Colonel? alloway says he's to have a room." Having made that clear, he said, "Good evening, sir," and left. He was probably a bit embarrassed by Martins' bleeding lip.

       "Had you already got a reservation, sir?" the porter asked.

       "No. No, I don't think so," Martins said in a muffled voice holding his handkerchief to his mouth.

       "I thought perhaps you might be Mr. Dexter. We had a room reserved for a week for Mr. Dexter."

       Martins said, "Oh, I am Mr. Dexter." He told me later that it occurred to him that Lime might have engaged him a room in that name because perhaps it was Buck Dexter and not Rollo Martins who was to be used for propaganda purposes. A voice said at his elbow, "I'm so sorry you were not met at the plane, Mr. Dexter. My name's Crabbin."

       The speaker was a stout middle-aged young man with a natural tonsure and one of the thickest pairs of horn-rimmed glasses that Martins had ever seen.