The Third Man (7 page)

       "And he won't want to."

       "Not if he's guilty. But then I can't believe he's guilty."

       Before she left him, she said, "Be careful. Koch knew so very little and they murdered him. You know as much as Koch."

       The warning stayed in his brain all the way to Sacher's: after nine o'clock the streets are very empty, and he would turn his head at every padding step coming up the street behind him, as though that third man whom they had protected so ruthlessly was following him like an executioner. The Russian sentry outside the Grand Hotel looked rigid with the cold, but he was human, he had a face, an honest peasant face with Mongol eyes. The third man had no face: only the top of a head seen from a window. At Sacher's Mr. Schmidt said, "Colonel Calloway has been in, asking after you, sir. I think you'll find him in the bar."

       "Back in a moment," Martins said and walked straight out of the hotel again: he wanted time to think. But immediately he stepped outside a man came forward, touched his cap and said firmly, "Please, sir." He flung open the door of a khaki painted truck with a union jack on the windscreen and firmly urged Martins within. He surrendered without protest; sooner or later he felt sure inquiries would be made: he had only pretended optimism to Anna Schmidt.

       The driver drove too fast for safety on the frozen road, and Martins protested. All he got in reply was a sullen grunt and a muttered sentence containing the word "orders."

       "Gave you orders to kill me?" Martins said and got no reply at all. He caught sight of the Titans on the Hofburg balancing great globes of snow above their heads, and then they plunged into ill-lit streets beyond where he lost all sense of direction.

       "Is it far?" But the driver paid him no attention at all. At least, Martins thought, I am not under arrest: they have not sent a guard; I am being invited, wasn't that the word they used? to visit the station to make a statement.

       The car drew up and the driver led the way up two nights of stairs: he rang the bell of a great double door, and Martins was aware beyond it of many voices. He turned sharply to the driver and said, "Where the hell...? " but the driver was already halfway down the stairs, and already the door was opening. His eyes were dazzled from the darkness by the lights inside: he heard but he could hardly see the advance of Crabbin. "Oh, Mr. Dexter, we have been so anxious, but better late than never. Let me introduce you to Miss Wilbraham and the Gr? fin von Meyersdorf."

       A buffet laden with coffee cups: an urn steamed: a woman's face shiny with exertion: two young men with the happy intelligent faces of sixth formers, and huddled in the background, like faces in a family album, a multitude of the old-fashioned, the dingy, the earnest and cheery features of constant readers. Martins looked behind him, but the door had closed.

       He said desperately to Mr. Crabbin, "I'm sorry, but..."

       "Don't think any more about it," Mr. Crabbin said. "One cup of coffee and then let's go on to the discussion. We have a very good gathering tonight. They'll put you on your mettle, Mr. Dexter." One of the young men placed a cup in his hand, the other shovelled in sugar before he could say he preferred his coffee unsweetened. The youngest man breathed into his ear, "Afterwards would you mind signing one of your books, Mr. Dexter? " A large woman in black silk bore down upon him and said, "I don't mind if the Gr? fin does hear me, Mr. Dexter, but I don't like your books, I don't approve of them. I think a novel should tell a good story."

       "So do I," Martins said hopelessly.

       "Now Mrs. Bannock, wait for question time."

       "I know I'm downright, but I'm sure Mr. Dexter values honest criticism."

       An old lady, who he supposed was the Gr? fin, said, "I do not read many English books, Mr. Dexter, but I am told that yours..."

       "Do you mind drinking up?" Crabbin said and hustled him through into an inner room where a number of elderly people were sitting on a semi-circle of chairs with an air of sad patience.

       Martins was not able to tell me very much about the meeting: his mind was still dazed with the death: when he looked up he expected to see at any moment the child H? nsel and hear that persistent informative refrain, "Papa, Papa." Apparently Crabbin opened the proceedings, and knowing Crabbin I am sure that it was a very lucid, very fair and unbiased picture of the contemporary English novel. I have heard him give that talk so often, varied only by the emphasis given to the work of the particular English visitor. He would have touched lightly on various problems of technique—the point of view, the passage of time, and then he would have declared the meeting open for questions and discussions.

       Martins missed the first question altogether, but luckily Crabbin filled the gap and answered it satisfactorily. A woman wearing a brown hat and a piece of fur round her throat said with passionate interest: "May I ask Mr. Dexter if he is engaged on a new work?"

       "Oh yes... Yes."

       "May I ask the title?"

       "The Third Man," Martins said and gained a spurious confidence as the result of taking that hurdle.

       "Mr. Dexter, could you tell us what author has chiefly influenced you?"

       Martins without thinking said, "Grey." He meant of course the author of Riders of the Purple Sage, and he was pleased to find his reply gave general satisfaction—to all save an elderly Austrian who asked, "Grey. What Grey? I do not know the name."

       Martins felt he was safe now and said, "Zane Grey—I don't know any other," and was mystified at the low subservient laughter from the English colony.

       Crabbin interposed quickly for the sake of the Austrians: "That is a little joke of Mr. Dexter's. He meant the poet Gray—a gentle, mild subtle genius—one can see the affinity."

       "And he is called Zane Grey?"

       "That was Mr. Dexter's joke. Zane Grey wrote what we call Westerns—cheap popular novelettes about bandits and cowboys."

       "He is not a greater writer?"

       "No, no. Far from it," Mr. Crabbin said. "In the strict sense I would not call him a writer at all." Martins told me that he felt the first stirrings of revolt at that statement. He had never regarded himself before as a writer, but Crabbin's self-confidence irritated him—even the way the light flashed back from Crabbin's spectacles seemed an added cause of vexation. Crabbin said, "He was just a popular entertainer."

       "Why the hell not?" Martins said fiercely.

       "Oh well, I merely meant..."

       "What was Shakespeare?"

       Somebody with great daring said, "A poet."

       "Have you ever read Zane Grey?"

       "No, I can't say..."

       "Then you don't know what you are talking about."

       One of the young men tried to come to Crabbin's rescue. "And James Joyce, where would you put James Joyce, Mr. Dexter?"

       "What do you mean put? I don't want to put anybody anywhere," Martins said. It had been a very full day: he had drunk too much with Cooler: he had fallen in love: a man had been murdered—and now he had the quite unjust feeling that he was being got at. Zane Grey was one of his heroes: he was damned if he was going to stand any nonsense.

       "I mean would you put him among the really great?"

       "If you want to know, I've never heard of him. What did he write?"

       He didn't realise it, but he was making an enormous impression. Only a great writer could have taken so arrogant, so original a line: several people wrote Zane Grey's name on the backs of envelopes and the Gr? fin whispered hoarsely to Crabbin, "How do you spell Zane?"

       "To tell you the truth, I'm not quite sure." A number of names were simultaneously flung at Martins—little sharp pointed names like Stein, round pebbles like Woolf. A young Austrian with an ardent intellectual black forelock called out "Daphne du Maurier," and Mr. Crabbin winced and looked sideways at Martins. He said in an undertone, "Be kind to them."

       A gentle kind faced woman in a hand-knitted jumper said wistfully, "Don't you agree, Mr. Dexter, that no one, no one has written about feelings so poetically as Virginia Woolf? in prose I mean."

       Crabbin whispered, "You might say something about the stream of consciousness."

       "Stream of what?"

       A note of despair came into Crabbin's voice, "Please, Mr. Dexter, these people are your genuine admirers. They want to hear your views. If you knew how they have besieged the Society."

       An elderly Austrian said, "Is there any writer in England today of the stature of the late John Galsworthy?"

       There was an outburst of angry twittering in which the names of Du Maurier, Priestley and somebody called Layman were flung to and fro. Martins sat gloomily back and saw again the snow, the stretcher, the desperate face of Frau Koch. He thought: if I had never returned, if I had never asked questions, would that little man still be alive? How had he benefited Harry by supplying another victim—a victim to assuage the fear of whom, Herr Kurtz, Cooler (he could not believe that), Dr. Winkler? Not one of them seemed adequate to the drab gruesome crime in the basement: he could hear the child saying: "I saw the blood on the coke," and somebody turned towards him a blank face without features, a grey plasticine egg, the third man.

       Martins could not have said how he got through the rest of the discussion: perhaps Crabbin took the brunt: perhaps he was helped by some of the audience who got into an animated discussion about the film version of a popular American novel. He remembered very little more before Crabbin was making a final speech in his honour. Then one of the young men led him to a table stacked with books and asked him to sign them. "We have only allowed each member one book."

       "What have I got to do?"

       "Just a signature. That's all they expect. This is my copy of The Curved Prow. I would be so grateful if you'd just write a little something..."

       Martins took his pen and wrote: "From B. Dexter, author of The Lone Rider of Santa F?," and the young man read the sentence and blotted it with a puzzled expression. As Martins sat down and started signing Benjamin Dexter's title pages, he could see in a mirror the young man showing the inscription to Crabbin. Crabbin smiled weakly and stroked his chin, up and down, up and down. "B. Dexter, B. Dexter, B. Dexter." Martins wrote rapidly—it was not after all a lie. One by one the books were collected by their owners: little half sentences of delight and compliment were dropped like curtseys—was this what it was to be a writer? Martins began to feel distinct irritation towards Benjamin Dexter. The complacent tiring pompous ass, he thought, signing the twenty-seventh copy of The Curved Prow. Every time he looked up and took another book he saw Crabbin's worried speculative gaze. The members of the Institute were beginning to go home with their spoils: the room was emptying. Suddenly in the mirror Martins saw a military policeman. He seemed to be having an argument with one of Crabbin's young henchmen. Martins thought he caught the sound of his own name. It was then he lost his nerve and with it any relic of commonsense. There was only one book left to sign: he dashed off a last "B. Dexter" and made for the door. The young man, Crabbin and the policeman stood together at the entrance.

       "And this gentleman?" the policeman asked.

       "It's Mr. Benjamin Dexter," the young man said.

       "Lavatory. Is there a lavatory?" Martins said.

       "I understood a Mr. Rollo Martins came here in one of your cars."

       "A mistake. An obvious mistake."

       "Second door on the left," the young man said.

       Martins grabbed his coat from the cloakroom as he went and made down the stairs. On the first floor landing he heard someone mounting the stairs and looking over saw Paine—whom I had sent to identify him. He opened a door at random and shut it behind him. He could hear Paine going by. The room where he stood was in darkness: a curious moaning sound made him turn and face whatever room it was.

       He could see nothing and the sound had stopped. He made a tiny movement and once more it started, like an impeded breath. He remained still and the sound died away. Outside somebody called "Mr. Dexter, Mr. Dexter." Then a new sound started. It was like somebody whispering—a long continuous monologue in the darkness. Martins said, "Is anybody there?" and the sound stopped again. He could stand no more of it. He took out his lighter. Footsteps went by and down the stairs. He scraped and scraped at the little wheel and no light came. Somebody shifted in the dark and something rattled in mid-air like a chain. He asked once more with the anger of fear, "Is anybody there?" and only the click click of metal answered him.

       Martins felt desperately for a light switch first to his right hand and then to his left. He did not dare go farther because he could no longer locate his fellow occupant: the whisper, the moaning, the click had all stopped. Then he was afraid that he had lost the door and felt wildly for the knob. He was far less afraid of the police than he was of the darkness, and he had no idea of the noise he was making.

       Paine heard it from the bottom of the stairs and came back. He switched on the landing light, and the glow under the door gave Martins his direction. He opened the door and smiling weakly as Paine turned back to take a second look at the room. The eyes of a parrot chained to a perch stared beadily back at him. Paine said respectfully, "We were looking for you, sir. Colonel Calloway wants a word with you."

       "I lost my way," Martins said.

       "Yes, sir. We thought that was what had happened."

10

I HAD KEPT A very careful record of Martins' movements from the moment I knew that he had not caught the plane home. He had been seen with Kurtz, and at the Josefstadt Theatre: I knew about his visit to Dr. Winkler and to Cooler, his first return to the block where Harry had lived. For some reason my man lost him between Cooler's and Anna Schmidt's flats: he reported that Martins had wandered widely, and the impression we both got was that he had deliberately thrown off his shadower. I tried to pick him up at Sacher's Hotel and just missed him.