The Third Man and the Fallen Idol Read online

  ‘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 generalizations.

  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 legs, which 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 Martins 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 Kärntnerstrasse. 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 from six till ten, 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 caviare sandwiches. It was lucky that we both knew 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 learned 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 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.’ Certainly, I thought, the child is father to the man, for I too had found Lime 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 his 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 realize, 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 book 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 brought out a surface smile and said gently, ‘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 organization. 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 rough. 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 …’

  ‘Calloway. 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 self-esteem.

  ‘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 him one 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.’

  Chapter 3

  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT I didn’t hear from Paine but from Martins a long time afterwards, as I reconstructed the chain of events which 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 Calloway 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 a room for him 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. He went apologetically on, ‘One of our chaps happened to ring up Frankfurt and heard you were on the plane. H.Q. made one of their usual foolish mistakes and wired you were not coming. Something about Sweden, but the cable was badly mutilated. Directly I heard from Frankfurt I tried to meet the plane, but I just missed you. You got my note?’

  Martins held his handkerchief to his mouth and said obscurely, ‘Yes. Yes?’

  ‘May I say at once, Mr Dexter, how excited I am to meet you?’

  ‘Good of you.’

  ‘Ever since I was a boy, I’ve thought you the greatest novelist of our century.’

  Martins winced. It was painful opening his mouth to protest. He took an angry look instead at Mr Crabbin, but it was impossible to suspect that young man of a practical joke.

  ‘You have a big Austrian public, Mr Dexter, both for your originals and your translations. Especially for The Curved Prow, that’s my own favourite.’

  Martins was thinking hard. ‘Did you say – room for a week?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very kind of you.’

  ‘Mr Schmidt here will give you tickets every day, to cover all meals. But I expect you’ll need a little pocket money. We’ll fix that. Tomorrow we thought you’d like a quiet day – to look about.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of course any of us are at your service if you need a guide. Then the day after tomorrow in the evening there’s a little quiet discussion at the Institute – on the contemporary novel. We thought perhaps you’d say a few words just to set the ball rolling, and then answer questions.’

  Martins at that moment was prepared to agree to anything to get rid of Mr Crabbin and also to secure a week’s free board and lodging; and Rollo, of course, as I was to discover later, had always been prepared to accept any suggestion – for a drink, for a girl, for a joke, for a new excitement. He said now, ‘Of course, of course,’ into his handkerchief.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Dexter, have you got toothache? I know a very good dentist.’

  ‘No. Som
ebody hit me, that’s all.’

  ‘Good God! Were they trying to rob you?’

  ‘No, it was a soldier. I was trying to punch his bloody colonel in the eye.’ He removed the handkerchief and gave Crabbin a view of his cut mouth. He told me that Crabbin was at a complete loss for words. Martins couldn’t understand why because he had never read the work of his great contemporary, Benjamin Dexter: he hadn’t even heard of him. I am a great admirer of Dexter, so that I could understand Crabbin’s bewilderment. Dexter has been ranked as a stylist with Henry James, but he has a wider feminine streak than his master – indeed his enemies have sometimes described his subtle, complex, wavering style as old-maidish. For a man still just on the right side of fifty his passionate interest in embroidery and his habit of calming a not very tumultuous mind with tatting – a trait beloved by his disciples – certainly to others seems a little affected.

  ‘Have you ever read a book called The Lone Rider of Santa Fé?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  Martins said, ‘This lone rider had his best friend shot by the sheriff of a town called Lost Claim Gulch. The story is how he hunted that sheriff down – quite legally – until his revenge was completed.’

  ‘I never imagined you reading Westerns, Mr Dexter,’ Crabbin said, and it needed all Martins’ resolution to stop Rollo saying, ‘But I write them.’

  ‘Well, I’m gunning just the same way for Colonel Callaghan.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Heard of Harry Lime?’

  ‘Yes,’ Crabbin said cautiously, ‘but I didn’t really know him.’

  ‘I did. He was my best friend.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have thought he was a very – literary character.’

  ‘None of my friends are.’

  Crabbin blinked nervously behind the horn-rims. He said with an air of appeasement, ‘He was interested in the theatre though. A friend of his – an actress, you know – is learning English at the Institute. He called once or twice to fetch her.’