Read The Third Man for Free Online

go."
           "I'll walk with you a bit of the way."
           The dark was almost down: the snow had ceased for a while to fall: and the great statues of the Ring, the prancing horses, the chariots and the eagles, were gunshot grey with the end of evening light. "It's better to give up and forget," Anna said. The moony snow lay ankle deep on the unswept pavements.
           "Will you give me the doctor's address?"
           They stood in the shelter of a wall while she wrote it down for him.
           "And yours too?"
           "Why do you want that?"
           "I might have news for you."
           "There isn't any news that would do any good now." He watched her from a distance board her tram, bowing her head against the wind, a little dark question mark on the snow.
     
     
     
     
     
    6
     
     
    AN AMATEUR detective has this advantage over the professional, that he doesn't work set hours. Rollo Martins was not confined to the eight hour day: his investigations didn't have to pause for meals. In his one day he covered as much ground as one of my men would have covered in two, and he had this initial advantage over us, that he was Harry's friend. He was, as it were, working from inside, while we pecked at the perimeter.
           Dr. Winkler was at home. Perhaps he would not have been at home to a police officer. Again Martins had marked his card with the sesame phrase: "A friend of Harry Lime's."
           Dr. Winkler's waiting room reminded Martins of an antique shop—an antique shop that specialized in religious objets d'art. There were more crucifixes than he could count, none of later date probably than the seventeenth century. There were statues in wood and ivory. There were a number of reliquaries: little bits of bone marked with saints' names and set in oval frames on a background of tin foil. If they were genuine, what an odd fate it was, Martins thought, for a portion of Saint Susanna's knuckle to come to rest in Doctor Winkler's waiting room. Even the high-backed hideous chairs looked as if they had once been sat in by cardinals. The room was stuffy, and one expected the smell of incense. In a small gold casket was a splinter of the True Cross. A sneeze disturbed him.
           Dr. Winkler was the cleanest doctor Martins had ever seen. He was very small and neat, in a black tail coat and a high stiff collar; his little black moustache was like an evening tie. He sneezed again: perhaps he was cold because he was so clean. He said "Mr. Martins?"
           An irresistible desire to sully Dr. Winkler assailed Rollo Martins. He said, "Dr. Winkle?"
           "Dr. Winkler."
           "You've got an interesting collection here."
           Yes.
           "These saints' bones..."
           "The bones of chickens and rabbits." Dr. Winkler took a large white handkerchief out of his sleeve rather as though he were a conjurer producing his country's flag, and blew his nose neatly and thoroughly twice, closing each nostril in turn. You expected him to throw away the handkerchief after one use. "Would you mind, Mr. Martins, telling me the purpose of your visit? I have a patient waiting."
           "We were both friends of Harry Lime."
           "I was his medical adviser," Dr. Winkler corrected him and waited obstinately between the crucifixes.
           "I arrived too late for the inquest. Harry had invited me out here to help him in something. I don't quite know what. I didn't hear of his death till I arrived."
           "Very sad," Dr. Winkler said.
           "Naturally, under the circumstances, I want to hear all I can."
           "There is nothing I can tell you that you don't know. He was knocked over by a car. He was dead when I arrived."
           "Would he have been conscious at all?"
           "I understand he was for a short time, while they carried him into the house."
           "In great pain?"