The Third Man

Martins visits the Josefstadt Theater, waiting for Lime’s girlfriend, Anna Schmidt (an actress), after her matinee performance. He paces the cold building, feeling “a little like a Romeo who wasn’t sure of Juliet’s balcony” (22). In the moments before Anna arrives, he resolves to accept Kurtz’s advice and leave. However, Anna’s arrival distracts him, as he finds her “honest face with dark hair and eyes” captivating (22). He insists that she’s not particularly striking but notes that “there are some people […] whom one recognises instantaneously as friends” (22).

He accepts her offer of tea and tells her that he’s an old friend of Lime’s. Anna insists that they have little to discuss now that Lime is dead. She tells him that she wants “to be dead too” (23). Her narrative piques his curiosity when he learns that Lime’s friend Cooler gave her money, claiming that Lime insisted she have it before he died. This, too, contradicts Herr Koch’s report that he couldn’t have spoken before his death. Martins is further surprised—and curious—when he learns that the doctor on the scene was Lime’s personal physician and that the driver who killed him was not a stranger. Like Kurtz, Anna insists that further inquiry would be fruitless. She gives him her address and that of Lime’s doctor, and as they part she reiterates that no investigation can alter her emotional state.

Calloway reflects that Martins had more success than his professional detectives, not only because of his single-minded focus but also because “he was, as it were, working from inside, while we pecked at the perimeter” (26). Martins visits the home of Lime’s physician, Dr. Winkler, who collects old religious artifacts. Martins is struck by these artifacts and by Winkler’s obsessively tidy appearance. Martins posits that perhaps Lime’s death was not accidental, but Winkler is careful to say little, offering only that he saw two other men there but not naming them. He even hesitates to identify his unusual crucifix: an artifact from a Catholic sect, the Jansenists, who had some sympathy with Calvinist ideas. The artifact depicts Christ with his arms upright, and Winkler explains that “he died in their view, only for the elect” (28). 

Calloway recalls that this moment marked the last real security for Martins—and perhaps, by extension, for himself. Martins’s amateur investigation has not led to any crisis, as “the smooth wall of deception had as yet shown no real crack to his roaming fingers” (29). Rather than visiting Cooler, Martins decides to return to Lime’s flat to question his neighbor, Herr Koch, again. Calloway reflects that visiting Cooler would have been safer but that “Rollo, being Rollo, decided to toss a coin and the coin fell for the other action, and the deaths of two men” (29).

Herr Koch reiterates that the man he saw died instantly, though he had no desire to be officially involved in any investigation or report on the matter. He adds, to Martins’s consternation, that a third man—besides the doctor and Kurtz—helped carry the body. Martins decides that this is proof of a conspiracy to hide Lime’s murder and prevent him or Anna from discovering the truth. Koch, considering Martins a possible new tenant, shows Martins the empty flat and tells him that Kurtz removed all Lime’s belongings. When Martins suggests that Lime was murdered, Koch is angry and rushes him away.

At this stage, Martins refuses to believe Calloway without further evidence, telling him that a fictional detective would have more skill. Calloway needles him about his literary “namesake,” the more famous Benjamin Dexter, reminding him of his behavior toward Crabbin (33). Crabbin has left Martins a detailed itinerary for more lectures and a note reminding him of his talk in Vienna the following day. Martins still does nothing to correct the mistaken identity and goes to bed.