“Dr. Winkler…”
“I’ve got nothing against Dr. Winkler. No, if you are phoney, you don’t need the information, but it might help you to learn exactly what we know. You see our facts are not complete.”
“I bet they aren’t. I could invent a better detective than you in my bath.”
“Your literary style does not do your namesake justice.” Whenever he was reminded of Mr Crabbin, that poor harassed representative of the British Cultural Relations Society, Rollo Martins turned pink with annoyance, embarrassment, shame. That too inclined me to trust him.
He had certainly given Crabbin some uncomfortable hours. On returning to Sacher’s Hotel after his interview with Herr Koch he had found a desperate note waiting for him from the representative.
“I have been trying to locate you all day,” Crabbin wrote. “It is essential that we should get together and work out a proper programme for you. This morning by telephone I have arranged lectures at Innsbruck and Salzburg for next week, but I must have your consent to the subjects, so that proper programmes can be printed. I would suggest two lectures: “The Crisis of Faith in the Western World’ (you are very respected here as a Christian writer, but this lecture should be quite unpolitical) and ‘The Technique of the Contemporary Novel.’ The same lectures would be given in Vienna. Apart from this there are a great many people here who would like to meet you, and I want to arrange a cocktail party for early next week. But for all this I must have a few words with you.” The letter ended on a note of acute anxiety. “You will be at the discussion tomorrow night, won’t you? We all expect you at 8:30 and, needless to say, look forward to your coming. I will send transport to the hotel at 8:15 sharp.”
Rollo Martins read the letter and without bothering any further about Mr Crabbin went to bed.
AFTER TWO DRINKS Rollo Martins’ mind would always turn towards women-in a vague, sentimental, romantic way, as a sex, in general. After three drinks, like a pilot who dives to find direction, he would begin to focus on one available girl. If he had not been offered a third drink by Cooler, he would probably have not gone quite so soon to Anna Schmidt’s house, and if… but there are too many “ifs” in my style of writing, for it is my profession to balance possibilities, human possibilities, and the drive of destiny can never find a place in my files.
Martins had spent his lunchtime reading up the reports of the inquest, thus again demonstrating the superiority of the amateur to the professional, and making him more vulnerable to Cooler’s liquor (which the professional in duty bound would have refused). It was nearly five o’clock when he reached Cooler’s flat which was over an ice-cream parlour in the American zone: the bar below was full of G. I.’s with their girls, and the clatter of the long spoons and the curious free uniformed laughter followed him up the stairs.
The Englishman who objects to Americans in general usually carried in his mind’s eye just such an exception as Cooler: a man with tousled grey hair and a worried kindly face and long-sighted eyes, the kind of humanitarian who turns up in a typhus epidemic or a world war or a Chinese famine long before his countrymen have discovered the place in an atlas. Again the card marked “Harry’s friend” was like an entrance ticket. His warm frank handclasp was the most friendly act that Martins had encountered in Vienna.
“Any friend of Harry is all right with me,” Cooler said. “I’ve heard of you, of course.”
“From Harry?”
“I’m a great reader of Westerns,” Cooler said, and Martins believed him as he did not believe Kurtz.
“I wondered-you were there, weren’t you?—if you’d tell me about Harry’s death.”
“It was a terrible thing,” Cooler said. “I was just crossing the road to go to Harry. He and Mr Kurtz were on the sidewalk. Maybe if I hadn’t started across the road, he’d have stayed where he was. But he saw me and stepped straight off to meet me and this jeep-it was terrible, terrible. The driver braked, but he didn’t stand a chance. Have a Scotch, Mr Martins. It’s silly of me, but I get shaken up when I think of it.” He said as he splashed in the soda, “I’d never seen a man killed before.”
“Was the other man in the car?”
Cooler took a long pull and then measured what was left with his tired kindly eyes. “What man would you be referring to, Mr Martins?”
“I was told there was another man there.”
“I don’t know how you got that idea. You’ll find all about it in the inquest reports.” He poured out two more generous drinks. “There were just the three of us-me and Mr Kurtz and the driver. The doctor, of course. I expect you were thinking of the doctor.”
“This man I was talking to happened to look out of a window-he has the next flat to Harry’s-and he said he saw three men and the driver. That’s before the doctor arrived.”
“He didn’t say that in court.”
“He didn’t want to get involved.”
“You’ll never teach these Europeans to be good citizens. It was his duty.” Cooler brooded sadly over his glass. “It’s an odd thing, Mr Martins, with accidents. You’ll never get two reports that coincide. Why, even I and Mr Kurtz disagreed about details. The thing happens so suddenly, you aren’t concerned to notice things, until bang crash, and then you have to reconstruct, remember. I expect he got too tangled up trying to sort out what happened before and what after, to distinguish the four of us.”
“The four?”
“I was counting Harry. What else did he see, Mr Martins?”
“Nothing of interest-except he says Harry was dead when he was carried to the house.”
“Well, he was dying-not much difference there. Have another drink, Mr Martins?”
“No, I don’t think I will.”
“Well, I’d like another spot. I was very fond of your friend, Mr Martins, and I don’t like talking about it.”
“Perhaps one more-to keep you company.”
“Do you know Anna Schmidt?” Martins asked, while the whisky still tingled on his tongue.
“Harry’s girl? I met her once, that’s all. As a matter of fact, I helped Harry fix her papers. Not the sort of thing I should confess to a stranger, I suppose, but you have to break the rules sometimes. Humanity’s a duty too.”
“What was wrong?”
“She was Hungarian and her father had been a Nazi so they said. She was scared the Russians would pick her up.”
“Why should they want to?”
“Well, her papers weren’t in order.”
“You took her some money from Harry, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t have mentioned that. Did she tell you?”
The telephone went and Cooler drained his glass. “Hullo,” he said. “Why, yes. This is Cooler.” Then he sat with the receiver at his ear and an expression of sad patience, while some voice a long way off drained into the room. “Yes,” he said once. “Yes.” His eyes dwelt on Martins’ face, but they seemed to be looking a long way beyond him: flat and tired and kind, they might have been gazing out over across the sea. He said, “You did quite right,” in a tone of commendation, and then, with a touch of asperity, “Of course they will be delivered. I gave my word. Goodbye.” He put the receiver down and passed a hand across his forehead wearily. It was as though he were trying to remember something he had to do. Martins said, “Had you heard anything of this racket the police talk about?”
“I’m sorry. What’s that?”
“They say Harry was mixed up in some racket.”
“Oh, no,” Cooler said. “No. That’s quite impossible. He had a great sense of duty.”
“Kurtz seemed to think it was possible.”
“Kurtz doesn’t understand how an Anglo-Saxon feels,” Cooler replied.