The Third Man and the Fallen Idol

by Graham Greene

  ‘You shouldn’t telephone. You must stay in sight.’

  ‘I’ve drunk seven cups of this filthy coffee. My stomach won’t stand much more.’

  ‘He can’t delay much longer if he’s coming. He won’t want to run into the two o’clock patrol. Stick it another quarter of an hour, but keep away from the telephone.’

  Martins’ voice said suddenly, ‘Christ, he’s here! He’s –’ and then the telephone went dead. I said to my assistant, ‘Give the signal to guard all manholes,’ and to my sewer police, ‘We are going down.’

  What had happened was this. Martins was still on the telephone to me when Harry Lime came into the café. I don’t know what he heard, if he heard anything. The mere sight of a man wanted by the police and without friends in Vienna speaking on the telephone would have been enough to warn him. He was out of the café again before Martins had put down the receiver. It was one of those rare moments when none of my men was in the café. One had just left and another was on the pavement about to come in. Harry Lime brushed by him and made for the kiosk. Martins came out of the café and saw my man. If he had called out then it would have been an easy shot, but I suppose it was not Lime, the penicillin racketeer, who was escaping down the street; it was Harry. Martins hesitated just long enough for Lime to put the kiosk between them; then he called out, ‘That’s him,’ but Lime had already gone to ground.

  What a strange world unknown to most of us lies under our feet: we live above a cavernous land of waterfalls and rushing rivers, where tides ebb and flow as in the world above. If you have ever read the adventures of Allan Quatermain and the account of his voyage along the underground river to the city of Milosis, you will be able to picture the scene of Lime’s last stand. The main sewer, half as wide as the Thames, rushes by under a huge arch, fed by tributary streams: these streams have fallen in waterfalls from higher levels and have been purified in their fall, so that only in these side channels is the air foul. The main stream smells sweet and fresh with a faint tang of ozone, and everywhere in the darkness is the sound of falling and rushing water. It was just past high tide when Martins and the policeman reached the river: first the curving iron staircase, then a short passage so low they had to stoop, and then the shallow edge of the water lapped at their feet. My man shone his torch along the edge of the current and said, ‘He’s gone that way,’ for just as a deep stream when it shallows at the rim leaves an accumulation of debris, so the sewer left in the quiet water against the wall a scum of orange peel, old cigarette cartons, and the like, and in this scum Lime had left his trail as unmistakably as if he had walked in mud. My policeman shone his torch ahead with his left hand, and carried his gun in his right. He said to Martins, ‘Keep behind me, sir, the bastard may shoot.’

  ‘Then why the hell should you be in front?’

  ‘It’s my job, sir.’ The water came half-way up their legs as they walked; the policeman kept his torch pointing down and ahead at the disturbed trail at the sewer’s edge. He said, ‘The silly thing is the bastard doesn’t stand a chance. The manholes are all guarded and we’ve cordoned off the way into the Russian zone. All our chaps have to do now is to sweep inwards down the side passages from the manholes.’ He took a whistle out of his pocket and blew, and very far away, here and again there, came the notes of a reply. He said, ‘They are all down here now. The sewer police, I mean. They know this place just as I know the Tottenham Court Road. I wish my old woman could see me now,’ he said, lifting his torch for a moment to shine it ahead, and at that moment the shot came. The torch flew out of his hand and fell in the stream. He said, ‘God blast the bastard!’

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Scraped my hand, that’s all. A week off work. Here, take this other torch, sir, while I tie my hand up. Don’t shine it. He’s in one of the side passages.’ For a long time the sound of the shot went on reverberating: when the last echo died a whistle blew ahead of them, and Martins’ companion blew an answer.

  Martins said, ‘It’s an odd thing – I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘Bates, sir.’ He gave a low laugh in the darkness. ‘This isn’t my usual beat. Do you know the Horseshoe, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the Duke of Grafton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it takes a lot to make a world.’

  Martins said, ‘Let me come in front. I don’t think he’ll shoot at me, and I want to talk to him.’

  ‘I had orders to look after you, sir. Careful.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ He edged round Bates, plunging a foot deeper in the stream as he went. When he was in front he called out, ‘Harry,’ and the name sent up an echo, ‘Harry, Harry, Harry!’ that travelled down the stream and woke a whole chorus of whistles in the darkness. He called again, ‘Harry. Come out. It’s no use.’

  A voice startlingly close made them hug the wall. ‘Is that you, old man?’ it called. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Come out. And put your hands above your head.’

  ‘I haven’t a torch, old man. I can’t see a thing.’

  ‘Be careful, sir,’ Bates said.

  ‘Get flat against the wall. He won’t shoot at me,’ Martins said. He called, ‘Harry, I’m going to shine the torch. Play fair and come out. You haven’t got a chance.’ He flashed the torch on, and twenty feet away, at the edge of the light and the water, Harry stepped into view. ‘Hands above the head, Harry.’ Harry raised his hand and fired. The shot ricocheted against the wall a foot from Martins’ head, and he heard Bates cry out. At the same moment a searchlight from fifty yards away lit the whole channel, caught Harry in its beams, then Martins, then the staring eyes of Bates slumped at the water’s edge with the sewage washing to his waist. An empty cigarette carton wedged into his armpit and stayed. My party had reached the scene.

  Martins stood dithering there above Bates’s body, with Harry Lime half-way between us. We couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting Martins, and the light of the searchlight dazzled Lime. We moved slowly on, our revolvers trained for a chance, and Lime turned this way and that way like a rabbit dazzled by headlights; then suddenly he took a flying jump into the deep central rushing stream. When we turned the searchlight after him he was submerged, and the current of the sewer carried him rapidly on, past the body of Bates, out of the range of the searchlight into the dark. What makes a man, without hope, cling to a few more minutes of existence? Is it a good quality or a bad one? I have no idea.

  Martins stood at the outer edge of the searchlight beam, staring downstream. He had his gun in his hand now, and he was the only one of us who could fire with safety. I thought I saw a movement and called out to him, ‘There. There. Shoot.’ He lifted his gun and fired, just as he had fired at the same command all those years ago on Brickworth Common, fired, as he did then, inaccurately. A cry of pain came tearing back like calico down the cavern: a reproach, an entreaty. ‘Well done,’ I called and halted by Bates’s body. He was dead. His eyes remained blankly open as we turned the searchlight on him; somebody stooped and dislodged the carton and threw it in the river, which whirled it on – a scrap of yellow Gold Flake: he was certainly a long way from the Tottenham Court Road.

  I looked up and Martins was out of sight in the darkness. I called his name and it was lost in a confusion of echoes, in the rush and the roar of the underground river. Then I heard a third shot.

  Martins told me later, ‘I walked downstream to find Harry, but I must have missed him in the dark. I was afraid to lift the torch: I didn’t want to tempt him to shoot again. He must have been struck by my bullet just at the entrance of a side passage. Then I suppose he crawled up the passage to the foot of the iron stairs. Thirty feet above his head was the manhole, but he wouldn’t have had the strength to lift it, and even if he had succeeded the police were waiting above. He must have known all that, but he was in great pain, and just as an animal creeps into the dark to die, so I suppose a man makes for the light. He wants to die at home, and the darkness
is never home to us. He began to pull himself up the stairs, but then the pain took him and he couldn’t go on. What made him whistle that absurd scrap of a tune I’d been fool enough to believe he had written himself? Was he trying to attract attention, did he want a friend with him, even the friend who had trapped him, or was he delirious and had he no purpose at all? Anyway I heard his whistle and came back along the edge of the stream, and felt where the wall ended and found my way up the passage where he lay. I said, “Harry,” and the whistling stopped, just above my head. I put my hand on an iron hand-rail, and climbed. I was still afraid he might shoot. Then, only three steps up, my foot stamped down on his hand, and he was there. I shone my torch on him: he hadn’t got a gun; he must have dropped it when my bullet hit him. For a moment I thought he was dead, but then he whimpered with pain. I said, “Harry,” and he swivelled his eyes with a great effort to my face. He was trying to speak, and I bent down to listen. “Bloody fool,” he said – that was all. I don’t know whether he meant that for himself – some sort of act of contrition, however inadequate (he was a Catholic) – or was it for me – with my thousand a year taxed and my imaginary cattle-rustlers who couldn’t even shoot a rabbit clean? Then he began to whimper again. I couldn’t bear it any more and I put a bullet through him.’

  ‘We’ll forget that bit,’ I said.

  Martins said, ‘I never shall.’

  Chapter 17

  A THAW SET in that night, and all over Vienna the snow melted, and the ugly ruins came to light again; steel rods hanging like stalactites, and rusty girders thrusting like bones through the grey slush. Burials were much simpler than they had been a week before when electric drills had been needed to break the frozen ground. It was almost as warm as a spring day when Harry Lime had his second funeral. I was glad to get him under earth again, but it had taken two men’s deaths. The group by the grave was smaller now: Kurtz wasn’t there, nor Winkler – only the girl and Rollo Martins and myself. And there weren’t any tears.

  After it was over the girl walked away without a word to either of us down the long avenue of trees that led to the main entrance and the tram stop, splashing through the melted snow. I said to Martins, ‘I’ve got transport. Can I give you a lift?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ll take a tram back.’

  ‘You win. You’ve proved me a bloody fool.’

  ‘I haven’t won,’ he said. ‘I’ve lost.’ I watched him striding off on his overgrown legs after the girl. He caught her up and they walked side by side. I don’t think he said a word to her: it was like the end of a story except that before they turned out of my sight her hand was through his arm – which is how a story usually begins. He was a very bad shot and a very bad judge of character, but he had a way with Westerns (a trick of tension) and with girls (I wouldn’t know what). And Crabbin? Oh, Crabbin is still arguing with the British Council about Dexter’s expenses. They say they can’t pass simultaneous payments in Stockholm and Vienna. Poor Crabbin. Poor all of us, when you come to think of it.

  THE FALLEN IDOL

  Preface

  The Fallen Idol unlike The Third Man was not written for the films. That is only one of many reasons why I prefer it. It was published as The Basement Room in 1935 and conceived on the cargo steamer on the way home from Liberia to relieve the tedium of the voyage. The Fallen Idol is, of course, a meaningless title for the original story printed here, and even for the film it always reminded me of the problem paintings of John Collier. It was chosen by the distributors.

  I was surprised when Carol Reed suggested that I should collaborate with him on a film of The Basement Room because it seemed to me that the subject was unfilmable – a murder committed by the most sympathetic character and an unhappy ending which would certainly have imperilled the £250,000 that films nowadays cost.

  However we went ahead, and in the conferences that ensued the story was quietly changed, so that the subject no longer concerned a small boy who unwittingly betrayed his best friend to the police, but dealt instead with a small boy who believed that his friend was a murderer and nearly procured his arrest by telling lies in his defence. I think this, especially with Reed’s handling, was a good subject, but the reader must not be surprised by not finding it the subject of the original story.

  Why was the scene changed to an Embassy? This was Reed’s idea since we both felt that the large Belgravia house was already in these post-war years a period piece, and we did not want to make an historical film. I fought the solution for a while and then wholeheartedly concurred.

  It is always difficult to remember which of us made which change in the original story except in certain details. For example the cross-examination of the girl beside the bed that she had used with Baines was mine: the witty interruption of the man who came to wind the clock was Reed’s. The snake was mine (I have always liked snakes), and for a short while it met with Reed’s sympathetic opposition.

  Of one thing about both these films I have complete certainty, that their success is due to Carol Reed, the only director I know with that particular warmth of human sympathy, the extraordinary feeling for the right face for the right part, the exactitude of cutting, and not least important the power of sympathizing with an author’s worries and an ability to guide him.

  Chapter 1

  WHEN THE FRONT door had shut them out and the butler Baines had turned back into the dark heavy hall, Philip began to live. He stood in front of the nursery door, listening until he heard the engine of the taxi die out along the street. His parents were gone for a fortnight’s holiday; he was ‘between nurses’, one dismissed and the other not arrived; he was alone in the great Belgravia house with Baines and Mrs Baines.

  He could go anywhere, even through the green baize door to the pantry or down the stairs to the basement living-room. He felt a stranger in his home because he could go into any room and all the rooms were empty.

  You could only guess who had once occupied them: the rack of pipes in the smoking-room beside the elephant tusks, the carved wood tobacco jar; in the bedroom the pink hangings and pale perfumes and the three-quarter-finished jars of cream which Mrs Baines had not yet cleared away; the high glaze on the never-opened piano in the drawing-room, the china clock, the silly little tables and the silver: but here Mrs Baines was already busy, pulling down the curtains, covering the chairs in dust-sheets.

  ‘Be off out of here, Master Philip,’ and she looked at him with her hateful peevish eyes, while she moved round, getting everything in order, meticulous and loveless and doing her duty.

  Philip Lane went downstairs and pushed at the baize door; he looked into the pantry, but Baines was not there; then he set foot for the first time on the stairs to the basement. Again he had the sense: this is life. All his seven nursery years vibrated with the strange, the new experience. His crowded busy brain was like a city which feels the earth tremble at a distant earthquake shock. He was apprehensive, but he was happier than he had ever been. Everything was more important than before.

  Baines was reading a newspaper in his shirtsleeves. He said, ‘Come in, Phil, and make yourself at home. Wait a moment and I’ll do the honours,’ and going to a white cleaned cupboard he brought out a bottle of ginger-beer and half a Dundee cake. ‘Half-past eleven in the morning,’ Baines said. ‘It’s opening time, my boy,’ and he cut the cake and poured out the ginger-beer. He was more genial than Philip had ever known him, more at his ease, a man in his own home.

  ‘Shall I call Mrs Baines?’ Philip asked, and he was glad when Baines said no. She was busy. She liked to be busy, so why interfere with her pleasure?

  ‘A spot of drink at half-past eleven,’ Baines said, pouring himself out a glass of ginger-beer, ‘gives an appetite for chop and does no man any harm.’

  ‘A chop?’ Philip asked.

  ‘Old Coasters,’ Baines said, ‘call all food chop.’

  ‘But it’s not a chop?’

  ‘Well, it might be, you know, cooked with palm oil. And then some pa
w-paw to follow.’

  Philip looked out of the basement window at the dry stone yard, the ash-can and the legs going up and down beyond the railings.

  ‘Was it hot there?’

  ‘Ah, you never felt such heat. Not a nice heat, mind, like you get in the park on a day like this. Wet,’ Baines said, ‘corruption.’ He cut himself a slice of cake. ‘Smelling of rot,’ Baines said, rolling his eyes round the small basement room, from clean cupboard to clean cupboard, the sense of bareness, of nowhere to hide a man’s secrets. With an air of regret for something lost he took a long draught of ginger-beer.

  ‘Why did father live out there?’

  ‘It was his job,’ Baines said, ‘same as this is mine now. And it was mine then too. It was a man’s job. You wouldn’t believe it now, but I’ve had forty niggers under me, doing what I told them to.’

  ‘Why did you leave?’

  ‘I married Mrs Baines.’

  Philip took the slice of Dundee cake in his hand and munched it round the room. He felt very old, independent and judicial; he was aware that Baines was talking to him as man to man. He never called him Master Philip as Mrs Baines did, who was servile when she was not authoritative.

  Baines had seen the world; he had seen beyond the railings, beyond the tired legs of typists, the Pimlico parade to and from Victoria. He sat there over his ginger pop with the resigned dignity of an exile; Baines didn’t complain; he had chosen his fate; and if his fate was Mrs Baines he had only himself to blame.

  But today, because the house was almost empty and Mrs Baines was upstairs and there was nothing to do, he allowed himself a little acidity.

  ‘I’d go back tomorrow if I had the chance.’

  ‘Did you ever shoot a nigger?’

  ‘I never had any call to shoot,’ Baines said. ‘Of course I carried a gun. But you didn’t need to treat them bad. That just made them stupid. Why,’ Baines said, bowing his thin grey hair with embarrassment over the ginger pop, ‘I loved some of those damned niggers. I couldn’t help loving them. There they’d be laughing, holding hands; they liked to touch each other; it made them feel fine to know the other fellow was round. It didn’t mean anything we could understand; two of them would go about all day without losing hold, grown men; but it wasn’t love; it didn’t mean anything we could understand.’