The Third Man

Calloway recalls that Martins’s next fateful move is to visit Cooler, where he gets drunk. Cooler is more sociable than Lime’s other friends, and “His warm frank handclasp was the most friendly act that Martins had encountered in Vienna” (34). When Martins asks about a third man at the scene besides Kurtz, Cooler pours him more drinks, which seems a calculated strategy on his part. He insists that events like these are naturally muddled in the memory but asks what exactly Lime’s neighbor claims he saw. He’s disappointed that Herr Koch had no sense of “duty” to the investigative process (35). When Martins asks about Anna, Cooler says he provided her with false papers to conceal her Hungarian citizenship, possibly due to her father’s Nazi ties. Cooler denies that Lime had any criminal ties, claiming that Kurtz couldn’t be correct because he “doesn’t understand how an Anglo-Saxon feels” (36). 

Martins, still inebriated, finds his way to Anna’s, making vague excuses that he needed to get out after his meeting with Cooler. Anna welcomes him, eventually explaining that she’s depressed, recalling Lime’s former habit of visiting her at this hour.