The Englishman who objects to Americans in general usually carries 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. Cooler was in officer’s uniform, with mysterious letters on his flash, and no badges of rank, although his maid referred to him as Colonel Cooler. 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, ‘In spite of this uniform, 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.’