‘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.