decide [dI'saId], profit ['prOfIt], legitimate [lI'GItqmqt], ['], colour ['kAlq], museum [mju:'zi:qm], example [Ig'zRmpl], consider [kqn'sIdq], immunise ['Imju:naIz], use [ju:s], ineffective ["InI'fektIv], venereal [vI'nIqrql], horrify ['hOrIfaI], mental ['ment(q)l], circumstantial ["sq:kqm'stxnS(q)l], fidget ['fIGIt], consist [kqn'sIst], coincidence [kqu'InsId(q)ns], accumulation [q"kju:mju'leIS(q)n], opportunity ["Opq'tjunItI], acquaintance [q'kweInt(q)ns]

This, I have sometimes called stage two. Stage three was when the organisers decided that the profits were not large enough. Penicillin would not always be impossible to obtain legitimately: they wanted more money and quicker money while the going was good. They began to dilute the penicillin with coloured water, and in the case of penicillin dust, with sand. I keep a small museum in one drawer in my desk, and I showed Martins examples. He wasn't enjoying the talk, but he hadn't yet grasped the point. He said, "I suppose that makes the stuff useless."

I said, "We wouldn't worry so much if that was all, but just consider. You can be immunised from the effects of penicillin. At the best you can say that the use of this stuff makes a penicillin treatment for the particular patient ineffective in the future. That isn't so funny, of course, if you are suffering from V.D. Then the use of sand on a wound that requires penicillin—well, it's not healthy. Men have lost their legs and arms that way—and their lives. But perhaps what horrified me most was visiting the children's hospital here. They had bought some of this penicillin for use against meningitis. A number of children simply died, and a number went off their heads. You can see them now in the mental ward."

He sat on the other side of the desk scowling into his hands. I said, "It doesn't bear thinking about very closely, does it?"

"You haven't showed me any evidence yet that Harry ..."

"We are coming to that now," I said. "Just sit still and listen." I opened Lime's file and began to read. At the beginning the evidence was purely circumstantial, and Martins fidgeted. So much consisted of coincidence—reports of agents that Lime had been at a certain place at a certain time: the accumulation of opportunities: his acquaintance with certain people. He protested once, "But the same evidence would apply against me—now."

"Just wait (просто подождите)," I said. For some reason (по какой-то причине) Harry Lime had grown careless (Гарри Лайм стал беспечным, неосторожным; to grow — расти; становиться): he may have realised (он мог осознать = возможно, он понял) that we suspected him and got rattled (что мы подозреваем его, и сделался напуган; to rattle — греметь; поднимать зверя на охоте). He held a quite distinguished position (он занимал весьма видное положение; to distinguish — различать; проводить различие) and a man like that (а человек как этот = такой) is the more easily rattled (бывает тем более легко напуган). We put one of our agents as an orderly in the British Military Hospital (мы поставили одного из наших агентов санитаром в Британский военный госпиталь): we knew by this time the name of our go-between (мы знали к этому времени имя нашего посредника), but we had never succeeded (но мы так и не преуспели: «мы никогда преуспели») in getting the line right back to the source (в том, чтобы провести нить: «линию» назад к источнику).