) to the building lying in the third (British) zone (к зданию, расположенному в третьей (британской) зоне). He kept the taxi waiting (он попросил таксиста подождать: «держал такси ждущим»;
to keep — держать, хранить; удерживать в каком-л. состоянии) while he mounted to the third floor (в то время как сам поднялся на четвертый: «третий» этаж).
message ['mesIG], lounge ['launG], incident ['InsId(q)nt], serious ['sIqrIqs], address [q'dres], apartment [q'pRtmqnt], requisition ["rekwI'zIS(q)n], Nazi ['nRtsI]
There was no Lime to meet him at the Hotel Astoria where the bus landed him, and no message—only a cryptic one for Mr. Dexter from someone he had never heard of called Crabbin. "We expected you on tomorrow's plane. Please stay where you are. On the way round. Hotel room booked," but Rollo Martins wasn't the kind of man who stayed around. If you stayed around in a hotel lounge sooner or later incidents occurred; one mixed one's drinks. I can hear Rollo Martins saying to me now, "I've done with incidents. No more incidents," before he plunged head first into the most serious incident of all. There was always a conflict in Rollo Martins—between the absurd Christian name and the sturdy Dutch (four generations back) surname. Rollo looked at every woman that passed, and Martins renounced them forever. I don't know which of them wrote the Westerns. Martins had been given Lime's address and he felt no curiosity about the man called Crabbin; it was too obvious that a mistake had been made, though he didn't yet connect it with the conversation at Frankfurt. Lime had written that he could put Martins up in his own flat, a large apartment on the edge of Vienna that had been requisitioned from a Nazi owner. Lime could pay for the taxi when he arrived, so Martins drove straight away to the building lying in the third (British) zone. He kept the taxi waiting while he mounted to the third floor.
How quickly one becomes aware of silence (как быстро становишься: «один становится» знающим о тишине) even in so silent a city as Vienna (даже в таком тихом городе, как Вена) with the snow steadily settling (с монотонно укладывающимся снегом; to settle — поселиться, водвориться, обосноваться; усаживаться; укладываться; устраиваться). Martins hadn't reached the second floor before he was convinced (Мартинс не достиг третьего: «второго» этажа, прежде чем он был убежден = не успел добраться до третьего этажа, как почувствовал уверенность) that he would not find Lime there (что он не найдет там Лайма), but the silence was deeper than just absence (но тишина была глубже, чем просто отсутствие)—it was as if he would not find Harry Lime anywhere in Vienna (это было /так/, словно не найдет Гарри Лайма нигде в Вене), and as he reached the third floor and saw the big black bow over the door handle (а когда он достиг четвертого: «третьего» этажа и увидел большую черную дугу над дверной ручкой;