"In that single observation, Doyle, you express with epigrammatic precision the fundamental tragedy of modern man. We have fallen from grace, our ancient, instinctual link to the natural world forgotten. We're guests who no longer respect the house they inhabit, but rather treat it as a rough clay to be molded to our basest use. Think of the charnel-house factories of London, the befouled air, the mines, child labor; the countless devalued lives broken and discarded by the infernal machinery of the age. The eloquent ruins of this simple coun-
try path inscribe the eventual downfall of our vaunted civilization."
Doyle felt a tingling rush through his body, whether moved by the surprisingly tender outrage of his companion or some combination of starvation and sunstroke, he was quite unsure. It was near midday by now and unseasonably warm. Undulations of heat massaged the horizon line.
"What's that?" Doyle asked, and he pointed to the road behind them.
They had climbed and descended a sequence of gentle hills as the path moved down through the valley. A dark mirage-like heat devil was fluttering toward them along the line of the road. Its rhythmic, fluid movements suggested the beating wings of a gigantic crow.
"Perhaps we'd better clear off the road," Doyle said.
"No."
"Do you think that's, urn, wise, Jack?"
"We're in no danger," said Sparks, standing his ground.
Before too long, they could hear beating hooves: a single horse, at a sustained gallop. The shape metamorphosed through the distortion of the heat and revealed itself to be a solitary rider, a long black cloak flowing in its wake. Slowing as it approached, the rider appeared to a startled Doyle as a welcomely familiar face.
"Why, it's Barry. It's Barry, isn't it?" said Doyle, unexpectedly cheered by the prospect.
"No. It's not Barry," Sparks said.
He moved away to greet whoever it was as the horse covered the last few paces, and the man, who by every test of scrutiny Doyle could apply appeared to be none other than Barry, their erstwhile driver, dismounted and shook hands with Sparks.
"Good man, Larry, no trouble then," said Sparks.
"Kept a sharp butchers. N'trouble a'tall, sir," said Larry, who Doyle still insisted was Barry, not Larry.
"Larry is referring to the scattering of berries and wheat I've left along the way," Sparks explained to Doyle, as they moved to him. "There's not another tracker in all of England who could follow so scant a trail."
"None that is save y'self, sir," Larry added modestly. He was an East Ender, wiry and compact, as Barry had been.
with the same curly brown hair and lively blue eyes that Barry had; that Barry has, Doyle meant to say, still convinced this could be none other than the man himself.
"Larry and Barry are brothers," Sparks said, seeing Doyle's evident confusion. "Identical twins."
"We were, anyway; Barry's a one's wot got the scar, sir, which you'll notice is distinctly lacking on my physiognomy," said Larry, helpfully offering up his right, decidedly unscarred cheek to Doyle as testimony.
"Right," said Doyle. "No scar at all." As if he'd noticed from the start.
"Larry and Barry are something of a legend in certain London circles," Sparks said. "The sharpest pair of crack men you'd ever hope to meet."
"Crack men?"
"Burglars, sir," said Larry, smiling politely as if discussing tea-party etiquette with a maiden aunt. "Bit a' the old slash and grab, practitioners of the wedge, jemmy, and center bit, if you get my meanin'."
"I understand your meaning quite distinctly," Doyle said, affronted by the man's casual criminality.
"A perfect partnership," explained Sparks. "No one knew they were twins. On sheer technique alone they were ten leagues ahead of anyone else in the field."
"We ain't educated, but we 'ad an education, if you get my meaning," elaborated Larry.
"You'll appreciate the elegance of their methodology, Doyle. One of them goes out on the town and holds forth in a pub, cadging drinks, carousing, generally making a spectacle of himself."
"And that part's not the lark you might assume it to be, sir," said Larry, gravely. "A form of entertainment, that's how we seen it—emphasis on performance. Barry, now 'e's a singer, see, wit' a vast repertoire to draw from, whilst I favored epic recitation of the ribald lim'rick."
"So while the one's publicly and visibly engaged, the other brother goes about the fieldwork."
"That being the targeted burgle, in and out wit' the grab bag clean as a nun's wimple," added Larry.
"Both of them as quick as mice and able to work their way into places you wouldn't believe humanly possible," Sparks
went on—enjoying himself just a little too much with this story, thought Doyle.
"Barry, see, 'e can dislocate 'is shoulders in a tight spot and collapse 'imself down like an umbrella—"
"They're never seen together in public, so even if the brother on the job is pinched red-handed, forty eyewitnesses in the pub are ready to swear they spent the evening in the accused's flamboyant company. Absolutely foolproof."
"And Bob's your uncle it was, too, sir," Larry continued. "That is, till one dark day Barry buys hisself a bit of a hard cheese. Always after the ladies, Barry was: a tragic flaw. On this one particular night, he's flouncing a fishmonger's daughter. He's laid a mighty siege to the citadel of this dolly's virtue: The more defense she musters, the more engines of war Barry marshals onto the field of honor. Four in the morning, right there in the shop among the sardines. He's broken through her battlements, overrun the palace guard, and is about to breach her sanctum sanctorum when her old dad barrels in, unexpected like wit' a catch a' North Sea haddock, and before Barry can half pull his knickers on, the man whacks a cleaver 'cross his chops, cuts him right to the bone—"
"We can safely leave out the medical details, Larry," said Sparks.
"Right. Sorry, sir," Larry said earnestly, searching Doyle's face for any wounded sensibility.
"There's a place for the likes of you and your brother," replied Doyle. "It's called prison."
"No question about it, sir. And no doubt that's where we'd both be languishin' to this day, deservedly so, if it weren't for the good graces of Mr. Sparks 'ere."
"A long story we shan't belabor the good doctor with at the moment," Sparks said authoritatively. "Did you spy anyone else on the road?"
"I can say wit' some confidence that your avenue of escape remains undetected, sir."
"Welcome news. Now, my friend, what have you brought for us?"
"Beggin' your pardon, gents, 'ere I am gabbin', and you must be as parched as a medieval monk's manuscript."
It turned out Larry had brought in his saddlebags a great
many things that, if he hadn't been in such poor humor to start, would have gone a long way toward substantially revising Doyle's judgment of the wayward brothers. Sandwiches to start, numbers of them, in abundant variety: deviled ham, rare roast beef and sharp cheddar, turkey and mayonnaise, mutton slathered in horseradish sauce. And with them packages of nuts and sweets and water and cool beer. And perhaps most welcome of all, a change of dry clothes for them both.
They supped off the road, the horse grazing nearby in the tall alfalfa. Larry brought them up to date on his recent movements. Stationed for the last day and a half at the Cambridge railway office, upon receiving a coded wire from Barry in London—he'd led the pursuers a merry chase halfway back to town before eluding them entirely—Larry had taken to his horse and tracked down Sparks and Doyle off the beaten path. Although Doyle assumed it fell along the lines of employment, he found the exact nature of Barry and Larry's relationship to Sparks difficult to pin down and felt more than a little uneasy in asking. The proximity of such a clearly criminal personality, however putatively reformed, aroused in Doyle an Old Testament stoniness that the sandwiches and beer did little to dissolve, despite Larry's sunny attempts to ingratiate himself.