twister, and scoundrel, who by virtue of their vice has the greatest familiarity with Mr. S—and his name tolls in their hearts the bells of doom. This bunch is far more numerous and career-minded than the other two categories would like to believe. Also the type to which you, in your life as a respectable physician, to your credit, would be the least familiar. So I can well understand your asking.'
Larry gave the last of the bones to Zeus and scruffed him under the chin.
'Happens to be the category to which brother Barry and I once accounted ourselves, and not so long ago. Nothing to be particular proud of, but there it is.'
'How did you come to meet Jack, Larry? If I may ask.'
'Yes, you may, sir. And may I take this opportunity to say it's one of the great pleasures of the work we do to find myself in the acquaintanceship of such a fine, upstanding gentleman as yourself.'
Doyle tried to wave off the compliment.
'I mean it serious true, sir. The only chance I might otherwise had of meeting you face-to-face would've been by your unexpectedly arrivin' home in the midst of a misguided attempt on my part to burgle you, or my seekin' emergency medical for injury taken during the commission of a similar crime. We was sorry lads, Barry and I, and no blame to attach to none but ourselves for it. Our Dad was a good, hard-workin' railroad man who provided for us best he could. Even with him alone as he was, his worst was a damn sight better than most from what I've seen. It was the strain of a twin birth, see. Our Mum was of such a delicate nature, so he told us—here, I got a picture of her.'
Larry took a cameo from his vest and opened the clasp. A photograph of a young woman rested inside: close, blurry, her hair in a fashion twenty years out of date. Attractive in an unremarkable shopgirl way, but even the shabby, faded quality of the picture couldn't obscure the same light dancing in the eyes that so distinguished her two sons.
'She's very pretty,' said Doyle.
'Her name was Louisa. Louisa May. That was their honeymoon: a day and two nights in Brighton. Dad had that picture taken on the pier.' Larry closed and repocketed the locket. 'Louisa May was seventeen. Along Barry and I come to spoil the party later that same year.'
'You can't blame yourself for that.'
'You wonder about such things. All I can muster up is that Barry and me, we had some unstoppable reason to be bom into this life together that was not to be denied. Destiny. I'm tempted to call it. Cost us our Mum, but life is hard and sorrowful and filled with trouble, and your own is no exception. If our old Dad took it hard on us for losin' her, we never knowed it. But wot with him on the rails and his poor relations hard-pressed to manage their own, let alone such a pair a devils as us, it weren't long 'fore we came to mischief. School couldn't hold us. A pair of whizzy boys, pickpockets, that's how it started. How many thousand times have I asked myself, Larry, wot was it led you and Brother B to a life of such criminal destitution? After years of deliberation, I think it was shop windows.'
'Shop windows?'
'Used to be you'd go right by a place of business and never know what they had to offer without venturing inside. Nowadays walk past any decent establishment, the stuff's all laid right out for your perusal, and the best of it, too. A tease, that's wot it is. Lookin' in those windows, seeing all this booty and not being able to have, that's what pushed over the edge. By the time we turned ten, the lure of loot by pilfery captured our imagination. Dedication to craft's wot we practiced from that day on, there's few limits to what a couple eager country boys with a bit of know-how and a burning desire to make good in the city can set their minds to. That is, till we met the Master hisself.'
'How did that happen, Larry?'
Finished grinding the bones, Zeus circled twice and curled up under the chemist's bench. With a mighty yawn, he settled his head down on a foreleg and watched Larry alertly for signs that he might produce additional delicacies.
'It was late one night, near three. Barry's turn at the pub— not long after his unfortunate set-to with the fishmonger; we'd grown beards to cover the scar—I'd hit a house in Ken-
sington for a healthy haul of collectibles, and we're back at our flat feelin' more than a bit eager—we'd been through some lean weeks waitin' for Barry's scarification to settle— when the door flies open and standing there like the wrath of God was the Man, a stranger to our eyes, and a pistol in either hand that spelled serious business. The game was up. A few baubles ain't worth dying for. Don't get hurt for the loot, that was our motto. So this gent first-off confiscates our ill-gotten gains, as expected, but then gives out the confounded-est confabulation we'd ever heard: Forsake this petty life of crime, he says to us. Come work for me in the service of the Crown, or else. Or else what? we wants to know. Or else our fortunes will turn sharply downward and future events go badly for us, with a decided lack of details as to how this might transpire. We've a lunatic in our midst, that's what Barry and me are thinkin'—and our thoughts are ofttimes as loud to each other as speakers in the House of Commons. So we posthaste agree to this malarkey, let him take the loot and be done with the mucker, and the man blows out of there like June rain. A thief steals from a thief. No tears shed. Hazards of the trade. Plenty of other flats in London, so we flies ourselves out of that coop and sets up across town by the very next afternoon.
'Four days pass, and we can't help notice we're not gettin' any richer, so we pull another job. Barry hits a silversmith— he's always been partial to silver, useful with the ladies—and he's no sooner through the door of our new crib when this selfsame avenger crashes in and seizes the bag right out of Barry's mitts. This is our second chance, he spells it out for us; put your lawless ways behind you and follow me, or the end is near. He don't even wait for an answer, just takes the swag and scoots. Now Barry and me got our monkeys up, we're spooked: How'd this bloke pick us out of all the crooks in town; if he's so hard up for boodle, why don't he rob his own houses; exactly what's he mean the 'end' is near; and how on earth do we stop this moke from hittin' us where we live again?
'So it's desperate measures for desperate times. We lay lower than dirt. Move our base around like fireflies in a bottle; four times in a week. Not a word to nobody. Watch our tail religiously for the slightest sign of this troublesome shade, and all we draw are blanks. Three weeks go by, and we've got stomachs to feed. Safe as houses by now, we figure. Maybe the bloke's spied one of us in the pub and followed us home, that's how he's capered us, so for luck we got out on the stoush together this time, and there'll be no more unpleasant surprises. We picks our target more careful than a bleeder shaves. An antique store down Portobello, far off the beaten path. In we go down the air shaft easy as pie, ready to grab and stuff.
'And there's the selfsame bloke sittin' in a chair, cool as iced tea, pistol in hand. Cornered bang to rights. Not only that, this time he's brought a copper; he's behind us ready to make application with his nightstick and hear our confessions. This is your final opportunity, the man says as a how-do-you-do. And he knows our names and our latest address and everywhere else we been up to the minute.
'It's the second time in me life the hand of Destiny reached down and smacked me in the north and south. This is the end, Larry, I says to myself. Third time's the charm, I says to Brother B, who's by nature a bit more pigmy-minded than yours truly. Turns out he's had a sudden rush of brains to the head. Stranger, we says, you is too much for us; we will do our best to answer the call. The gent proves good as his word; he gives the high sign, the copper takes his leave without so much as a good-night kiss from his stick. The Stranger says follow me, boys, and so we marched out of the antique store on Portobello Road with Mr. John Sparks six years ago, our brilliant criminal careers at an end.'
'He threatened you with arrest?'
'He did better than threats: He convinced us. 'Course, it wasn't till months later we find out the 'copper' was one of his Regulars in costume.'
'His Regulars?'
'That's what he calls us, those of us in his employ,' said Larry modestly.
'How many of you are there?'
'More than a few, never enough, and as many as necessary, depending on your point of view.'
'All former criminals like yourself?'
'There's a few recruits from the civilian side. You're in good company, if that's the worry.'
'Did he tell you right off he was working for the Queen?'
'He told us a great many things—'
'Yes, but regarding the Queen, specifically?'
