“Perhaps you know what Sperling means in German,” suggested Vance dulcetly.
“I’ve been to High School,” retorted Markham. Then his eyes opened slightly, and his body became tense.
Vance pushed the German dictionary toward him.
“Well, anyway, look up the word. We might as well be thorough. I looked it up myself. I was afraid my imagination was playing tricks on me, and I had a yearnin’ to see the word in black and white.”
Markham opened the book in silence, and let his eye run down the page. After staring at the word for several moments he drew himself up resolutely, as if fighting off a spell. When he spoke his voice was defiantly belligerent.
“Sperling means ‘sparrow.’ Any school boy knows that. What of it?”
“Oh, to be sure.” Vance lit another cigarette languidly. “And any school boy knows the old nursery rhyme entitled ‘The Death and Burial of Cock Robin,’ what?” He glanced tantalizingly at Markham, who stood immobile, staring out into the spring sunshine. “Since you pretend to be unfamiliar with that childhood classic, permit me to recite the first stanza.”
A chill, as of some unseen spectral presence, passed over me as Vance repeated those old familiar lines:
“Who killed Cock Robin?
‘I,’ said the sparrow,
‘With my bow and arrow.
I killed Cock Robin.’ ”