The Flying Twins
Summary
Twin porcelain dolls—gilded, gloved, and gas-lit—live atop a marble staircase in their father’s brass-and-oak fortress; when the tycoon’s back is turned, cousin Mabel, a hay-scented changeling, drags them through the servants’ gate into the candied dust of a travelling spectacle. A lithe somersaulting serpent named Ray, half-smile, half-switchblade, twines round their afternoons; paternal thunder breaks the spell, banishing the girls to Aunt Sally’s honeysuckle exile and Mabel to a dull counter stool. But the big top returns like a gaudy planet, its spangles hypnotic; the serpent reappears, now ringed by sawdust and a wife as sharp as tent-pegs. In a single dusk the twins vanish into canvas constellations, trading lace for leotards, pirouetting on trapeze bars that write revenge across the sky. Their disappearance becomes front-page anguish; an unsigned postcard—ink as venomous as the acrobat’s grin—lands on the manufacturer’s blotter. One sly sleuth, nostrils full of glue and grit, trails paper fibres to the lot, topples the glittering coup, and restores the prodigies to a foyer of tears and trembling chandeliers.
Synopsis
A wealthy manufacturer has two twin daughters. As a companion they have their cousin, a country girl, who makes the acquaintance of a vaudeville acrobat. When this undesirable relationship is discovered and broken by the manufacturer, the country girl meets and marries a young clerk, and the twins are sent to their Aunt Sally in the country while their father and mother are away on a trip. When a circus comes to the little town, they are much attracted by its tinsel display. The acrobat the girls met with their country cousin is now with the circus. He and his wife discover the girls and persuade them to join the circus. They become clever performers, and the acrobat rejoices in the distress their disappearance has occasioned their father, the manufacturer, who broke up his friendship with the little country girl. His hatred leads the acrobat into mailing a taunting, anonymous letter to the manufacturer. A clever detective traces the communication and the little girls are restored to their home and distracted parents.
