The household separated for bed that night with sober faces.
“Syd hasn’t been like himself since Mr. Tyler died,” remarked Roy, lingering at the door of Rex’s room.
Rex did not reply immediately. He stood looking at his brother intently for an instant, then he put a hand on Roy’s shoulder, gently pulled him into the room and closed the door behind him.
“Sit down a minute, Roy,” he said gravely; “I want to tell you something.”
“What is it? What makes you look so solemn, Reggie? Is it anything about Syd?”
“Yes, it’s about Syd. Something that happened last summer, and which he told me not to tell; but it seems to me that I ought to tell now.”
In a few words then, Rex related what he and Scott Bowman had witnessed, adding an account of what Sydney had said to him when he asked to have the doctor sent out of the room.
“It’s queer, isn’t it, Roy?” Rex added.
“Yes, but I can’t connect it with the present case.”
“Neither can I. That makes it queerer still. Perhaps you’d better not say anything about what I told you.”