“Don’t be silly, Jess,” Roy admonished her, and then he returned once more to the study of the face of the criminal.

There was a sudden crash up stairs.  Jess uttered a half stifled scream.

“Oh, Roy,” she cried, “do go and see!  He may have killed poor Rex!”

CHAPTER XIII

 Discussion of ways and means

Roy bounded up the stairway two steps at a time.  He was conscious that both his sisters had walked to the foot of it and were looking after him fearfully.  Then he heard Rex’s voice.  Evidently his brother was not hurt.

“Oh, it didn’t matter in the least,” Rex was saying.  “It was an old thing, we shouldn’t have taken it with us to the new house.”

He and Mr. Keeler were bending over a heap of fragments on the floor.  Roy stepped into the room and saw that they had once been the clock that stood on a bracket near the foot of the bed.

“I was reaching up to get that wasp’s nest we stuck behind it,” Rex explained.  “My coat sleeve caught on the clock and pulled the whole thing over.”

Roy. gave a sigh of relief and then almost smiled as he recalled what he and his sisters had thought for a minute had really happened.  He bent down and helped the others to pick up the pieces.

“I think this should be a warning to me to go to bed at once,” said Mr. Keeler with a laugh.  “Good-night, boys, I shall be on hand for eight o’clock breakfast.”

He went out into the hall and up the stairs to the third floor, where Roy had already lighted the lamp for him in Syd’s room.

“An awfully nice fellow, isn’t he, Roy?” remarked Rex, rolling the fragments of the clock up in an old newspaper.

Roy did not make any reply.  He had sat down on a chair by the bureau, on which he was resting his elbow.  His eyes were fixed thoughtfully on the book rack opposite in which stood the volume of which Mr. Keeler was the author.

“Rex,” he said suddenly, “come on downstairs.”

“I’ve got to go down any way with this rubbish.  But what’s come over you, Roy?  You look as sober as a judge in a criminal case.”

“I’ll show you in the library,” was all Roy’s reply, then recollecting that the girls would be anxious to hear his report, he hurried out and down the stairs.

Eva and Jess were still standing by the newel post.

“Well?” they asked in a breath.

“It was only the old clock Rex knocked down.  Mr. Keeler has gone up to bed.”

“Did you tell Rex?”

“No, not yet.  Here he comes now.”

Eva went out and showed her brother where to deposit the contents of the newspaper.  Then she brought him back into the library and pointed out the portrait of Martin Blakesley.

Rex understood at once what it meant, for he had been looking at the book.

“Whew!” he brought out this low whistle and then glanced from one to the other of his companions.