The night Sidney De Lakes had shot Brian McFee to death at the Bent Ridge Tavern, Doc had paid no particular attention to the dead youth lying on the sawdust of the floor. It was the one charged with the shooting he turned his attention to; Sidney towered up all his six feet three inches, chest out, his back pressed tight against the wall, his palms slightly upraised, a cold sweat pouring down over his forehead and upper lip so that he appeared to be standing under a leaking eavespipe.

The Doc had opened his bag, called for a tumbler of water from the white-­lipped bartender, and taking up a tiny envelope containing powder, dropped some into the glass, stirred and then forced the solution past the clenched teeth of the new-­fledged murderer whose head had immediately fallen over the doctor’s hand as if to kiss or perhaps bite it. Doc had never seen Sidney since that day four years ago.

Brian McFee, aged twenty, had raised his gun at Sidney and threatened to fire because of an alleged insult during some heated argument which had arisen while they had been hunting together that day, prior to their going to the Bent Ridge Tavern. Sid, who was of course armed also, had (his lawyer later claimed) fired involuntarily, at least in self-­defense, when he saw Brian was raising his gun at him again, and the bullet from that shot had hit Brian in the left eye, killing him instantly.

During the trial in response to a question from the prosecution as to whether he was “sorry” or not for what he had done, Sidney at first had replied “I am not sorry,” which his own lawyer later had attempted to explain away owing to his “rattled” mental condition, but again under cross-­examination, Sidney had blurted out with regard to Brian: “He had hounded me for months, worried and nagged me each day . . . I am not sorry that nagging and worrying is over . . . But I cared . . . deeply for Brian McFee.” (He had added this statement also against the wishes or advice of his defender.)

To make his case worse, Sidney refused to tell the court or even his own attorney what was the nature of Brian’s harassment and nagging of him, and the exact origin of his quarrel with the dead boy. Sidney refused to speak at greater length about the shooting thereafter, and no one else could come forward to offer an explanation, not even his brother Vance, to whom the whole affair remained a gloomy puzzle.

Sidney was sent up for manslaughter.

Dr. Ulric had received a letter from Sidney about two months after he had started to serve his sentence. It contained only one line, with no salutation or leave-­taking. It read:

See that Vance makes something of himself.

(Signed) Sidney De Lakes.