A restless soul

According to family tradition, my great uncle Robert was a bit of a black sheep. He went to America and in some way “went to the bad” there. He was said to have a violent temper, and to have drunk heavily. He might have worked in an hotel. He never married. He died fairly young, possibly in suspicious circumstances and possibly involving the police.
 
Robert was a brother of great uncle Edward Cecil, but their lives could hardly have been more different. Robert never stayed put for long. He first went to The United States in 1911, via Canada. For the next few years he moved frequently between the US and Canada. He returned briefly to England in 1923, staying three months. At different times he gave his occupation as factory labourer, coachman, domestic, footman and valet. In 1917 he was working in trucking, with a half interest in a trucking concern.
 
Robert was drawn to military life but it never quite worked out for him. In November 1910 he joined the Dragoons of the Line (the Queens Bays) as a Private. The Dragoons were elite cavalry soldiers in the British Army with a long and illustrious history. However in February 1911 he was discharged on payment of a penalty of £10 for changing his mind.
 
In September 1918 he joined the Royal Canadian Dragoons. This may have been part of a plan to get into the RAF: he was discharged in October 1918 and immediately enlisted in the RAF. Unfortunately perhaps for Robert, the War ended in November and he was discharged as surplus to RAF requirements.
 
I don’t know where or how he died. His only memorial is an addendum on his parents’ grave stone stating that he died in the USA aged 40 something – the last digit is illegible.
 
There are only two photos, one at least taken in the US which was probably the nearest he had to a home. He looks like a charmer, a wide boy perhaps, but hardly the desperado of family tradition . As always, it’s too late to ask. You can find out a lot of ‘where and when’ from documentary evidence but not much at all about the ‘why’ of people’s actions.