"Dreams is curious things; not to be despised," observed crafty Mr. Butterby; than whom there was not a man living despised dreams, as well as those who professed to have them, more than he. "But I've knowed so-called dreams to be nothing in the world but waking thoughts. Are you sure that one of yours was a dream, Miss Rye?" "I would rather not talk of it, if you please," she said. "Talking cannot bring Mr. Ollivera back to life." "What makes you persist in thinking he did not kill himself?" Mr. Butterby had gradually edged his chair forward on the hearthrug, so as to obtain a side view of Miss Rye's face. Perhaps he was surprised, perhaps not, to see it suddenly flush, and then become deadly pale. "Just look here, Miss Rye. If he did not do it, somebody else did. And I should like to glean a little insight as to whether or not there are grounds for that new light, if there's any to be gleaned." "Why, what on earth! are _you_ taking up that crotchet, Butterby?" The interruption came from Mrs. Jones. That goes without telling, as the French say. Mr. Butterby turned to warm his hands at the blaze, speaking mildly enough to disarm an enemy. "Not I. I should like to show your sister that her suspicions are wrong: she'll worrit herself into a skeleton, else. See here: whatever happened, and however it happened, it must have been between half-past seven and eight. You were in the place part of that half-hour, Miss Rye, and heard nobody." "I have already said so." "Shut up in your room at the top of the house; looking for--what was it?--a parcel?" "A pattern--a pattern of a sleeve. But I had to open parcels, for I could not find it, and stayed searching. It had slipped between one drawer and another at the back." "It must have took you some time," remarked Mr. Butterby, keeping his face on the genial fire and his eyes on Miss Rye. "I suppose it did. Susan says I was upstairs a quarter of an hour, but I don't think it was so long as that. Eight o'clock struck after I got back to Mrs. Wilson's." Mr. Butterby paused. Miss Rye resumed after a minute. "I don't think any one could have come in legitimately without my hearing them on the stairs. My room is not at the top of the house, it is on the same floor as Mrs. Jones's; the back room immediately over the bedroom that was occupied by Mr. Ollivera. My door was open, and the drawers in which I was searching stood close to it. If any----" "What d'ye mean by legitimate?" interrupted Mr. Butterby, turning to take a full look at the speaker. "Openly; with the noise one usually makes in coming upstairs. But if any one crept up secretly, of course I should not have heard it. Susan persists in declaring she never lost sight of the front door at all; I don't believe her." "Nobody does believe her," snapped Mrs. Jones, with a fling at the socks. "She confesses now that she ran in twice or thrice to look at the fires."