"He couldn't get back into the house up through the windows or down through the chimneys; not in anyway but through the door. And the chances were that he might have been seen going in and coming out. No: don't think he went back to harm Mr. Ollivera. Rather inclined to say his announced intention of starting by the five o'clock train to Birmingham was a blind: he meant to go by the one at eight t'other way, and went back to wait for it, afeared of hanging about the station itself or loitering in the streets. It don't quite wash, neither, that; chances were he might have been seen coming back," debated Mr. Butterby. "Wonder if he has anything to do with that little affair that has just turned up in Birmingham?" resumed the speaker, deviating to another thought. "Young man's wanted for that, George Winter: _might_ have been this very selfsame Godfrey Pitman; and of course might not. Let's get on. "It don't stand to reason that he'd come in any such way into a town and stop a whole week at the top of a house for the purpose of harming Mr. Ollivera. Why 'twas not till the Tuesday after Pitman was in, that the Joneses got the barrister's letter saying he was coming and would occupy his old rooms if they were vacant. No," decided Mr. Butterby; "Pitman was in trouble on his own score, and his mysterious movements had reference to that: as I'm inclined to think." One prominent quality in Mr. Butterby was pertinacity. Let him take up an idea of his own accord, however faint, and it took a vast deal to get it out of him. An obstinate man was he in his self-conceit. Anybody who knew Mr. Butterby well, and could have seen his thoughts as in a glass, might have known he would be slow to take up the doubts against Godfrey Pitman, because he had already them up against another. "I don't like it," he presently resumed. "Look at it in the best light, she knows something of the matter; more than she likes to be questioned about. Put the case, Jonas Butterby. Here's a sober, sensible, steady young woman, superior to half the women going, thinking only of her regular duties, nothing to conceal, open and cheerful as the day. That's how she was till this happened. And now? Goes home on the Monday night at nigh eleven o'clock (not to speak yet of what passed up to that hour), sits over the parlour-fire after other folks had went to bed, 'thinking,' as she puts it. Goes up later; can't sleep; drops asleep towards morning, and dreams that Mr. Ollivera's dead. Gets flurried at inquest (_I_ saw it, though others mightn't); tramps to see him buried, stands on the fresh grave, and tells the public he did not commit suicide. How does she know he didn't? Come. Mrs. Jones is ten times sharper-sighted, and she has no doubt. Says, next, to her sister in confidence (and Dicky repeats it to me as a choice bit of gossip) that she's haunted by Ollivera's spirit.