Mr. Butterby shook his head. It might be unlikely, he acknowledged; but it was not impossible.
"I tell you it is impossible," said Mr. Ollivera. "I hold a full, firm, positive conviction that my brother never died, or could have died, by his own wilful hands: the certainty of it in my mind is so clear as to be like a revelation from heaven. Do you know what I did, sir? I went to the grave at night after he was put into it, and read the burial service over him."
"I see you doing it," came the unexpected answer of Mr. Butterby. "The surplice you wore was too long for you and covered your boots."
"It belonged to a taller man than I am--the Reverend Mr. Yorke," the clergyman explained. "But now, sir, do you suppose I should have dared to hold that sacred service over a man who had wilfully destroyed himself?"
"But instead of there being proof that he did not wilfully destroy himself, there's every proof that he did," argued Mr. Butterby.
"Every apparent proof; I admit that; but I know--I know that the proofs are in some strange way false; not real."
"The death was real; the pistol was real; the writing on the note-paper was real."
"I know. I cannot pretend to explain where the explanation may be hidden; I cannot see how or whence the elucidation shall come. One suggestion I will make to you, Mr. Butterby it is not clear that no person got access to the drawing-room after the departure from it of Mr. Bede Greatorex. At least, to my mind. I only mentioned this thought," concluded Mr. Ollivera, rising to close the interview; for he had no time to prolong it. "Should you succeed in gleaning anything, address a communication to me, to the care of Greatorex and Greatorex."
"Stop a moment," cried Mr. Butterby, as they were going out. "Who holds the paper that was found on the table?"
"I do," said Frank Greatorex. "Some of them would have had it destroyed; Kene and my brother amidst them; they could not bear to look at it. But I thought my father might like to see it first, and took it into my own possession."