The door-keeper departed up a dark passage, and Easleby pointed Starmidge to a playbill which hung, framed on the wall, behind them. "There you are!" he said, indicating a line near the big capitals at the top. "'Lessee and Manager--Mr. Leopold Castlemayne.' That's our man. Fancy name, of course--real name Tom Smith, or Jim Johnson, you know. But, Lord bless you, what's in a name? Haven't we got a case in point?" "There's a good deal in what's in a name in our case, old man!" retorted Starmidge. "You're off it there!" Easleby was about to combat this reply when a boy appeared, and intimated that Mr. Castlemayne would see the gentlemen at once. And the two detectives followed up one passage and down another, and round corners and across saloons and foyers, until they were shown into a snug room, half office, half parlour, very comfortably furnished and ornamented, wherein, at a desk, and alone, sat a gentleman in evening dress, whose countenance, well-fed though it was, seemed to be just then clouded with suspicion and something that looked very like anxiety. He glanced up from the cards which lay before him to the two men who had sent them in, and silently pointed them to chairs near his own. "Good-evening, sir," said Easleby, with a polite bow. "Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Castlemayne, but you see our business from our cards, and we've called, sir, to ask if you can give us a bit of much-wanted information. I don't know, sir," continued Easleby, laying the blue-pencilled newspaper on the lessee's desk, "if you've read in the papers any account of the affair which is here called the Scarnham Mystery!" Mr. Leopold Castlemayne glanced at the columns to which Easleby pointed, rubbed his chin, and nodded. "Yes--yes!" he said. "I have just seen the papers. Case of a strange disappearance--bank manager--isn't it?" "It's more than that, sir," replied Easleby. "It's a case of--all sorts of things. Now you're wondering, Mr. Castlemayne, why we come to you? I'll explain. You'll see there, sir, the name--blue-pencilled--Gabriel Chestermarke. Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke is a banker at Scarnham. You don't happen to know him, Mr. Castlemayne?" The two detectives watched the lessee narrowly as that question was put. And each knew instantly that the prompt reply was a truthful one. "Never heard of him in my life," said Mr. Castlemayne. "Thank you, sir," said Easleby. "Just so! Well, sir, my friend here--Detective-Sergeant Starmidge--has been down at Scarnham in charge of this case from the first, and he's formed some ideas about this Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke. Last night Gabriel Chestermarke travelled up to town from Ecclesborough--Mr. Starmidge arranged for him to be shadowed when he arrived at St. Pancras. A man of ours--not quite as experienced as he might be, you understand, sir--did shadow him--and lost him. He lost him here at your theatre, Mr. Castlemayne." "Ah!" said the lessee, half indifferently. "Got amongst the audience, I suppose?"