ything?"

"Don't know that I have," admitted Starmidge. "Just now, anyway. I've
had a dozen ideas--but they're a bit mixed at present. Have you--after
what we've found out?"

"What sort of banking business is it the Chestermarkes carry on down
there at Scarnham?" asked Easleby. "I suppose you'd get a general idea."

"Usual thing in a small country town," replied Starmidge. "Highly
respectable, county family business, I should say, from what I saw and
heard."

"All the squires, and the parsons, and the farmers, and better sort of
tradesmen go to 'em, I suppose?" suggested Easleby. "And all the nice
old ladies and that sort--an extra-respectable connection, eh?"

"Just as I say--regular country-town business," said Starmidge, half
impatiently.

"Um!" remarked Easleby. "Now, if you were a highly respectable
country-town banker, with a connection of that sort amongst very proper
people, and if it so happened that you were living a double life, and
running a money-lending business in London, do you think you'd want your
banking customers to know what you were after when you weren't banking!"

"What do you think he'd do?" asked Starmidge.

"I'm not quite sure," replied Easleby, with candour. "But I think I
shall get there, all the same. Now, didn't you say that from all the
accounts supplied to you, this Mr. John Horbury was an eminently proper
sort of person? Very well--supposing it suddenly came to his knowledge
that his employer--or employers, for I expect both Chestermarkes are in
at it--were notorious money-lenders in London, and that they carried on
this secret business in the greedy and grasping fashion--what do you
suppose he'd do?--especially if he was, as you say Horbury was, a man of
considerable means?"

"What do you think he'd do?" asked Starmidge.

"I think it's quite on the cards that he'd chuck his job there and
then," said Easleby, "and not only that, but that he'd probably threaten
exposure. Men of a very severe type of commercial religion would, my
lad!--I know 'em!"

"You're suggesting--what?" inquired the younger detective.

"I'm suggesting that on that night of Hollis's visit to Scarnham,
Horbury, through Hollis, became acquainted with the Chestermarke
secret," replied Easleby, "and that he let the Chestermarkes know it.
And in that case--what would happen?"

Starmidge walked slowly on at his companion's side, thinking. He was
trying to fit together a great many things; he felt as a child