Bede was leaving the room when he met a servant coming to it with a message. Mr. Yorke had called, and wished to see Mr. Greatorex for a couple of minutes: his business was important. The notion of Roland Yorke and important business being in connexion, brought a smile to the face of Mr. Greatorex. He told the servant to send him in. But instead of Roland, it was the son of Sir Richard Yorke who advanced. A very fashionable gentleman in evening dress, small and slight, with white hands, a lisp, and a silky moustache. He had come about the cheque. Sir Richard, fatigued with his visit to the city, had gone straight home to Portland Place, after receiving the cheque from Mr. Greatorex, and sent his son to the bankers' to get it cashed: a branch office of the London and Westminster. The clerk, before he cashed it, looked at it rather attentively, and then went away for a minute. "We have cashed one cheque before today, sir, precisely similar to this," he said on his return. "Would Sir Richard be likely to have two cheques from Greatorex and Greatorex in one day, each drawn for the same amount--forty-four pounds?" "Greatorex and Greatorex are my father's men of business: he went to get some money for them today, I know; I suppose he chose to receive it in two cheques instead of one," replied Mr. Yorke haughtily, for he deemed the question an impertinence. "Sir Richard may have wished to pay the half of it away." The clerk counted out the money and said no more. The cheques were undoubtedly genuine, the first made out in the well-known hand of Bede Greatorex, the last in that of his father, and the clerk supposed it was all right. Mr. Yorke sent the money up to Sir Richard when he got home, and went out again. At dinner-time, he mentioned what the clerk had said--"Insolent fellah!" and the old baronet, who knew of the fact of two cheques having been drawn, took alarm. "He'd not let me wait an instant; sent me off here before I'd well tasted my soup," grumbled Mr. Yorke. "One of you had better come and see him if the cheque _has_ been lost and cashed; or he'll ask me five hundred questions which I can't answer, and fret himself into a fit. He has had one fit, you know. As to the cheque, it must have got into the hands of some clever thief, who made haste to reap the benefit of it." "And your desk must have been picked, Bede, if you are sure you put it in," observed Mr. Greatorex. "I'm sure of that," answered Bede. "But I don't see how the desk can have been picked. Not a thing in it was displaced, and the lock is uninjured." Bede had a frightful headache--which was the cause of his looking somewhat worse than usual that evening, so Mr. Greatorex went to Sir Richard Yorke's. And in coming home he passed round by Scotland Yard. On the following morning, sitting in his room, he held a conference with his two sons, whom he had not seen on his return the previous night.