"Yes--if you like to take the risk of entering people's houses without permission!" said Viner sardonically. "I don't think you'll find anybody or anything there. As for Miss Wickham and myself, we've an engagement elsewhere." He hurried his companion away, through the street on which they emerged from the whitewashed yard, and out into the Whitechapel Road; he hurried her, too, into the first taxicab which came along empty. "Now," he said, as they stepped in, "tell this man the name of your bank, and let him go there, quick!" CHAPTER XXVIII THE TRUTH Four o'clock had struck, and the doors of the bank were closed when Miss Wickham and Viner hurried up to it, but there was a private entrance at the side, and the man who answered their summons made no difficulty about admitting them when Miss Wickham said who she was. And within a few minutes they were closeted with a manager, who, surprised when they entered, was astonished before many words had been exchanged. For during their dash from the Whitechapel streets Viner had coached his companion as to the questions he wished her to put on arrival at the bank, and she went straight to the point. "I wanted to know if my companion, Mrs. Killenhall, had called here this afternoon?" begun Miss Wickham. "She has," answered the manager. "I happened to see her, and I attended to her myself." "Did she present a check from me?" inquired Miss Wickham. "Certainly--and I cashed it," said the manager. He gave his customer and her companion a look of interrogation which had a good deal of surprise in it. "Why?" he continued, glancing at Miss Wickham, "wasn't it in order?" "That," replied Miss Wickham, "depends upon the amount." "The amount!" he exclaimed. "You know--if the drawer! It was for ten thousand pounds!" "Then Mrs. Killenhall has done me, or you, out of that," said Miss Wickham. "The check I gave her was to have been filled up for the amount of the usual weekly bills--twenty pounds or so. Ten thousand? Ridiculous!" "But--it all seemed in order!" exclaimed the concerned manager. "She was as plausible, and all that--and really, you know, Miss Wickham, we know her very well--and, in addition to that, you have a very large balance lying here. Mrs. Killenhall merely mentioned that you wanted this amount, in notes, and that she had called for it--and of course, I cashed the check--your check, remember!--at once." "I hadn't filled in the amount," remarked Miss Wickham. "Mrs. Killenhall had often presented checks bearing your signature in which you hadn't filled in the amount," said the manager. "There was nothing unusual, I assure you, in any detail of the affair." "The most important detail, now," observed Viner dryly, "is to find Mrs. Killenhall." The manager, who was obviously filled with amazement at Mrs. Killenhall's audacity, looked from one to the other of his visitors, as if he could scarcely credit their suggestion.