Viner was so sure that the sound which he had heard on Mrs. Killenhall's retirement was that caused by the turning of a key or slipping of a lock in the door by which he had entered, that before speaking to Miss Wickham he instantly stepped back and tried it. To his astonishment it opened readily, but the anteroom outside was empty; Mrs. Killenhall had evidently walked straight through it and disappeared.
"That's odd!" he said, turning to Miss Wickham. "I distinctly thought I heard something like the snap of a lock, or a bolt or something. Didn't you?"
"I certainly heard a sound of that sort," admitted Miss Wickham. "But—the door's open, isn't it?"
"Yes—that is so," answered Viner, who was distinctly puzzled. "Yet—but then, all this seems very odd. When did you come down here?"
"About an hour ago," replied Miss Wickham, "in a hurry."
"Do you know why?" asked Viner.
"To see a Dr. Martincole, who is to tell us something about Mr. Ashton," replied his fellow-sharer in these strange quarters. "Didn't Mrs. Killenhall ask you to come down for the same purpose, Mr. Viner?"
Viner, before he replied, looked round the room. Considering the extreme shabbiness and of the surrounding district, he was greatly surprised to find that the apartment in which he and Miss Wickham waited was extremely well furnished, if in an old-fashioned and rather heavy way. The walls were panelled in dark, age-stained oak, to the height of several feet; above the panelling were arranged good oil pictures, which Viner would have liked to examine at his leisure; here and there, in cabinets, were many promising curiosities; there were old silver and brass things, and a shelf or two of well-bound books—altogether the place and its effects were certainly not what Viner had expected to find in such a quarter.
"Yes," he said at last, turning to his companion, "that's what I was brought here for. Well—have you seen this doctor?"
"No," answered Miss Wickham. "Not yet."
"Know anything about him?" suggested Viner.
"Nothing whatever! I have heard of him," said Miss Wickham with a glance of surprise. "I suppose he—somehow—got into touch with Miss Killenhall."
"Queer!" remarked Viner. "And why doesn't he come in?"
Then, resolved to know more, he walked into the anteroom, and after a look round it, tried the door by which Mrs. Killenhall had admitted him after coming up the stairs from the street; a second later he went back to Miss Wickham and shook his head.
"It's just as I supposed," he remarked quietly. "We're trapped! Anyway, the door of that anteroom is locked—and it's a strong lock. There's something wrong."
The girl started, and paled a little, but Viner saw at once that she was not likely to be seriously frightened, and presently she laughed.
"How very queer!" she said. "But—perhaps Mrs. Killenhall turned the key in the outer lock so that no—patients, or other callers, perhaps—should come in?"
"Sorry, but that doesn't strike me as a good suggestion," replied Viner. "I'm going to have a look at that window!"
The one window of the room, a long, low one, was set high in the wall, above the panelling; Viner had to climb on a bookcase to get at it. And when he had reached it, he found it to be securely fastened, and to have in front of it, at a distance of no more than a yard, a blank whitewashed wall which evidently rose from a passage between that and the next house.
"I don't like the look of this at all!" he said as he got down from the bookcase. "It seems to me that we might be kept here for a long time."
Miss Wickham showed more astonishment than fear.
"But why should any one want to keep us here for any time?" she asked. "What's it mean?"
"I wish I knew!" exclaimed Viner. He pulled out his watch and made a mental note of the time. "We're being kept much longer than we should be in any ordinary case," he remarked.
"Of course!" admitted Miss Wickham. "Well past three o'clock, isn't it? If we're delayed much longer, Mrs. Killenhall will be too late for the bank."
"What bank?" asked Viner.
"My bank. I always give Mrs. Killenhall a check for the weekly bills every Friday, and as we were coming through the City to get here, she said, just before we left home, that I might as well give her the check and she could call and cash it as we drove back. And," concluded Miss Wickham, "the bank closes at four."
Viner began to be suspicious.
"Look here!" he said suddenly. "Don't think me inquisitive, but what was the amount of the check you gave her?"