Rather than risk being seen, they left immediately, through your kitchen, to avoid those people entirely.

It was a mistake, and it was handled badly, and I am sorry for the disruption it caused at your workplace.

And I want you to understand one thing in particular, because I know how it must have looked.

The four hundred dollars was never meant to be a stolen dinner.

It was meant to be left on the table as a generous tip for you, alongside the file, so that the first thing you learned about me was not that I had cost you money.

In their rush to leave, they took the file and the tip both, by accident, and left you with the bill instead.