Haggerty's news hit Killigrew hard. Thomas. There must be a mistake.
He had not studied men all these years without learning to read young
and old with creditable accuracy. Thomas was as easy to read as an
amateur's scorecard; runs were runs, hits were hits, outs were outs.
Why, Thomas wouldn't have stolen an apple from a farmer's
orchard--without permission. What, enter a carriage in a fog, steal a
necklace, and carry it around with him for months? Never in this
world. And private secretary to the very person he had robbed? Of all
the fool situations, this was the cap! Imbecility was written all over
the face of it. It was simply a coincidence in the matter of names.
Yet, steward on the Celtic; there was no getting away from that.
There could not have been two Thomas Webbs on board. I'm afraid
Killigrew swore; distant thunder, off behind the hills there. He
struck the desk with his balled fist. He knew it; it was that infernal
opal of Kitty's getting in its deadly work. And what would Kitty say?
What would she do?

He stood up and pulled down the roller-top violently. The crash of it
sent every clerk, bookkeeper and stenographer huddling over his or her
work. Two bangs all in one morning? What had happened to the coffee
market? As a matter of fact, coffee fell off a quarter point between
then and closing; which goes to prove that the stock-market depends
upon its business less in the matter of supply and demand than in
"signs."