Report 47, on the difference between the shipments to Europe and America. Very dry, very dull; what with the glorious sunshine outside and the chance to play, Report 47 was damnable. A bird-like peck at the inkwell, and the pen began to scratch-scratch-scratch. He was twenty-four; by the time he was thirty he ought to…
"Beg pardon, sir!"
Lord Monckton's valet stood before the desk. Thomas did not like this man, with his soundless approaches, his thin nervous fingers, his brilliant roving eyes. Where had he been picked up? A perfect servant, yes; but it seemed to Thomas that the man was always expecting some one to come up behind him. Those quick cat-like glances over his shoulder were not reassuring. Dark, swarthy; and yet that odd white scar in the scalp above his ear. That ought to have been dark, logically.
"What is it?"
"Lord Monckton has dropped his glass somewhere, sir, and he sent me to inquire, sir."
"Oh, here it is. And tell your master to be very careful of it. Some one might step on it."
"Thank you, sir." The valet departed as noiselessly as he had entered.
"Really," mused Thomas, "there's a rum chap. I don't like him around. He gives me the what-d'-y'-call-it."
They needed an extra man at the table that night, so Thomas came down. He found himself between two jolly young women, opposite Kitty who divided her time between Lord Monckton and a young millionaire who, rumor bruited it, was very attentive to Killigrew's daughter. Still, Thomas enjoyed himself. Nobody seemed to mind that he was only a clerk in the house. The simpleton did not realize that he was a personage to these people; an English private secretary, quite a social stroke on the part of the Killigrews.
He gathered odd bits of news of what was going on among the summer colonists. The lady next to Killigrew, a Mrs. Wilberforce, had had a strange adventure the night before. She and her maid had been mysteriously overpowered by some strange fume, and later discovered that her pearls were gone. She had notified the town police. This brought the conversation around to the maharajah's emeralds. Hadn't he and his attendants been overcome in the same manner? Thomas thought of the sapphires. Since nobody knew he had them, he stood in no danger. But there was Kitty's great fire-opal, glowing like a coal on her breast, seeming to breathe as she breathed. It was almost as large as a crown-piece.