By BARONESS ORCZY
UNRAVELLED KNOTS
PIMPERNEL AND ROSEMARY
THE HONOURABLE JIM
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
NICOLETTE
CASTLES IN THE AIR
THE FIRST SIR PERCY
HIS MAJESTY'S WELL-BELOVED
THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
FLOWER O' THE LILY
THE MAN IN GREY
LORD TONY'S WIFE
LEATHERFACE
THE BRONZE EAGLE
A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS
THE LAUGHING CAVALIER
"UNTO CAESAR"
EL DORADO
MEADOWSWEET
THE NOBLE ROGUE
THE HEART OF A WOMAN
PETTICOAT RULE
New York: George H. Doran Company
UNRAVELLED KNOTS
I
THE MYSTERY OF THE KHAKI TUNIC
§1
I cannot pretend to say how it all happened. I can but relate what occurred, leaving those of my friends who are versed in psychic matters to find a plausible explanation for the fact that on that horrible foggy afternoon I chanced to walk into that blameless teashop at that particular hour.
Now, I had not been inside a teashop for years, and I had almost ceased to think of the Old Man in the Corner—the weird, spook-like creature with the baggy trousers, the huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and the thin claw-like hands that went on fidgeting, fidgeting, fidgeting with a piece of string, tying it with nervy deliberation into innumerable and complicated knots.
And yet, when I walked into that teashop and saw him sitting in the corner by the fire, I was hardly conscious of surprise, but I did not think that he would recognise me. So I sat down at the next table to him, and when I thought that he was most intent on fidgeting with his piece of string, I stole surreptitious glances at him. The years seemed to have passed him by; he was just the same; his face no more wrinkled; his fingers were as agile and restless as they had been when last I saw him twenty years ago.