Read "The Five Knots" by Fred M. White online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Cotter seemed to feel his way to the door, as if he were blind, or the room had been suddenly plunged into intense darkness. He hardly dared to breathe till he had opened the front door and admitted a short, enormously stout man who beamed on him mildly behind a pair of huge silver-rimmed spectacles. There was nothing in the stranger to inspire terror in the heart of Cotter, but his manner was servile to a degree.
"You see, I have come back again," the foreigner said. "Did I not tell you that I should come back, my friend? And it is no use telling me that Mr. Flower is not in, because I saw him arrive with his beautiful niece. In fact, I stood on the pavement on the other side of the road and watched the carriage come. If it had been all night I had to wait, I should have remained there. You have told your master I am coming?"