Explore "The Sign of the Stranger" by William le Queux on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The man's audacity in coming there openly and boldly as Lord Stanchester's guest so utterly astounded me that my very words froze upon my lips. Was this some further development of the intrigue in which one man had already lost his life?
Yet the visitor, bluff and hearty of speech, stood smiling at me with a calmness that was absolutely amazing. In the first instant, I wondered whether the dim light of the corridor had deceived me, or whether his face only resembled in a marked degree the dusty wayfarer who had refreshed himself with such gusto at the _Stanchester Arms_. Suddenly I recollected that although I had watched him on that hot afternoon, he had been unable to see me where I remained in the publican's back parlour. There was a screen on purpose to hide any person seated in the little low inner room from the vulgar gaze of those in the tap-room, and at the moment he had faced me I had been peeping round the corner watching him. As I crossed the room he had seen my back, of course, but his self-assurance at the moment of our meeting made it quite plain that he did not recognise me.