Résumé
Résumé de Nœuds dénoués
Go deeper: the whole of Nœuds dénoués
About 7 h to read.À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
You will love this book if you enjoy puzzle plots, inquest scenes, clashing clues, and guessing along with a sharp, sarcastic detective before he names his answer.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
What if the sharpest detective in London never left his chair? In a Fleet Street teashop, a young journalist finds a thin old man in huge horn-rimmed spectacles. His clawlike fingers tie knot after knot in a piece of string while he talks about crimes that have beaten Scotland Yard.
Unravelled Knots is a collection of thirteen tales by Baroness Orczy, who made the Old Man in the Corner one of the first armchair detectives in English fiction. Each tale gives the case as everyone knew it, then the old man's own answer and a challenge to think it over. You meet a poultry farm murder, a stolen painting that exists twice, a vanished Russian prince, and an Italian lost on a Yorkshire moor.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A teashop thinker solves what police cannotFree
- 2Early cases hang on clues that cannot agree
- 3Vanishings and false princes test whom to trust
- 4Locked rooms and cliff paths hide family secrets
- 5Stolen papers and a shot in the dark
- 6A flower, a hat and a stranger in black
- 7Money, wills and servants in two London houses
- 8The Moorland Tragedy ends the collection abroad
- 9Public opinion is the real villain
- 10A form that rewards listening
Point clé 1 sur 10
A teashop thinker solves what police cannot
The frame never changes. A young journalist from the Express Post walks into a Fleet Street teashop and finds the Old Man in the Corner beside the fire. He is thin and pale, with a checked coat and huge horn-rimmed spectacles. His clawlike hands are never still, because they are always tying string into knots.
His method is easy to state. He reasons from reports and inquests, but he also makes inquiries of his own. He sits through inquests and reads every paper. He takes the facts the public already knows, puts them in the order in which they happened, and asks which story fits every one of them. He calls criminology an exact science, ruled by logic.
The narrator knows the cases from her work, she doubts him, and she asks the questions you would ask yourself. Her reluctant respect grows slowly, and it gives the book its warmth.
Every tale is a contest between one calm mind and the facts everyone thinks they know.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Questions about Nœuds dénoués
What is Unravelled Knots about?
It is a collection of thirteen mystery tales. In each, an old man in a London teashop tells a journalist about a crime that baffled the police, then explains his own solution while tying knots in a piece of string.
Who is the Old Man in the Corner?
He is a thin, pale armchair detective with horn-rimmed spectacles and nervous fingers that tie string into knots. He studies crimes through newspapers and inquests and delivers his answers with a dry chuckle and great self-satisfaction.
What does the string and its knots mean?
The string is the old man's habit and sign of thought, since his fingers work it while his mind works the case. It also links the thirteen tales, and the knots return in the closing pages in a surprising way.
Is Unravelled Knots based on true cases?
No. The cases are invented, though they use the style of real newspaper crime reports and inquests from the years after the First World War. The collection came from Baroness Orczy, who wrote these armchair detective stories in that period.
Is this book easy to read in short sittings?
Yes, in a good way, because each tale stands alone and follows a clear pattern. The facts come first, then the old man's explanation. The lively dialogue and short chapters make it easy to read one case at a time.
Cite this edition
Orczy, Emmuska. Unravelled Knots. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/unravelled-knots.
Orczy, E. (2026). Unravelled knots. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/unravelled-knots (Original work published 1925)
Orczy, Emmuska. Unravelled Knots. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/unravelled-knots.
@book{orczy2026unravelled,
author = {Orczy, Emmuska},
title = {Unravelled Knots},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/unravelled-knots},
note = {First published 1925}
}
