Читать книгу Joe Leslie's Wife; or, a Skeleton in the Closet онлайн

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Aloud, he said:

“I’m sorry for that, Joe. Tell me all about it and heaven knows I will aid you all I can.”

“Thank you, old friend—I knew it before you spoke—that was why I finally determined to come here and unbosom myself.”

“It’s coming,” muttered Darrell, smiling grimly.

He fully expected to learn the secret of that mysterious house on Twenty-seventh Street.

“To think,” said Joe, looking around him at the walls and ceiling, “that here in this den where I spent so many careless, happy bachelor hours with you, I should now be detailing the tribulations of married life.”

“Singular—of course,” nodded Eric, apparently observing the ashes on the end of his cigar, but all the while watching Joe’s face.

“For of course,” Joe continued, “what I have to say to you concerns—my wife.”

“Yes.”

The detective was wondering how Joe meant to bring out his confession.

He did not dream of anything else.

“You have seen that face, Eric”—tapping the photograph—“would you say there was any deceit there?”

This was something of a staggerer—the other had not expected the electric fluid to strike in such a quarter at all.