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

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“That’s hard luck, I take it, but men of my line never cry over spilt milk. What’s the use? Now, regarding this scrap—it is signed Barbara. Have you any idea who the author is?”

“Yes, certainly—a young married lady who lives back of us. I have always entertained much respect for Mrs. Goodwin, and am surprised to think she would enter into a conspiracy with Lillian to deceive me.”

The detective hardly knew what to think.

Here was a man whom he had known and considered a first-rate fellow in the past, grieving over the fact that his wife was keeping something from him, when, all the time, he was nursing a secret within his guilty heart.

What was Darrell to make of it?

Those who live in glass houses should be careful how they throw stones.

“It’s pretty hard, Joe, I admit, but when it comes to secrets, who among us is above reproach?”

“Eh?”

Joe Leslie seems to color up in a manner altogether unnecessary.

“You, for instance, old man—I warrant you do lots of little things that you would hardly care for your wife to know. But”—seeing the other’s evident confusion—“let that pass. I will undertake to clear up this mystery for you, Joe, as speedily as possible.”