The Purple Parasol

Excerpt

“Hang it all,” he thought, throwing down his magazine in disgust, “it’s like police work.  And heaven knows I haven’t wanted to be a cop since we lived in Newark twenty years ago.  Why the dickens did old Wharton marry her?  He’s an old ass, and he’s getting just what he might have expected.  She’s twenty-five and beautiful; he’s seventy and a sight.  I’ve a notion to chuck the whole affair and go back to the simple but virtuous Tenderloin.  It’s not my sort, that’s all, and I was an idiot for mixing in it.  The firm served me a shabby trick when it sent me out to work up this case for Wharton.  It’s a regular Peeping Tom Job, and I don’t like it.”