The English language possesses a vivid saying to describe this sort of situation where a seemlingly respectable person or family has a terrible secreat concealed from
strangers for years. The terrible secret is called 'a skeleton in the cupboard'. Such
terrible secret would become known at some dramatic moment in the story. And the
readers would be astounded to learn from the story that a heroine, a dear old lady who had always be so kind to everybody, had, in her youth, poisoned every one of her five
husbands. It is all very well for such things to occur in fiction. Yet, in real life, we all
keep something secret from our best friends, but few of us have skeletons in the
cupboard. The following case concerns my friend George Carlton who has kept a
skeleton in the cupboard. George who once studied medicine now indeed becomes a
successful writer of detective stories. I once underwent an unpleasant experience at his house. George led me into the guestroom which, he said,was seldom used. He told
me to stack my clothes and then come down to dinner. So it came as an awful fright to me that the skeleton was about to leap out at me when I opened the cupboard door.
Dropping my clothes, I hastened to tell George what had happened. Much to my
surprise, George remained unsympathetic. He then explained that this skeleton was
Sebastian which was bought by him during his medical study.
