Try without worksheets method which was added in version 0.43 January 7 2009

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Spreadsheet::ParseExcel;
 
my $file = '/home/muthum/excel1.xls';
my $parser   = Spreadsheet::ParseExcel->new( Password => 'secret' );
my $workbook = $parser->Parse($file);
if ( !defined $workbook ) {
  die $parser->error(), ".\n";
}

my $count = $workbook->{SheetCount};
print "Workbook has $count sheets\n";
for my $i (0..$count-1){
  my $worksheet = $workbook->{Worksheet}[$i];
  my $cell = $worksheet->get_cell( 0, 0 );
  if ($cell){
    print "[A1] = '", $cell->Value,"'\n";
  }
}
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What are you trying to do with the spreadsheet, just read the contents ?