Mr.Gryce, I never meant to be mixed up with another murder case.

I have shown my aptitude for detective work and received, ere now, certain marks of your approval; but my head was not turned by them--at least I thought not--and I was tolerably sincere in my determination to keep to my own _metier_ in future and not suffer myself to be allured by any inducements you might offer into the exercise of gifts which may have brought me praise in the past, but certainly have not brought me happiness.

But the temptation came, not through you, or I might have resisted it, but through a combination of circumstances which found me weak, and, in a measure, unprepared.

In other words, I was surprised into taking an interest in this affair.

Oh, I am ashamed of it, so ashamed that I have made the greatest endeavor to hide my participation in the matter, and thinking I had succeeded in doing so, was congratulating myself upon my precautions, when I found that parasol thrust in my face and realized that you, if no one else, knew that Amelia Butterworth had been in Mr.Adams's room of death prior to yourself.