Cayley's Apology

"My Dear Mr. Gillingham,

"I gather from your letter that you have made certain discoveries
which you may feel it your duty to communicate to the police, and
that in this case my arrest on a charge of murder would
inevitably follow. Why, in these circumstances, you should give
me such ample warning of your intentions I do not understand,
unless it is that you are not wholly out of sympathy with me.
But whether or not you sympathize, at any rate you will want to
know--and I want you to know--the exact manner in which Ablett
met his death and the reasons which made that death necessary.
If the police have to be told anything, I would rather that they
too knew the whole story. They, and even you, may call it
murder, but by that time I shall be out of the way. Let them
call it what they like.

"I must begin by taking you back to a summer day fifteen years
ago, when I was a boy of thirteen and Mark a young man of
twenty-five. His whole life was make-believe, and just now he
was pretending to be a philanthropist. He sat in our little
drawing-room, flicking his gloves against the back of his left
hand, and my mother, good soul, thought what a noble young
gentleman he was, and Philip and I, hastily washed and crammed
into collars, stood in front of him, nudging each other and
kicking the backs of our heels and cursing him in our hearts for
having interrupted our game. He had decided to adopt one of us,
kind Cousin Mark. Heaven knows why he chose me. Philip was
eleven; two years longer to wait. Perhaps that was why.