“This is Mr. Reeder,” said the porter, with such satisfaction that it was evident he had no deep affection for the untidy charwoman. “The well-known detective,” he added. Mrs. Adderly wilted at the word. “Everything can be explained,” she said, a little incoherently, and as Mr. Reeder followed her into the hall, she slammed the door in the face of the outraged porter, who at least expected to participate in the portion of the confidences which hitherto she had withheld from him. “Will you come in, sir.” She led the way into a barely furnished little room which obviously had served as a sitting-room. There was a table, a sideboard, a small square carpet on the floor, and a couple of chairs. On one wall was a map printed, as Mr. Reeder discovered, in Switzerland. It showed a section of the Canton of Vaud, and there was an irregular patch outlined in red ink from the contours; it evidently stood at some considerable height upon the lake. Its significance Mr. Reeder did not grasp till much later. “I don’t know what to say or what to do next,” said Mrs. Adderly. She spoke very rapidly, without full stops, commas, or any other form of punctuation. “The money was honestly come by and is in the post office bank except the rent which I paid and I have a receipt with the stamp on it and I have done what Mr. Schmidt told me to do as I can prove by his letter. I am a widow with five mouths to fill.…” She went on to explain that they were the property of her five legitimate offspring, that she “did” for respectable families, and that she had never been in trouble, or accepted out-door relief from the parish even in her most difficult times. “What money is this?” interrupted Mr. Reeder when he thought she had gone far enough. The money that had come to her on Wednesday. She had found it on the table in the dining room with a letter. Beneath her skirt she had a pocket. Mr. Reeder looked discreetly away while she explored this receptacle, and presently brought out an envelope from which she took a single sheet of notepaper. “Please pay the rent with the enclosed. I am going away to France, and shall not be back for three months. You may take double wages while I am gone, and I do not wish you to discuss my business.” The letter was written in a neat clerkly hand. “You found this on the table, you say?” “On Wednesday morning; I put the money into the Post Office saving bank,” she went on even more rapidly. “I paid the rent and I have got a printed receipt with a stamp on it----” “Nobody doubts that,” said Mr. Reeder soothingly. “If you are in the police----” “I am not,” said Mr. Reeder. “I really am not a policeman at all, I am--um--an investigator.”