If “An Officer of Twenty Years’ Standing” had been a listener, he might well have been further strengthened in his opinion that of all persons Mr. Angel was least fitted to fill the responsible position he did. If the truth be told, nobody quite knew exactly what position Angel did hold. If you turn into New Scotland Yard and ask the janitor at the door for Mr. Christopher Angel--Angel Esquire by the way was a nickname affixed by a pert little girl--the constable, having satisfied himself as to your _bona-fides_, would take you up a flight of stairs and hand you over to yet another officer, who would conduct you through innumerable swing doors, and along uncounted corridors till he stopped before a portal inscribed “647.” Within, you would find Angel Esquire sitting at his desk, doing nothing, with the aid of a _Sporting Life_ and a small weekly guide to the Turf. Once Mr. Commissioner himself walked into the room unannounced, and found Angel so immersed in an elaborate calculation, with big sheets of paper closely filled with figures, and open books on either hand, that he did not hear his visitor. “What is the problem?” asked Mr. Commissioner, and Angel looked up with his sweetest smile, and recognizing his visitor, rose. “What’s the problem?” asked Mr. Commissioner again. “A serious flaw, sir,” said Angel, with all gravity. “Here’s Mimosa handicapped at seven stone nine in the Friary Nursery, when, according to my calculations, she can give the field a stone, and beat any one of ’em.” The Commissioner gasped. “My dear fellow,” he expostulated, “I thought you were working on the Lagos Bank business.” Angel had a far-away look in his eyes when he answered-- “Oh, that is all finished. Old Carby was poisoned by a man named--forget his name now, but he was a Monrovian. I wired the Lagos police, and we caught the chap this morning at Liverpool--took him off an Elder, Dempster boat.” The Police Commissioner beamed. “My congratulations, Angel. By Jove, I thought we shouldn’t have a chance of helping the people in Africa. Is there a white man in it?” “We don’t know,” said Angel absently; his eye was wandering up and down a column of figures on the paper before him. “I am inclined to fancy there is--man named Connor, who used to be a croupier or something to old Reale.” He frowned at the paper, and picking up a pencil from the desk, made a rapid little calculation. “Seven stone thirteen,” he muttered. The Commissioner tapped the table impatiently. He had sunk into a seat opposite Angel. “My dear man, who is old Reale? You forget that you are our tame foreign specialist. Lord, Angel, if you heard half the horrid things that people say about your appointment you would die of shame!” Angel pushed aside the papers with a little laugh.