There are supercilious critics who sneer at Scotland Yard. They are quite unofficial critics, of course, writers of stories wherein figure amateur detectives of abnormal perspicuity, unraveling mysteries with consummate ease which have baffled the police for years. As a matter of fact, Scotland Yard stands for the finest police organization in the world. People who speak glibly of “police blunders” might remember one curious fact: in this last quarter of a century only one man has ever stood in the dock at the Old Bailey under the capital charge who has escaped the dread sentence of the law. Scotland Yard is patiently slow and terribly sure. Angel in his little room received a letter written in a sprawling, uneducated hand; it was incoherent and stained with tears and underlined from end to end. He read it through and examined the date stamp, then rang his bell. The messenger who answered him found him examining a map of London. “Go to the Record Office, and get E.B. 93,” he said, and in five minutes the messenger came back with a thick folder bulging with papers. There were newspaper cuttings and plans and dreadful photographs, the like of which the outside world do not see, and there was a little key ticketed with an inscription. Angel looked through the _dossier_ carefully, then read the woman’s letter again.... Vinnis, the man with the dead-white face, finishing his late breakfast, and with the pleasurable rustle of new banknotes in his trouser pocket, strolled forth into Commercial Road, E. An acquaintance leaning against a public-house gave him a curt nod of recognition; a bedraggled girl hurrying homeward with her man’s breakfast in her apron shrank on one side, knowing Vinnis to her sorrow; a stray cur cringed up to him, as he stood for a moment at the edge of the road, and was kicked for its pains. Vinnis was entirely without sentiment, and besides, even though the money in his pocket compensated for most things, the memory of old George and his babbling talk worried him. Somebody on the other side of the road attracted his attention. It was a woman, and he knew her very well, therefore he ignored her beckoning hand. Two days ago he had occasion to reprove her, and he had seized the opportunity to summarily dissolve the informal union that had kept them together for five years. So he made no sign when the woman with the bruised face called him, but turned abruptly and walked towards Aldgate. He did not look round, but by and by he heard the patter of her feet behind, and once his name called hoarsely. He struck off into a side street with a raging devil inside him, then when they reached an unfrequented part of the road he turned on her. She saw the demon in his eyes, and tried to speak. She was a penitent woman at that moment, and hysterically ripe for confession, but the savage menace of the man froze her lips.