“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.