Edgar Wallace 
A Debt Discharged [EPUB ebook] 

ON the afternoon of March 4th, 1913, M. Trebolino, the chief of the French Detective Department, was sitting in his office in a thoughtful frame of mind. His big desk chair had been drawn to an open fire which blazed cheerfully in the grate, for the day was piercingly cold and Paris lay under a mantle of snow.
France was passing through a passive period of lawfulness which was particularly complimentary to the genius of the Italian who had adopted the nationality of France with some profit to himself.