File Number 113 or the Secret of the Plundered Safe

Gaboriau was the first French novelist to write detective novels. His character Monsieur Lecog, private detective, first appeared in the novel, The Widow Lerouge. The novel begins: The following item appeared in the evening journals of Paris, dated Tuesday, February 28, 18-, under the head of City News: There was great consternation this morning in the banking and financial centers, caused by a daring robbery at the house of one of our eminent money-spinners, M. Andre Fauvel. The bold and skillful depredators by some means entered the banking establishment, where they forced a patent lock of a safe considered impregnable, and made themselves masters of the enormous sum of 350,000 francs in notes of the Bank of France. There are light spots on a few pages. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.