A Debt Discharged

PREFACE by Giancarlo Rossini

PREFACE by Giancarlo Rossini

It was Ladies' Night at the Terriers, and the street before the big club-house was filled with luxurious motor cars, for the Terriers is a most fashionable club, and Ladies' Night marks the opening of the season, though there are some who vainly imagine that the Duchess of Gurdmore's ball inaugurates that period of strenuous festivity.

The great pillared hall was irrecognizable to the crusty habitués of the club; though they were not there to recognize it, for there was a section of the Terriers who solemnly cursed this Ladies' Night, which meant a week's inconvenience to them, the disturbance of the smooth current of their lives, the turning of the card-rooms into supping places and the introduction of new waiters.

But to most of the Terriers, Ladies' Night was something to look forward to and something to look back upon, for here assembled not only all that was greatest and most beautiful in society, but brilliant men who ordinarily had neither time nor inclination to accept the Terriers' hospitality.

Thomas Maple lives on Crystal Palace Road with his granddaughter Verity. He works for a banknote engraver. However, the dollar bills he shows Wentworth Gold are fake, perfect except for the missing Treasury sign. When Verity meets her new employer she develops serious doubts and on the way home she hears a threatening voice.

"A Debt Discharged" is a novel about counterfeit banknotes and a young girl's investigation of her suspicious new employer. They were largely adventure narratives with elements of crime or mystery, and usually combined thunderous sensationalism with impromptu violence.

The suspense is found a lot in this novel by Wallace and if we want it is in long stretches unpredictable.

The elements are all there for a great thriller published in 1916: the gangs, the gangsters, the locations (The Terriers at first), the charming women and the only thing that does not fit into the "normality" of the thriller is the young Verity who becomes a detective without her knowledge opposing her to the other women who prefer to associate with the smoky and vicious Terriers.

The whole turns out to be a pleasant thriller from all points of view.