"Good Old Christmas Theatricals!"

"A Christmas Capture."
By Fred M. White (1859-1935).
First appearance (syndication): The Chronicle, Adelaide, Australia, December 16, 1922.
Short story (13 pages).
Online at Roy Glashan's Library (HERE) and The Chronicle of Adelaide (HERE).

"Rather useful for a detective, what?"

Few men possess Detective-Sergeant George Temperley's talent, but it will most certainly come in handy when a situation which, to Slagburn's Police Chief Martin's associative mind, at first seems only remotely connected to a recent murder turns out to be inextricably related to it, as an ambitious but naive young woman answers a bogus advertisement designed to lure unwary moths like her to a deadly flame . . .

Resources:
- Fred M. White was a writing machine, turning out short stories and novels from the late 1890s to the early 1930s; see Wikipedia (HERE) and the GAD Wiki (HERE) for more.
- White seemed eager to destroy London; see the SFE (HERE) and the ISFDb (HERE).

The bottom line:
   When we are born, we cry that we are come
   To this great stage of fools.
   — Lear