The Great God Gold by William Le Queux

That short February day was indeed an eventful one, both for the rival investigators, and for the whole Hebrew race.

Almost at that same hour when Sir Felix Challas left his London mansion so hurriedly, and in such fear, "Red Mullet" was being conducted up a long, wood-built, unpainted corridor where the uncarpeted floor was full of holes and the broken windows were patched, to a small shabby little reception-room -- the waiting-room of the Sublime Porte, or Government Offices at Constantinople.