Behind the Bronze Door by William Le Queux

During the nine months which had passed since Henry Hartsilver had been found dead in his bath, many things had happened. The war was over, and people were already beginning to forget the discomfort, for some the misery, of those five long years. In London the wheels of life, their spoke having been removed, were slowly beginning to revolve once more.

The thousands who had "done their bit," and become impoverished in consequence, were many of them cursing the impetuosity which had led them to forget their own interests in their anxiety to help to avenge the outrages in Belgium and France, and to save their own country from possible disaster. On the other hand many thousands of men and women who before the war had been struggling small traders, now contemplated with a feeling of smug satisfaction their swollen bank balances, and, while thanking heaven there had been a war, began to adopt a style of living which, though it ill became them, gratified their vanity enormously.