Edgar Wallace 
The Just Men of Cordova 

There are crimes for which no punishment is adequate, offences that the written law cannot redress. The three friends, Pioccart, Manfred and Gonsalez, may be enjoying the exotic, Spanish city of Cordova with its heat and Moorish influences, but they are still committed to employing their intellect and cunning to dispense justice. In „The Just Men of Cordova”, written in 1917, the just men move into the treacherous, aristocratic world of gambling, horse-racing and high finance. It seems that police services, even governments, have no power to control this world, where blackmail, poison and murder are commonplace. The just men, working outside the law, take it upon themselves to clean things up in their own way.