Edmund Cox, a veteran of the British Indian police force, drew upon his professional experiences to craft pulp fiction stories. Toward the end of his three-decade career, he encountered a series of residential burglaries in the Bandra area of Bombay during the 1896-1897 plague outbreak. Wealthy residents had vacated their homes, leaving them vulnerable to theft. Authorities initially struggled to identify the perpetrators until two individuals from the Waghri community were apprehended. The suspects, categorized by colonial authorities as a criminal tribe, utilized the local railway network to facilitate their activities. This specific investigation, characterized by a pursuit and the eventual resolution of a criminal mystery involving marginalized groups, provided Cox with the narrative structure and thematic inspiration for his later literary works.
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