The Secret Tomb

Leblanc stepped away from Arsene Lupin to build this tale around Dorothy, a quick-witted young acrobat who criss-crosses postwar France in a horse-drawn caravan with her small troupe. Orphaned and living hand to mouth, she turns out to carry a secret noble lineage and a claim to a long-hidden family fortune tied to the Latin motto In robore fortuna. When rival fortune hunters and a string of deaths converge on the same buried inheritance, Dorothy relies on nerve, charm, and sharp deduction to stay a step ahead of them. Light, fast, and full of the reversals Leblanc loved, the book gave him a rare female lead as resourceful and daring as his famous thief. First published in French in 1923 as Dorothee, danseuse de corde. Free to read here in PDF and EPUB.