[Transcriber's Notes: The Adventures of Dora Bell, Detective was originally serialized in twelve parts in the South Wales Echo on Saturdays, beginning January 6th, 1894. It was reserialized several times over the next few years in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia. Digitized scans of the original newspapers can be found free online at The National Library of Wales Newspapers. This eBook was transcribed from the original serialization in the South Wales Echo except for one sentence which was omitted in the original serialization but reproduced in multiple reserializations. It appears in the ninth story, Miss Rankin's Rival, and is recorded here for clarity: "I rather fancy that he is engaged to Miss Beatrice."] The Adventures of Dora Bell, Detective by Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett, a.k.a Mrs. George Corbett Contents I. SWE-E-P II. Hoist on Her Own Petard III. One of Dora's Failures IV. Dora Turns the Tables V. The Acquaintance Dodge VI. A Broken Trust VII. Madame Duchesne's Garden Party VIII. A Pattern of Virtue IX. Miss Rankin's Rival X. The Path to Fame XI. The Recluse of Hallow Hall XII. The Mysterious Thief I. SWE-E-P! “I shall be ruined, if this misfortune becomes known! You must help me out of the difficulty without the affair coming into the papers.” “We will do our best. But we cannot guarantee success; and I must say that it is an invaluable advantage to have the police on our side.” “The police must know nothing about it. The business lies entirely between my clients and myself. I should lose all my customers at once if, through the slightest indiscretion, they were led to suspect their valuable property to have passed into other hands pro tem.” “But suppose some of them wish to redeem the property upon which you have advanced them money?” “They are not likely to do that at present. The season has been an exceptionally gay one, and a gay season is always an expensive one. Society dames will be glad to leave their plate and jewellery at ‘their bankers’ until their most pressing debts are settled. Meanwhile, I have sufficient confidence in your acumen to hope that you will speedily recover the missing goods.” We could not help thinking that Mr Davison’s confidence in us was too overweening to be anything but embarrassing, even though our vanity was flattered by having the sole onus of responsibility for the recovery of stolen goods fixed upon us. The facts are briefly as follows: –