“ZANN”—“PLEASED WITH TREATMENT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 785, 4 October 1929, Page 5

“ZANN”—“PLEASED WITH TREATMENT”

Mrs. A. M. 8., Waipawa, writes: “Please forward one box of cones. Enclosed is postal note for same. I am very pleased with your treatment, and have told many of my friends.”

Try the “Zann" remedy at our expense. We will mail a generous trial treatment in plain wrapper if you send ninepence in stamps for packing and postage. Address: Zann Proprietary. Box 9-52. Wellington. Stocks of “Zann” obtainable from Bridge Drug Stores. Karangahape Road, and A. Eccles, Chemist. Queen Street and Branches. Auckland. 1.

rate, I'm going to make sure tlkey’ve gone to Ajaccio.” A second path, close to the low stone wall which divided the garden from the hillside, ran from the terrace down to the road. Aleredith walked slowly down this path. At the bottom, by clambering up and standing on the top of the wall, he had a clear view of a short stretch of the road to Ajaccio, between the trunks of ‘two gnarled olive trees. He stood watching for a few minutes and then with an ex-

clamation of satisfaction, jumped back on to the path. Trudging along through the dust he had seen Alaria and Santo disappear where the road ran round a curve of the shore. They were undoubtedly on their way to Ajaccio. He hurried back to the terrace. “All’s clear.” he cried, running up the steps. “We’ve got the whole afternoon. Now, let’s go and find out Jacques’s door. Hello!” Patricia was looking puzzled—rather frightened. “Guy, Santo and Alaria haven't taken the key of the kitchen door. The door’s locked and the key’s on the inside.” “Then how are they going to get in?” “They- can’t, unless we leave the front door unlocked.” “That’s odd” said Aleredith. “Maria said so definitely they -were taking the key of the kitchen door, didn’t she?” “Yes, and that was why I was so surprised when I saw the key in the door. When you went down the garden I thought I would go up to the kitchen and look from the window ns Jacques saw Alaria. looking. You can see a pathway distinctly, going down the side of the ravine from the arbutus bush. As- I came through the kitchen pi saw the key on the inside of the outer door. I tried the door, but, as I told, you, it’s locked. It’s very odd, isn’t it?” “It is—very odd,” said Aleredith, “but there’s one point in our favour, since they left the kitchen key behind, they can’t get into the house without our knowing it, and we’re absolutely safe from their spying upon us from the kitchen window. Let’s lock the front door and see if this key”—he held up the small steel key Jacques had given him —“has anything to do with the painted door.” Locking the front door, they went down through the garden and out into the road, Meredith thinking they would find the path described by Jacques more easily from that side than from the tangled undergrowth above the villa.

A broad, much-used pathway started up the slope not far from the garden wall. But after they had gone along it for a little way. it suddenly branched off to the right, and they could see it winding, white and glaring. in zig-zags, in the direction of a small white house, perched on a spur of rock high up on the mountain side. “This goes away from the villa.” Meredith said. “Jacques said the path ran close by the garden wall.” “Look,” cried Patricia, pointing to two bushes growing close together. “Jacques said it was only a goat track. This looks like one.”

Beneath the bushes, the ground was trodden down, and pushing between them they saw a track, so narrow that they could not walk abreast, running parallel with the garden wall. As they followed it the ascent became steeper and steeper until they found themselves looking down on the tops of bushes growing at the bottom and along the sides of a ravine. Now and again they caught glimpses of the wall through the thick undergrowth: then there came a clearer space and they could see the terrace. High bushes by the side of the path and even higher bushes growing on the side of the ravine blotted out the end of the terrace. Beyond, they could see the kitchen window. And. as Jacques had described, on parting the lower branches of the arbutus bush.

Meredith found the ground pressed down hard, and distinct footmarks, made obviously when the ground was wet. “Now for it.” said Meredith, looking round carefully. * * » The shimmering heat seemed to | brood like a silence over the far-1 stretching bush. The distant moun- j tains and the turquoise sea might have been paintings upon a giant canvas. There was no sound anywhere; not a sign of life, except the little white house on the distant spur of rock, and that was closely shuttered. All the windows in the kitchen wing of the villa were closely shuttered, too. They found the path down the side of the ravine exactly as Jacques had described it, and, when they reached the bottom, followed it easily as it wound round and round huge boulders of stone. Then, under the shadow of a great clump of cistus and a wild tangle of honeysuckle, clematis, and blackberry, they suddenly lost it.. Meredith stepped back and looked up through the bushes growing together far above his head. “The. door must he somewhere here,” he said. “We re in a direct line with the end of the house.” “Do you think all this creeping stuff has grown since Jacques found the door, or that he went round it?” Patricia suggested. “Let's try tj the left.” Her supposition was right. A sha~p turn to the left showed the track curving to the right behind the curtain .of creepers, and they stood in front of what appeared to be a solid mass of rock. Meredith touched it. “Jacques was right,” he said. “Feel: it’s olny canvas!” Patricia ram her baud along the painted surface. "It's marvellous: you would think it was real if you didn’t touch it. But see, the paint is coming off th^re.” She pointed to the extreme edge where the paint had flaked off. showing small patches of white canvas beneath. Meredith examined the white patches carefully. “This must be where they open the door,” he said. “Look at the fingermarks. That’s why the paint has peeled off. Now, where’s the keyhole? It must he somewhere near these marks.’’ Above and below the finger-marks and the flaked-off patches of paint, the surface of the canvas was unbroken by any hole; nor were there any signs of hinges, or cracks in the canvas to show where the door i opened. It presented as plain a surI face as if it were the piece of rock it pretended to be. I Meredith examined the finger-marks again. Then, pushing aside a long trail of honeysuckle, he saw that the painted canvas stood out two or three inches from the face of an actual piece of rock. In the middle of this projection, and in a line with the finger-marks, was a small keyhole. He pointed it out in silence to Patricia. Both were too excited to speak. Meredith took from his waistcoat pocket the little key which Jacques had given him in the stone hovel. It fitted the lock exactly. One -turn, and a portion of the painted canvas swung outward, showing a plain wooden door behind it. Meredith saw at once why no break appeared on the face of the canvas. The painted door fitted like a wooden frame, built in front of the inner door, the canvas edges being cleverly arranged to cover the top, bottom and s'deo. so that when it was closed the painting looked like a solid mass of rock from top to bottom. This painted door was made of iron.

The inner wooden door had neither lock nor handle and swung inwards when Meredith pushed it, disclosing a narrow dark passage beyond. Patricia had brought an electric torch, and while Meredith held the door she flashed it down the passage, the light showing another door at the far end. This door had a handle and led immediately Into a square room of considerable size. The electric torch revealed that the floor, walls and vaulted ceiling were all of stone cut rock. “By Jove!” Meredith whispered, taking the torch from Patricia and pointing it toward the ceiling. “Look, there’s electric light!” Hanging from one of the groins of the rocf was an electric bulb covered with an unusually big white glass shade, the wires running across the face of the stone.

“There must be a switch somewhere,” he said, throwing the light on to the wire and following it across the roof and down the side of the wall, until it ended at the side of a buttress near the door. “Here it is.” He touched the switch and in stantly the room was flooded with light. Neither Patricia nor Meredith had formed any definite idea as to what they expected to find when they pene- j trated behind the secert door. But I after what Wryce had said to his ; sister at Brentlaud of their stolen ; horde being kept at the villa, and | Jacques’s account of Santo always , carrying a bag or small suitcase on j his mysterious visits, both had felt ] convinced that the -key which had i come into their possession through Jacques's tragedy would disclose the i hiding place at least of Mrs. Bannantyne’s necklace. Now, as they looked round the stone j walls under the brilliant light, both I were seized with keenest disappointment. Save for a long wooden bench | against the wall on the right hand side of the door, and four clumsy, rush-bottomed chairs. there was nothing except three electric candlelamps standing together at one end of the bench, each with an electric wire wound round and round its stem, and each with a wide green shade lined with white. “I wonder what these are for?’’ Meredith said, picking up one of the lamps. “They must be used on the bench. There’s a plug at the end of each wire, and three plugs in the wall. Do you see—one in the centre, and one at each end?” He unwound the wire from one of the lamps and put the plug iu the socket. An unusually powerful light shone down on the bench in a sharp and clearly-defined circle. “Are they the sort of lamps jewellers use!’’ Patricia said. “I should say they were identical.” was Meredith's grim reply. t.. $ « Meredith had lighted .he lamp at the far end of the bench. Deflected downward by the dark-green shade, the rays shone out beyond the bench and struck the wall beyond. It was only then they noticed that the end wall did not join the side wall against which the bench stood, aud that there was a narrow opening between the two. Meredith turned on the torch. The light showed another room beyond, much smaller than the first, and with a shadeless electric globe hanging from the ceiling. The switch was near the opening, and when he had turned it on a exclaimed: “Patricia! I believe we’ve found Wrvce’s hoard at last!” This inner room was bare of furniture, but piled against the farther wall were a number of stout woodeu cases of various sizes. The top ones, which were smaller than the ones below, bore the name of a wellknown firm of champagne growers. Meredith took hold of one of the cases. Although straw was sticking out from under the lid, and it had the appear-

ance of holdiug at least r. dozen bottles of champagne, the box was quite light. He lifted it up aud put it down on the floor. Then he tried every case, and found he could lift each one without effort, even the largest. Every case, they saw. bore the name of some wine grower. "That's clever,” Meredith remarked. “If you didn’t touch those cases you'd swear they were full of wine bottles, just stored away in a cellar until they were wanted. Now let’s see if we can open them.” But the cases differed in one isseutial poiDt from ordinary wine cases, the lids of which are nailed down and can be prised open. Every lid, Meredith found, was screwed down so tightly that prising open was impossible. Nothing except a screwdriver would open them. The situation was tantalising. Both Meredith and Patricia were convinced that the cases held Maxwell and Julia Wryce’s store of stolen jewels, and among them the Bannantyue necklace, and here they were actually under their hand, yet shut away as securely as if they had been in an iron safe — and all for lack of a screwdriver. CHAPTER XXXIII. "Perhaps there's a screwdriver in the villa.” Patricia suggested. "Let's go and look.” She picked up one of the smaller cases and shook it. “LisI ten. Guy—l’m sure I heard something rattle.” She shook the case more vigorously. There was a distinct sound of something striking against the wood inside. I “Who knows, perhaps this is Alice’s i necklace. Oh, this is trying!” she | cried. “We must get a screwdriver ! from somewhere. Perhaps there is j one in the place under the terrace ! where Jacques used to keexi his gar- ! den tools.” j After switching off the lights iu ! the inner aud outer rooms, they were going through the passage leading to the swing door. Meredith leading the way with the electric torch, when Patricia noticed the gleam of glass high up in the ceiling. She pointed it out to Meredith. It was an electric globe. “We missed that,” said Meredith, "and there's the switch, just on your right.” “All very cleverly thought out,” he added, as he touched the switch and the light streamed down from the ceiling of the passage. “You come into pitch blackness through the painted door, push open this door, turn on this ' switch, and you're lighted to the trea- | sure den. Wryce always insists on ! perfection.” 1 When the painted door had clicked to behind them, showing that it had a j spring lock, both Meredith and Pat- : ricia felt as it’ they stepped suddenly into a steam bath. Wholly engrossed by their search, they had not realised the pleasant coolness of the uuderi "round rooms until they came out into j the open air. j “That place must be jolly well ven- | tilated." Meredith said, mopping bis neck and face when they had scrambled under the arbutus bush and were back on the goat track. “Did you notice how fresh and cool the air was ?” “Not till we came outside.” Patricia looked across the ravine, carefully noting the end of the kitchen wing and the tangle of clematis, blackberry, and honeysuckle, and the high bushes which hid the end of the terrace. “Guy, I believe those rooms are under the terrace. The painted door Jis below that mass of creeper. The I rooms are all to the left of the pass- | age, and see, the creepers are in a j line with the end of the kitchen. I | am sure the rooms tn under the terrace.” “Perhaps,” Meredith answered. I hurrying along the track. “But than i isn’t of any importance to us. Come | along.” (To be Continued Tomorrow)