JOAN

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 147, 23 June 1928, Page 12 (Supplement)

JOAN

:: By :: j D, R. Huddleston j

SYNOPSIS 07 PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. JOAN GARLAND, the daughter of a Northumbrian squire, is left on the squire's death to face the task of saving her home from the load of debt hanging over it. To do so, she must travel to India for her brother, BILLY GARLAND, who has been lost In the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains, and who must be recovered in time to attend to affairs at home. She meets a friend of childhood days, CAPTAIN DICK McNEILL, R.N., ■who. to save her from a charge of reckless driving, poses to a friendly magistrate as her fiance. Joan travels to London prior to 1 sailing for the East, and there excites the interest of a cosmopolitan -woman of great wealth, named NADINE HANIM. For some unknown reason Nadine Hanim wants Joan near her. Through Hanim, Joan is made aware of Dick's deception to the magistrate, and when Dick calls upon her, Joan repulses him. Dick does not understand how Joan was put in possession of the local newspaper containing the wrongful announcement of their betrothal; nor does he like Joan's new friends when he sees them. He calls upon his friend, PETER DAWLISH, of the India Office, and learns that Nadine Hanim is the world agent of a combine known as THE BROTHERS OF THE HILLS, which is secretly engaged in smuggling drugs across the Himalaya Mountains through India to Europe. MAJOR SELWEf, one of Hanim's friends, is well known for his " way with women," and when Dick hears that Joan has been taken by these people to the Yellow Jasmine Club in Chelsea, a notorious " dope kitchen." his worst fears are justified, and, with Peter Dawlish. be rushes off to the rescue.

CHAPTER VI. The Yellow' Jasmine Club. "Who is with' Joan and Nadine Hanim ? " Peter Dawlish jerked out the question after several minutes of silence. Some sprinting through the corridors of the India Office and a frantic signalling for a taxi in Whitehall, had set them cn their way in what must have been record time. Now, as. they swung past Lambeth Bridge and clipped into the fast-moving traffic along Grosvenor Road, Dick seemed to come to life. " There were two other people with her," lie said, and did not think it odd that he had dismissed Nadine Hanim from tlie interrogation. "One was a Major Selwey, and the other a Miss Alexandra." « " Alexander," corrected Peter, his spectacled eyes blinking. "I never knew they had turned up. Somebody has been asleep on the job, my son, and they'll hear of this later. But Selwey and Alexander! Cm! " "Do you know them?"-

"Fairish—oh, fairish," said Peter. "Selwey—who actually was a major once upon a time—is a particularly poisonous type of shark. Felice .Alexander, the girl, was a dancer in the chief Continental cabarets until Nadine picked her up. Found her useful, I suppose, on account of her way with men. The major is useful on account of his ways with women. Nice bunch, you will agree." "Good God!" ,said Dick, thinking of Joan with such a party. "Yes," agreed Peter complacently. "Xadine uses them as pigeons, and very smart they are." "I suppose the Major, as an instrument of evil, would be disqualified if his features were a trifle spoiled, wouldn't he?" asked Dick grimly. Peter shot him an interrogative glance and then grjnned broadly. f "I see the idea," he stated, "and I sympathise with : t. But it won't do in this instance, for well be lucky if we get thd chance to speak to them, let alone I manhandle them. I'm hoping to be able to set enough one way and another to guess their game, that's all." A traffic jam at Vauxhall Bridge held them up for what seemed to Dick to be a terrible time. Peter saw his friend's condition, and wisely sought to take his mind o ffthe temporary trouble. "Have you worked out the reason for this sudden friendship on Nadine's part?" Dick took his eyes from the jam ahead and nodded savagely. "I think so, though in this maze of events one cannot be suie of anything. Tell me, Joan told you she 'was going to look for her brother Billy in India, didn't she ? "

"Yes, well?" "Well, she will have to travel to Darjiling, from where he and his party started, and from there she will have to start a search party Into the hills up by Kangra-la, won't she?" Peter was silent, merely nodding his head. "Can't you see what I'm driving at?" asked Dick. "No," admitted Peter, with every sign of pleasure. "Why, the Brothers of the Hills operate around that district, don't they? You should know more about it than I do, but I seem to remember something about that." Peter nodded his head, as if at last seeing and admitting a possibility. "Quite correct, Dick. So you suspect that Nadine has made Joan's acquaintance in order to stop her going into fie Himalayas? Sounds rather thin, doesn't it?" "It does and it doesn't," Dick said, and muttered his thanks when the tasi jerked forward and raced away with the pent-up tide before and behind it. "It would on a lot of things," he continued.. "For instanc, the Brothers of the Jills might find it inconvenient to have search parties scooting around that vicinity within the next month or so. You never know,-and, at any rate, I'm rather -inclined to that theory than to the theory that Nadine is going to use Joan es a decoy." Peter shook his head sadly, for it had become more and more apparent to him that Dick had, to use his own words, "got it badly." *

In Peter's mind there was no doubt about Nadine's plans, Joan was to be used as other lovely and innocent girls before her had been used, and Peter, as a coldblooded emissary of the law, turned his thoughts once more to the immediate task of getting something on Nadine. Just short of Albert Bridge the taxi shot up a side street and stopped with a jerk before a solid-lodking house which at one time had undoubtedly been used as a superior dwellinghouse. Now its lower premises were occupied, on the right, by an art-dealer who combii.ed the gelling of paints and canvases with his purer artistic activities, and, on the left, by a ams.ll cafe, where beautiful girls with dyed hair served drowsy-look-ing patrons with more or less long hair. Of gaiety or hectic activity there was no sign about the place, but Peter led the way unerringly up the stairs and in through a large door to a passage which which had once been a hall, but was now blocked up. i "The Yellow Jasmine Club is on the top floor," he grunted, springing up the stairs with a curious jerky swiftness, odd to fjee in one who wore spectacles.

Dick was at his heels, breathing a trifle faster, a nasty gleam in his eyes that boded ill for those who attempted to bar their way. They came to the top floor, and then and only then did they hear a piano tinkling behind closed doors. • Dick thought to catch the hum of many voices and the pattering of dancing feet, but perhaps that was imagination; for as i far as lie could see the top rooms were living rooms, seemingly occupied by industrious people who kept their door bells clean. "That door—the third on the right," snapped Peter. "These others are only blinds. Rap thrice and then once, and give the bottom of the door a kick with the toe of ydur boot." Dick had to grin, despite the urgency of the situation. He complied with the order, however, and the door was abruptly opened, and a tall powerful man stepped out. The man was fingering a bushy beard and his head was lowered somewhat menacingly. "Want anybody?" he asked shortly. "We say it with flowers," answered Peter glibly. "Preferably with yellow jasmine, my friend." "Let's have a look at your flowers, then," said the man with a sudden welcoming grin. "The price 'as gone up since last you were here, young man. > That'll be two jasmines apiece." Peter pulled out a somewhat stout wallet and took out four pounds. They were passed through the door and found themselves in what seemed a soundtight and almost an airtight apartment, seemingly of steel. And then their guide opened another door in the far end of this—and before them lav the Yellow Jasmine Club.

"As full of pep as ever," said Peter, for the edification of the doorkeeper, but just as he was about to step forward there came a sudden scream, rising high and then stopping altogether. Dancers flitting past the open door came to an abrupt halt, whirling and facing in the direction of the shout. At "the same time the orchestra, which had been playing in a wonderfully muted tone, stopped. An astonishing silence came to that place, and Dick lurching forward into the room, distinctly heard the sounds of a scuffle somewhere near. Then another scream sounded, and the shattering of broken glass. "My God, it's Joan!" he burst out, colliding with a clinging couple. "Peter —Peter, where is shef" Out on the dance floor the dancert were huddled together like sheep. Dick was aware that Peter was at his heels, and then he pushed through that apathetic mob, plunging for a curtained place, the curtain of which was billowing to breeze from outside. He was but hair way across the floor when he saw a man step to the curtain, rip it aside and pass behind it. It wai Major Selwey, white and excited looking; and he had scarcely vanished when he reappeared. And in his arms he carried Joai:. • | Dick's lips tightened and he. thrust the harder then, for a glance told him that Joan was unconscious. What had happened to herT He did not know, but he meant to find out. for he staggered one man right off his feet, and then got to work as if he were tearing through a scrum. His advance attracted attention, however, for he had the idea that "Major Selwey looked his way. Then to his anguish he saw Selwey turn aside, reach an unsuspected door in the wall cn.l pass hrough it. And when Dick and Peter reached it the man—with Joau was

gone. "My heavens!" said Dick. "Diddled." chuckled Peter. "He can't have gone far." Dick swore, and ran across the room that be found himself in. There was another door in another wall, and this he pulled open— to find himself in another room! Beyond that, as he speedily discovered, was a small kitchen; evidently this was the private quarters of fehe person who acted as caretaker at night. Amazed, hardly able to believe his senses, Dick returned to the first room. Outside the door many curious dancers were collected, some looking in. Dick took no notice of them. Peter was mooning about the walls of their room, and Dick joined him. Peter saw that Captain Dick McNeill, for once in his life, was trembling with a great fear. "What's to be done?" asked Dick. "Smile and look merry," said Peter abstractedly and he gently pushed a hanging picture to one side. "This room is the funk-hole," he added in a low voice. "Through some spot in this charming apartment our dancing friends outside there trip a frolicsome foot when the bluebottles are on the job. Seems Selwey has gone this way. Very interesting."

"Good God man, can't you see what's happened?" Dick snapped at him. "He's got Joan. Where's that Hanim woman, and Felice Alexandra ?" "The name is Alexander, as I've told you once," obpervpd following Dick, who had marched to the door again. He saw Dick pushing through the crowd once more. Various people were anxiously inquiring "what's wrong?" But Dick marched to the raised platform upon which the orchestra was seated, and from there he swept the throng, eyes alert for Nadine Hanim and her friend. But they,.too, if ever they had been here, were now absent. And when he saw that, an icy calm descended upon Dick. More than ever was he afraid, for it was a certainty now that Nadine Hanim had started whatever scheme she had against Joan. The war was on; and with the absolute certainty of action, Dick stepped down to grapple with the situation. (To be continued daily.)