GIRL'S QUEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 55, 7 March 1939, Page 7

GIRL'S QUEST.

FOR STOLEN CABINET.

CONTAINS KEY TO WEALTH. SECRET GOLD MINE. (By Air Mail.) LONDON", February 10. Misd Zita Hill, a pretty, blonde, greyeyed London typist, has given up her job to search the world for an ancient Chinese pearl-inlaid cabinet that she claims holds the secret of a gold mine discovered in Africa by her father.

For five years Miss Hill has searched antique shops in England for the cabinet and twice she has made trips as far as Egypt and America in her search, only to find that at the end of her journey she had been put on a false scent.

Xext week she leaves for Paris on a new trail, and this time she thinks she will be successful.

Sitting before her typewriter in her West End office on her last day at work, Miss Hill talked to the "Sunday Referee" about the fortune she expects to discover.

"My father was a 'White Hunter' in Africa," she said. "I . can't tell you where, as that would give away part of my secret, but during one of his many expeditions he found a rich vein of gold. "He kept his find to himself, planning to come over to England to raise money to finance a new mine. Then my mother died and my father decided to [come back to Europe right away.

Secret Drawer. "We sold all our belongings except my father's old Chinese cabinet. It had a secret drawer which only he and I knew how to open, and in "that he put the chart that showed the exact position |of the mine. Without the chart I would never hope to find it.

"We planned to stay in Paris a few days before coming to England. "We were going from the flat a friend had lent us to a theatre when our taxi ieraehed into another and turned over.

My father was killed instantly. I was rushed to hospital with a fractured skull and was unconscious for more than a week. "When I regained consciousness again I was met with the news that our flat had been burgled and the precious Chinese cabinet had been stolen along with all the money I had in the world. "When I was well enough to move I borrowed some money and set out on my search for the stolen cabinet. "At last I got a clue, or»so I thought. The cabinet had been originally stolen from a Chinese temple. An antique dealer in Marseilles told me that he had sold a cabinet that sounded like mine to a Chinese religious society that had its headquarters near the docks.

Hunt in Dope Den. "Takinjr all the make-up off my face and putting on the oldest and most ragged clothes I could find, I risked going down there.

"I was let into the house after a, lot of argument, and I actually had to lie down alongside some of the filthiest pieces of humanity in the world and pretend to smoke an opium pipe before they would trust me.

"But all my trouble was useless. When everyone in the room seemed to be unconscious. I wandered into a room that I suppose was some sort of a temple. I found the cabinet that the antique dealer had described standing btfo'e an altar. But it was not the one I sought. "Even after that experience*! followed up every clue that came mv way, till at last I found myself in England with all my money gone. ~

"I got a job and saved every penny I could, and now I am off once again. This time I think I shall be lucky."