Evening star. [volume], May 17, 1936, Page 7, Image 87

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
THE STORY SO FAR
Half a million dollars!
This was the ransom Grundl, alias
Clubfoot, head of a powerful gang of
international «pies. demanded of Patricia
Fane whose brother Jimmy Fane had fallen
into his hands while on a secret diplomatic
mission in Germany.
Three men: Robert Dallas, an ex-British
Army officer, Major Ned Hartigan, and Wolf
von Konig, had been engaged by Patricia
Fane to search for her brother whom she
hoped to rescue before the American agents,
who were also on his trail, found and arrested
him for allegedly betraying his country.
Dallas and Hartigan had traced Fane to
a mysterious Diue pavilion m Baaen-oaaen,
where the young American was in hiding with
Arlette Lassagne, one of Grundt’s agents.
But before they could rescue him, Fane was
spirited away by Bartels, another of Grundt’s
agents, who was attempting to double-cross
his chief. And Patricia was drugged and
carried away by Grundt, in her own plane,
to his fortified castle, Baltasar, near Salzburg.
While Dallas and Hartigan were speeding
over the road to Salzburg, Patricia awakened
to find herself a prisoner in Castle Baltasar,
threatened with death if she did not agree to
Grundt’s outrageous demands.
"1 warn you that I am a bad person to
defy,” Grundt told Patricia, and rang for the
housekeeper to take her back to her room.
As Patricia followed the housekeeper across
the hall outside of Grundt’s office, the front
door opened and a woman wrapped in a long
dark cloak entered.
It was the woman Patricia had seen in the
pavilion at Baden-Baden — Arlette Lassagne!
PART V
It was long past breakfast time at the
Goldene Rose when Robin and Ned,
weary and unshaven after battling the
wind and rain all night over mountain
roads, reached Rodenbach. Wolf was waiting
for them in the little inn parlor.
His news was not encouraging. Bartels
had not reappeared at the Villa Friedl;
scouts from the mysterious organization of
peasants which Maier, host of the Goldene
Rose, controlled, were watching the house
night and day. No foreign plane had landed
at the Vienna aerodrome; there was a rumor
that a strange machine had been heard above
the Salzburg field about ten o’clock on the
previous night but it had not come down
there.
“Maier is making enquiries,’’ Wolf ex
plained in his stolid German way, “but in
these mountains there are many places where
a plane may hide. Grundt gone, Bartels gone,
and, on t6p of all, the Fane girl kidnapped —
the prospect is not rosy, zum Donnerwetter!”
Dallas said, “There's always the Lassagne
woman. She won't relinquish Fane in a hurry
Illustration by
JuIm Gotliab
SOMEHOW. GRUNDT KNEW. HE MUST FORCE
THIS GIRL TO TELL HIM THE CODE WORD
Castle Baltasar — behind its sinister walls grim
fate awaits Patricia Fane and her brother
by Valentine Williams
Fifth installment of a serial of spies and international intrigue
— she hopes to marry him. If only we could
pick up her trail again!”
Wolf removed his pipe. “Ah,” he remarked
slowly, “I was coming to that.”
“You have news of her?”
Wolf nodded. "Bad news, Bob. Early this
morning, this side of the frontier, near
Freilassing, masked men held up a car coming
from Germany and carried off the driver, a
woman driving herself. The kidnappers didn’t
worry about taking the car, Maier says. A
green sedan.”
“That’s Lassagne’s car, right enough,” Ned
dprlarpd
railway and won’t be back until this after
noon. I shall let you know.’’
The three men settled down to wait. Dallas
refused to speak to Ned, but mooned about
between the door and the window. Seeing
which, the Major procured a pack of greasy
cards from Frau Maier and sat down to
kartt with Wolf. He also sent for a bottle of
cognac, from which he refreshed himself at
intervals.
‘‘You promised to lay off the liquor,’’ Dallas
at last reminded him, to which the Major re
torted that he hadn’t taken the pledge for life.
"Just what do you mean by that?” de
manded Dallas, flushing.
Hartigan laughed sarcastically. ‘‘At our
‘‘Her name And address are on the dash,
anyway," Wolf supplemented.
Dallas groaned. “Clubfoot’s trick again.
And our last chance gone!"
A fat man in leather shorts a ppeared at the
door. “Come in and meet my friends, Herr
Maier,” said Wolf in German.
The innkeeper saluted them gravely. "It’s
about Bartels,” he explained in bis soft patois.
Dallas leaped forward. “Well? ’
"In the middle of the night be sent his
car to fetch Frau Eigl, a woman in the village
who sometimes works for him at the Villa
Friedl.”
"And she went? Where?” the Englishman
demanded eagerly.
' ‘She went, but where I can’t say, ibr the
present. Her husband will be able to tell
us more. But he works an early shift on the
present rate of progress, we shall still be
looking for young Fane a year from now.”
"And his sister — don’t forget his sister!”
the other rapped back.
Violently the Major slammed his hand
down on the table. "I ran her into this mess,
sure. But she’d never have been snatched if
you and Wolf had shown any sense in the first
place. You had Clubfoot at your mercy, that
night at Hamburg, but instead of blowing his
ugly head off, you let him slip through your
fingers. Now let me tell you something ..."
"Oh, hell!” cried Dallas and, striding to
the door, went out into the raw air. He was
still pacing up and down the road in front
of the inn when, half an hour later. Wolf
(Continued on page 13)