Clancy, forced by circumstances to remain at a distance, could only overhear Tower’s share in the brief conversation. The tones in the voice perplexed him, but the preconcerted element in the affair seemed to offer proof positive that Senator Meiklejohn had kept his appointment. He was just in time to see Tower’s legs disappearing, and a loud splash told what had happened. He was not armed. He never carried a revolver unless the quest of the hour threatened danger or called for a display of force. In a word, he was utterly powerless.
Senator Meiklejohn, alive to the vital fact that some one on the terrace had discovered the boat, hung back dismayed. He was joined by Nolan, who could not understand the sudden commotion.
“What’s up?” Nolan asked. “Didn’t some wan shout?”
Clancy, in all his experience of crime and criminals, had never before encountered such an amazing combination of unforeseen conditions. The boat’s motor was already chugging breathlessly, and the small craft was curving out into the gloom. He saw a man hauling in a rope from the stern, and well did he know why the cord seemed to be attached to a heavy weight. Not far away he made out the yacht’s gig returning to the stage.
“Sans Souci ahoy!” he almost screamed. “Head off that launch! There’s murder done!”
It was a hopeless effort, of course, though the sailors obeyed instantly, and bent to their oars. Soon they, too, vanished in the murk, but, finding they were completely outpaced, came back seeking for instructions which could not be given. The detective thought he was bewitched when he ran into Senator Meiklejohn, pallid and trembling, standing on the terrace with Nolan.
“You?” he shrieked in a shrill falsetto. “Then, in heaven’s name, who is the man who has just been pulled into the river?”
“Tower!” gasped the Senator. “Mr. Ronald Tower. They mistook him for me.”
“Faith, an’ I did that same,” muttered the patrolman, whose slow-moving wits could assimilate only one thing at a time.
Clancy, afire with rage and a sense of inexplicable failure, realized that Meiklejohn’s admission and its now compulsory explanation could wait a calmer moment. The club attendant, attracted by the hubbub, raced to the lawn, and the detective tackled him.