g into a dangerous phase of a
professional case. He slowly drew from his pocket the typed note-paper
which had nestled in such enviable intimacy with that courageous heart.
The faint fragrance of her exquisite flesh clung to it still. He held
it to his lips and kissed it. Then he stopped, to turn about and look
upward at the tall hostelry behind him. High up below the renaissance
cornice he beheld the lights glow forth in the rooms which he knew were
Helene's.

As he hurried to the club, he muttered angrily to himself: "I have made
one discovery, at least, in this unusual exploit. I find that I have
lost what common sense I possessed when I became a Freshman at college!"

CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE RISING TIDE

A hurried message to the Holland Agency brought four plain clothes men
from the private reserve, under the leadership of superintendent Cleary.
Monty met them at the doorway of the club house, wearing a rough and
tumble suit.

They sped downtown, toward the East River, the criminologist on the
seat where he could direct the driver. At Twenty-sixth Street, near
the docks, they dismounted and Shirley gave his directions to the
detectives.

"I want you to slide along these doorways, working yourselves separately
down the water front until you are opposite the yacht club landing. I
will work on an independent line. You must get busy when I shoot, yell
or whistle,--I can't tell which. As the popular song goes, 'You're here
and I'm here, so what do we care?' This is a chance for the Holland
Agency to get a great story in the papers for saving young Van Cleft
from the kidnappers."

He left them at the corner, and crossing to the other pavement, began
to stagger aimlessly down the street, looking for all the world like a
longshoreman returning home from a bacchanalian celebration from
some nearby Snug Harbor. It was a familiar type of pedestrian in this
neighborhood at this time of the morning.

"That guy's a cool one, Mike," said Cleary to one of his men. "These
college ginks ain't so bad at that when you get to know 'em with their
dress-suits off."

"He's a reg'lar feller, that's all," was Mike's philosophical response.
"Edjication couldn't kill it in 'im."

A hundred yards offshore was the beautiful steam yacht of the Van
Clefts', the "White Swan." Lights on the deck and a few glowing
portholes showed unusual activity aboard. Shirley's hint to Warren about
the contemplated trip to southern climes was th