d after him, and saw him enter a block of residential
flats in a side street. Then the detective strolled back to the club.

Most of Van Hofen's guests had gone. The policeman grinned and muttered
in Clancy's ear:

"The Senator's a giddy guy. Two of 'em at wanst. Mrs. Tower's a
good-looker, but I didn't think much of the other wan."

Clancy nodded. His black and beady eyes had just clashed with those of a
notorious crook, who suddenly remembered an urgent appointment
elsewhere.

Fifteen minutes later Senator Meiklejohn returned. He entered the club
without being waylaid a second time. Clancy consulted his watch.

"Keep a sharp lookout here, Mac," he said, _sotto voce_. "While I was
away just now Broadway Jim showed up. He's got cold feet, and there'll
be nothing more doing to-night, I think. Anyhow, I'm going up-town."

In Fifth Avenue he boarded a Riverside Drive bus. The weather was mild,
and he mounted to the roof.

"Now, who in the world will Senator Meiklejohn meet on the
landing-stage?" he mused. "Seems to me the chief may be interested. Five
hundred dollars, too! I wonder!"

CHAPTER II

A DARING CRIME

It was no part of Detective Clancy's business to pry into the private
affairs of Senator Meiklejohn. Senators are awkward fish to handle,
being somewhat similar to whales caught in nets designed to capture
mackerel. But the Bureau is no respecter of persons. Men much higher up
in politics and finance than William Meiklejohn would be disagreeably
surprised if they could read certain details entered opposite their
names in the _dossiers_ kept by the police department. Still, it
behooved Clancy to tread warily.

As it happened, he was just the man for this self-imposed duty. Two
Celtic strains mingled in his blood, while American birth and training
had not only quickened his intelligence but imparted a quality of
wide-eyed shrewdness to a daring initiative. When he and the bluff
Steingall worked together the malefactor on whose heels they pressed had
a woeful time. As one blood-stained rascal put it in a bitter moment
before the electric chair claimed him for the expiation of his last and
worst crime:

"Them two guys give a reg'lar fellow no chanst. When they're trailin'
you every road leads straight to Sing Sing. The big guy has a punch like
Jess Willard, an' the lil 'un a nose like a Montana wolf."

It was Clancy's nose for the more subtle elements in crime which brought
him to the small cha