"Haven't you read about the murder last night. Mr. Van Hofen, who owns that yacht there, the _San Sowsy_, had a party of friends on board, an' one of 'em was dragged into the river an' drowned. Nice goin's on. _San Sowsy_--it's a good name for the whole bunch, I guess." Winifred did not understand why the girl laughed. "What a terrible thing!" she said. "Perhaps it was only an accident; and sad enough at that if some poor man lost his life." "Oh, no. It's a murder right enough. The papers are full of it. I was walkin' here at nine o'clock with a fellow. It might ha' been done under me very nose. What d'ye know about that?" "It's very sad," repeated Winifred. "Such dreadful things seem to be almost impossible under this blue sky and in bright sunshine. Even the river does not look cruel." She went on, having no time for further dawdling. Her informant glanced after her curiously, for Winifred's cheap clothing and worn shoes were oddly at variance with her voice and manner. At Seventy-second Street Winifred bought a newspaper, which she read instead of the tiny volume of Browning's poems carried in her hand-bag. She always contrived to have a book or periodical for the train journeys, since men had a way of catching her eye when she glanced around thoughtlessly, and such incidents were annoying. She soon learned the main details of "The Yacht Mystery." The account of Ronald Tower's dramatic end was substantially accurate. It contained, of course, no allusion to Senator Meiklejohn's singular connection with the affair, but Clancy had taken care that a disturbing paragraph should appear with the rest of a lurid write-up. "Sinister rumors are current in clubland," read Winifred. "These warrant the belief that others beside the thugs in the boat are implicated in the tragedy. Indeed, it is whispered that a man high in the political world can, if he chooses, throw light on what is, at this writing, an inexplicable crime, a crime which would be incredible if it had not actually taken place." The reporter did not know, and Clancy did not tell him, just what this innuendo meant. The detective was anxious that Senator Meiklejohn should realize the folly of refusing all information to the authorities, and this thinly-veiled threat of publicity was one way of bringing him to his senses. Winifred had never before come into touch, so to speak, with any deed of criminal violence. She was so absorbed in the story of the junketing at a fashionable club, with its astounding sequel in a locality familiar to her eyes, that she hardly noticed a delay on the line.