There was a brief agony of being underwater and an even briefer remembrance of all the things that had made living so much fun. An almost unbearable roaring in his ears as he rose to the surface still holding her. A light that almost blinded him as he breathed air again.

A voice said, “Catch ‘em before they go down again.” Strong hands reached out and caught him by the armpits. One quick motion, and he was hauled into the motor boat that had made the almost unbearable roaring and had flashed its light in his face.

He longed to collapse into unconsciousness there on the deck, but first—he looked, and saw that she had been hauled on board, and was breathing. Then he managed, with his last strength, to point at the canoe.

He heard a shot. He pulled himself up enough to look over the edge of the boat. He saw the canoe, overturned, starting to settle and sink.

“You might have known I’d commandeer a shore boat,” Jerry Kane said. “I knew where she’d go. After all, I’ve been in love with her for a long time.”

Malone lay back against the set boards, thought the whole thing over, and finally said, “You know, I think I am getting a cold after all.”

In the emergency room on the pier, Captain von Flanagan agreed that it was a shame young Bob Spencer—such a promising young actor, too—had perished in an attempt to rescue one of Chicago’s favorite radio and stage entertainers, Miss Doris Dawn. Fortunately, Mr. Jerry Kane had come along in time to rescue Miss Dawn and Mr. John Joseph Malone, prominent Chicago attorney.

After the reporters and Doris Dawn and her new husband had gone, he said, “All right, Malone, what the hell happened?”

Malone snuggled into the blanket some kind soul had wrapped around him, sneezed, and said, “If Doris Dawn died, and the body of Robert Spencer were found, Robert Spencer’s heir would inherit several million dollars. Bob Spencer, naturally, was the only heir. Being a young man of imagination, he decided it would be better for her to commit suicide than to be murdered in some ordinary way. There wouldn’t be so many embarassing questions asked of the one person to benefit by her death.”

He paused, sneezed twice, and went on, “But he also knew that it wasn’t easy to make murder look like suicide. Especially to—” he paused again for a second or two—“very smart cops like von Flanagan here. Therefore, his prospective victim had to make several unsuccessful attempts at suicide.” He sneezed once more. “My grandmother always said whiskey was the best thing to ward off a cold. Oh, thanks, pal. Very kind of you.”