Chapter VI: With the Aid of Her Men

The lights had been lowered throughout the hotel. In the corridors a small electric light burned at wide intervals, with an occasional red glow to show where the fire exits were situated.

The baroness was glad there was so little illumination. She saw a light through the transom over the door of number forty-four, which was Nick Carter’s room. But it was not strong, and she decided that it might have been burning in the bathroom, casting only a reflection into the bedchamber.

“Strange that he should sleep with a light anywhere about him,” she muttered. “He isn’t the kind of man to do that, I should think. I don’t care, so long as he is asleep, however.”

She listened intently outside this door for at least a minute. So keen was her hearing that she believed she would hear his breathing unless he slept more quietly than most men.

Not a sound reached her, and she crept noiselessly along the corridor until she got to the bedroom door of a titled Englishman, who had been the center of attention, especially among the women, ever since he had been at the hotel.

His name was Lord Vinton, and he was understood to be possessed of enormous wealth.

A curious smile passed over the countenance of the baroness. She listened outside Lord Vinton’s door, as she had at Nick Carter’s.

“No mistake about it in this case,” she murmured, below her breath. “His lordship snores like a balky motor car. That makes it all the easier for me.”

In a few seconds she did all she had come to do.

It did not look anything serious, if there had been any one there to observe her movements.

She seemed only to be passing her hands about the door and then hiding them in her cloak, ere she moved away.

But this is what she did: She slipped the glass tube, with the rubber stopper, from her cloak sleeve, inserted the mouth of the syringe into the keyhole, and pressed gently upon the rubber bulb.

The result was to inject into the bedroom of Lord Vinton a small quantity of one of the strongest and most effective narcotics known to science.

The almost invisible vapor went through the keyhole and instantly spread to all parts of the apartment. Every nook and crack of the room was filled with the stuff, and it was absolutely unbreathable by any human being.

So strong was it that only an unforeseen accident could prevent its taking action. Once under its influence, and the sturdiest man would fall into a deathlike stupor, which might last for several hours.

The baroness had made the vapor as strong as it was possible to do without rendering it too dangerous.

She had no intention of killing any of her victims. Her object merely was to make them unconscious, and then get possession of them.

Incidentally, she took care to freight herself with all their portable wealth, such as jewelry and precious stones.

Even this last she did not do herself in the case of Lord Vinton.

As will have been divined, this mysterious young and beautiful woman who chose to be known at the Hotel Amsterdam as the Baroness Latour had plenty of men at her orders.

All she did was to prepare the way for them, and then let them do the rough work.

She satisfied herself by listening at the keyhole--in which the key had been left--that the spray had operated properly, and that Lord Vinton was most assuredly in a state of coma. Then she glided swiftly back to her own rooms, was let in without a moment’s delay by the watchful Florine, and sank into a chair to regain her breath.

“You may go to bed, Florine.”

Florine, the docile, said “Good night!” and departed to her own apartment, adjoining that of her employer.

The baroness, still wearing her black cloak, threw open the window of the sitting room, and, her room in darkness, looked across the bay at the white yacht, which she could just make out in the gloom.

“They ought to be here soon,” she murmured, as she placed the glass cylinder in its steel case. “I won’t send another signal. It might be caught by somebody else. Besides, it is not necessary.”

She was right. It was not necessary to signal her men on the yacht, gently rocking some two miles from shore.

On the other hand, it was nearly an hour before her ear caught the subdued thumping of muffled oars.

“They have to row slowly,” she said to herself. “That’s so. Even with oars muffled, they might be heard if they came too fast.”

A soft whistle came from below as the laboring of the oars in their padded rowlocks ceased.

Looking out of the window, she could just discern a dark patch on the water immediately beneath.

She did not reply to the whistle. Instead, she drew from under her cloak a coil of thin, tough wire. On one end of it was a leaden weight, like a large fishing-line sinker.

Dropping the leaden sinker over the sill, she paid out the wire until the weight dropped into the sea. She knew just how far this was by a scrap of red ribbon she had the night before tied on the wire at a certain spot, when she had measured the distance from her window to the water.

Three sharp tugs at the wire told her that the other end had been found by the men in the boat. She began to pull the wire back, and soon she had the end of a thick, strong silken rope which had been attached to the end of the wire with a well-made sailor’s knot.

The baroness untied the silken rope and made it fast with a similar knot to the handle of her room door. This door was locked and bolted, and she had satisfied herself that the handle was a solid one.

The way in which she knotted the silken line to it, indicated that she was an expert in handling ropes. She did it as easily and swiftly as any experienced seaman.

Going back to the window, she jerked the cord three times, while looking down.

Soon the silken cord became taut under a heavy weight. It strained and gave a little where it crossed the edge of the window sill.

“All right?” she whispered.

“All right!” was the answering grunt, in a man’s voice.

It was only a few seconds later when the figure of a man appeared above the window ledge. It climbed through the window and stood by her side, seemingly waiting for orders.

“You did that very well, Kennedy!” she whispered. “Is my uncle there?”

“No. He said it was not necessary for him to come.”

“Too lazy, I suppose. Who else is in the boat?”

“Four of the crew.”

“Very well! Signal down for one of the men to come up, and we’ll go on with what we have to do.”

“All right, mademoiselle.”

Kennedy, first mate of the yacht _Idaline_ lying out there in the bay, shook the rope up which he had climbed. As there came an answering shake, he called down softly:

“Groton!”

“Aye, aye!”

“Come up here--quick!”

The lithe young foremast man who answered to the name of Groton came up, hand over hand, so swiftly, that he was on the window sill while the mate was still looking down.

“That’s right!” remarked the baroness quietly. “Now, you two wait here, while I go back to the room and get things ready. No noise, of course!”

“Shall I lock the door while you are out?” whispered Kennedy.

“Yes. Somebody might happen to be about and try the door, if they saw me in the corridor. I’ll give the usual signal.”

She reached into her black bag to make sure certain things were there. Then she went out and slipped along the corridor on the thick carpet, while Kennedy softly secured her sitting-room door inside.

“I wish Carter would put out that light of his,” she murmured, as she passed his room. “I don’t trust him, and I’d rather think he was asleep.”

She stood again outside Lord Vinton’s door, and as she came near the keyhole, she could distinguish the pungent odor of the narcotic she had sprayed into the bedroom.

It has practically all blown out of the window by this time,” she thought. “If I didn’t know it so well, I don’t suppose I should smell it.”

From the black bag she took out what looked like a pair of long slim scissors, with spreading claws, which could be opened and closed at will.

It was an implement for turning a key in a lock from the opposite side of the door. To police and criminals it is known as an “outsider.”

Gripping the end of the key through the keyhole with the powerful nippers, she turned the key almost as easily as if she had been inside the door.

“So much for that,” she murmured. “But there is the bolt! Well, I guess I can negotiate that.”

She had provided for the inmate of the room obeying the familiar injunction found in all hotel bedrooms nowadays: “Guests will please lock and bolt their doors before retiring for the night.”

The implement she took out of her bag now was not much like the “outsider,” but it proved equally effective.

Thin as paper, it was strong and highly tempered, and, after a few moments of careful manipulation, she had the bolt back and the door a little way open.

The room was in darkness. She felt for and turned the button of the electric light, but she left the light on only long enough to show her where the gas jet was. She lighted the gas, turned it low, and then put out the incandescent.

Going to the bed, she gazed for a few moments at the face of the man who lay unconscious in it.

One hand lay outside the counterpane. She lifted the hand boldly, and pressing her fingers upon the wrist, felt for the pulse. It was faint, but steady.

“He will be all right after a while,” she muttered. “That mixture of mine does its work scientifically. It knocks them cold for the time being, and afterward they are as well as ever. That old German chemist certainly knows his business, and this formula was worth all I paid for it.”

She hurried back to her room, gave the signal, and was admitted by the mate.

“Come to this room--you and Groton--and dress this man in the bed. Put everything on him that he should wear, including necktie and collar, watch fob and so on. Make him look as if he had dressed himself.”

Kennedy grinned and shook his head doubtfully.

“That won’t be so easy,” he protested. “Dressing a man who can’t help himself will be a tough proposition.”

“Never mind! Do as well as you can. I’ll show you the room. Then I’ll come back here. When you have him ready, send Groton to tell me. You stay in the room till I come. We have to get him away.”

The first mate nodded, and, accompanied by Groton, followed the baroness to the room of Lord Vinton. There the baroness left the two men to get his lordship dressed, and returned to her sitting room.

Florine slept through it all.

“He’s all fixed,” announced Kennedy, ten minutes later, when the baroness had been called back to Lord Vinton’s room by Groton. “We’ve put him into these light-colored togs and this funny soft hat. We couldn’t find any others handy, except his evening clothes, and I didn’t think you wanted him in them.”

“That wouldn’t have made any particular difference,” she returned. “Leave him on the bed for a minute and come over here.”

She went to the two trunks and handsome traveling bags at the other side of the room, and brought forth a quantity of jewelry which would hardly have been expected in the baggage of a wealthy nobleman traveling only for pleasure.

Rings, with diamonds, bracelets, brooches, and other gewgaws for women to wear, were wrapped in tissue paper or embedded in silk-lined cases, while scarfpins, cigarette cases, jeweled watch charms, and kindred articles of masculine use were plentiful.

“Lord Vinton may turn out not to be a lord, after all,” muttered the baroness. “Even if he is, he does not mind turning a few honest dollars by importing jewelry on the side. I hope the dollars he expects to make _will_ be honest, by the way. But it would be interesting to know how much duty he paid on all this.”

When she had piled up everything on the floor she cared to take, she coolly dropped the loot into two of Kennedy’s capacious outside pockets.

He wore a nautical pea-jacket, and his pocket room was extensive.

“Now, boys!” she whispered. “Work quickly. I will go ahead and see if the corridor is clear, and have my door half open. Stand at the door, Kennedy, and watch me. When you see me get to my room, I’ll hold up my hand.”

“I get you!”

“That will mean ‘All right!’ You and Groton pick up your man then and bring him along, just as you did Mrs. van Dietrich. Now! Careful!”

She skimmed lightly along the corridor, and directly afterward the two sailors followed, carrying between them the unconscious form of Lord Vinton.

Giving a signal to the two men still in the boat, Kennedy superintended the tying of the silken rope under Vinton’s arms, and the three of them lifted him over the window sill and let him dangle.

“Ready below?” questioned Kennedy softly.

“Ready! Let him come!”

Down went his lordship, who was laid in the bottom of the boat, while Kennedy turned to the baroness.

“Anything more, mademoiselle?”

“Not at present.”

“Any message for Captain Latell?”

“Tell him to keep a sharp lookout at all times, and to watch for signals from me. Have his telephone ready.”

“It is always ready, mademoiselle. He has it in his own window, and some one is always near.”

“Good! That’s all.”

Kennedy and Groton slid down the rope to the boat. The baroness untied it from the handle of her door and threw the rope after them.

The wire was again coiled, and, with the leaden weight, was in her black leather bag, which fastened with a strong patent lock.

Before finally leaving Lord Vinton’s room, after her victim had been brought to her own apartment, she had gone back to shoot the bolt and lock into place again. Also, she had used her steel implements to close the door, in about the same way as she had opened it, but by a reverse process.

Now, when a soft splash, as the oars dipped, told her the boat was on its way back to the yacht, she closed the window, looked about her with a satisfied sigh, and then went calmly to her bedroom.

Ten minutes later, this mysterious and beautiful girl, who could carry out such an audacious enterprise as that just finished without showing any particular emotion, lay down, without removing her attire, and, almost at once, seemed to be sound asleep.

When Florine went in to brush her employer’s hair the next morning, the maid thought she never had seen the baroness look fresher or seem in better spirits.