“Yes, my lady!” answered the maid, with a touch of mockery as she used this form of address that is so uncommon in America. “I have just looked, to make sure.” “Stand by it, in case of accidents,” ordered the baroness. Without speaking, Florine took her station at the door which led to the outer corridor, although she knew such a precaution was unnecessary. The baroness took from the bag the steel case into which she had packed the glass cylinder containing the powerful vapor she had produced in the bathroom. Unscrewing the cap of the case, she drew out the glass cylinder, and, holding it carefully in her left hand, reached again into the bag with her right. This time she brought out a diminutive rubber bulb, attached to a syringe with a thin, hollow, threaded screw on the bottom. Carefully she sent the screw through the center of the rubber cork in the glass cylinder. When this had been accomplished, she concealed the cylinder in the wide sleeve of her cloak. “Open the door, Florine! And close it as soon as I am outside.” “Ready?” asked Florine, as she glided, soft-footed as a cat, to the door, and stood there with her hand upon the key. “Yes.” All this was said in the same low, but distinct tones in which the baroness and her maid had communicated with each other ever since the former had come in after dining with Nick Carter. The door opened silently. The baroness slipped through to the corridor. The door closed after her. 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.”