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. CHAPTER VII. NICK LIES IN WAIT. It may be explained at once that Nick Carter was not in his bedroom in the Hotel Amsterdam when the baroness saw the light through the transom. The detective did not want anybody to speculate on his whereabouts that night, and he argued that if a light was seen in the room of Colonel Pearson, it would be assumed that the colonel was inside. He had determined to find out what the mysterious abductors had done with Harvey L. Drago, who had vanished into thin air, in broad daylight. After playing a sane and deliberate game of golf, it was not to be credited that Mr. Drago had made away with himself. Nick brushed that aside as soon as it came to his mind. The wealthy young American had been kidnaped by somebody, no doubt, and the object of that somebody could hardly be anything else than to exact a large ransom. It had occurred to Nick Carter, when told that Mrs. van Dietrich had melted away from her bedroom in the night, that perhaps an aëroplane had been employed. But all the conditions were against that. Neither could an automobile have been used without its being seen. After turning everything over in his mind, including the possibility of Drago having been hidden in the woods, he could not make that theory apply to his own satisfaction in the case of Mrs. van Dietrich. The dear lady was rather large, and she would surely be hysterical when she came to herself. No, it would be too risky to keep that eminent leader of society among a lot of trees and expect to keep her quiet.