As the boat got nearer to the hotel, Nick’s night glass, plus his keen eyes, enabled him to make out a feminine figure at one of the darkened windows. CHAPTER VIII. NICK DEALS WITH ODDS. Throughout the performance of Kennedy and Groton climbing the rope to the window of the baroness, the detective lay there, with his night glass turned upon them, and when he saw the form of a man coming down on the rope, he knew he was on the right track. “Shall we go back to the hotel and break in her door?” asked Corrigan. “No. We couldn’t get there, for one thing. Everything would be over before we could interfere. Besides, that would not help much. I want to prove that the kidnaping has been done from the hotel. But, also, I want to catch them in the act.” “That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?” “I am, in a way,” answered the detective. “But it would be only my word against theirs, and you may be sure that people who can carry out a scheme like this successfully are not bad as liars.” “They’re going back to the yacht now,” remarked Corrigan. “I see they are leaving the hotel. Whether they are going directly to the yacht remains to be seen. I am inclined to think they are not.” “Why?” “Mr. Drago is undoubtedly somewhere in this wood, and it is time they took him away. They would be sure to do these two jobs under one, I think. It is the methodical manner in which the leading spirit of the enterprise has everything done.” “The boss of this thing must be the husband of that young baroness, I should think,” said Corrigan. “Or perhaps her brother.” “Why don’t you think she may be doing it herself?” asked the detective, smiling. “A pretty girl like that wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t,” was the porter’s positive reply. “But she might be drawn into it by some of her menfolks. Things like that happen sometimes. You see it in the newspapers, anyhow.” It was not long before it was shown that Nick Carter had been correct in his belief that the boat would put in to get Drago from his hiding place in the wood, wherever it might be. The boat stopped in the middle of the bay, and Carter, from his place behind the bush, could see one of the men who appeared to be in command--in fact, it was Kennedy, the first mate of the yacht--looking around him with a night glass. He scanned the shore as far as he could see it, and also looked steadily at the hotel. Nick Carter smiled as he thought he saw the glass trained in the direction of his own window in the hotel, room number forty-four. He could not be sure, in the darkness, but he believed he was right. “My charming dinner companion must have told him whereabouts my room is situated,” he said to himself. “Even if he cannot be sure which is my window, I am conceited enough to think he is trying to assure himself that I am not watching him from one of them. Much good it will do him!”