Up the hill he could make out one of the lights in the house he had discerned from the middle of the river. This landing stage was placed here for the use of the occupants of the house, of course. Once the launch had been secured, Nick looked about him for some means of getting to the yacht without being perceived by the man smoking on the cabin, or anybody else who might be on watch. “I can’t take the launch,” he muttered. “The chugging of the engine will attract attention at once. I’ll have to drift in with the tide and paddle with that emergency oar to get there at all. But I cannot handle such a cumbersome craft as the launch in reconnoitering. I want to go right under their counter.” It was true that Nick had shut off the engine of the launch when some distance from the yacht. He had also put out the one light they had carried. His object was to make the people on the yacht suppose it was some gay party taking a ride on the river at night--a common-enough proceeding--and that the ceasing of the engine sound was due merely to the launch passing on its way. The detective was accustomed to consider all contingencies when working on a case, and it was seldom, indeed, that any of his plans miscarried through carelessness or lack of foresight on his own part. “I could swim out there,” he reflected. “But that would be stupid, if there is anything else. Let me investigate.” Cautioning the girl to sit still in the launch, he went ashore and found his way to a well-equipped boathouse, with a padlock on the door. The padlock was not fastened. It was hanging loose in the hasp, and there was a key in it. “Somebody has been in this place lately,” thought Nick. “Or there may be a man or two in it at this moment. There is only one way to find out, and that is to go in.” The door was slightly ajar, and the detective pulled it wide enough to permit the passage of his body. He was in the deep shadow, for the door was at the side, while the lower end of the structure ran out over the water, so that boats could be slipped out of the house into the river down the greased runways without much exertion. Nick Carter was used to boathouses and boats. He had a boathouse of his own at a country home he owned, but which he seldom occupied for more than three or four weeks each year. It did not take him long to decide that the house was empty. This was what he had hoped, for he wanted to help himself to a skiff. The opening into the river, at the end of the runways, was guarded by double doors, bolted inside, but not locked. Nick selected his skiff--a small, but substantial craft, rather broader in the beam than might have been desired if he had meant to make high speed. Soon he had it on the runway, ready to shoot down into the water when released. He opened one of the doors, took his place in the skiff, and let slip the catch.