“Keep the doors closed, Florine,� she ordered. “You can stay in the room. Give me that telephone instrument.�
With Florine’s assistance, she placed the wireless-telephone apparatus again on the sill, and, after a few moments of ineffective endeavor, got a ticking that told her she was in communication with the yacht which had awakened so much curiosity in Nick Carter.
Her conversation was very brief, but she contrived to give orders in a few words, which, under certain conditions, would carry out some very important work.
“There, Mr. Nicholas Carter!â€� she murmured, as she motioned to Florine to help her in removing the apparatus from the window. “I don’t know how you have grown suspicious. But I can’t explain your invitation on any other supposition. If you are not suspicious, nothing will happen. If you are—well, we shall see.â€�
Among the well-dressed women who dined in the brilliantly lighted restaurant of the Hotel Amsterdam that evening, there was none more strikingly beautiful or aristocratic than the Baroness Latour.
Her costume was the last word in fashion and costly material, and she wore it like a queen. Her jewelry was dazzling.
Sitting opposite, at the small table set for two, was Nick Carter. His strong, grave face, lighted up by those wonderful dark eyes of his, made him, in his correct even[Pg 14]ing dress, an effective foil to the radiant beauty of the fair young woman who was his guest.
As a thorough man of the world, Nick Carter knew how to order a dinner, and the waiter looked at him in profound respect when he had the list of dishes on his slip.
It will have been gathered that the Baroness Latour was not exactly what she appeared to be. In fact, she had considered it necessary to change her personal aspect long before she came to the Amsterdam and found that Nick Carter, under the name and title of Colonel Pearson, was a guest.
The name she had assumed was not that by which the detective had known her a year or so before.