Jean went out of the stateroom, and Nick Carter heard the key turn in the lock.
“Jean is polite—almost servile, in fact,” muttered Nick Carter. “But he does not forget that I’m a prisoner. Well, this is an amusing affair. I never expected it to come out this way. However, so long as Marcos gets back to Joyalita, I guess I can attend to my friends on board the yacht.”
He had been taking off his wet clothing while reflecting thus, and now carefully transferred all his personal property to the pockets of the dry suit he intended to put on.
There was an automatic pistol, which, in its waterproof case, was quite unharmed by its plunge into the river. Also, Nick brought out his pocketknife, with its many useful tools packed in the handle, his waterproof wallet well supplied with bank notes, and several other articles that he always carried. Among them was a pair of nickel-plated handcuffs, very light, but as strong as the heaviest kind made.
“I don’t suppose I shall have to use them,” he muttered, as he stepped into the bathroom, and found the water in the tub was just as he liked it—cold, but with the raw chill taken off. “Still if there should be too much trouble with my friends aboard, I should not hesitate to slip them on.”
No one came near him as he enjoyed his bath, and afterward dressed carefully in the clothes that had been prepared for him.
“I’m not such a bad-looking prince,” he said to himself, with a smile, as he looked at himself in the mirror. “These garments are the kind you buy in New York. Yet, somehow, knowing they belong to a prince, I fancy I detect an odor of royalty about them.”
He laughed at his own conceit. Then, finding that a box of cigars, of a well-known brand, was in a little cupboard at one side of the stateroom, he selected one and nipped off the end.
“It is possible these cigars are drugged,” he muttered. “But I don’t think so. Anyhow, it is so long since I had a smoke, that I shall have to take the risk.”
He puffed away comfortably for more than a quarter of an hour, deep in his own thoughts, as he sat in one of the two chairs in the cabin, and was beginning to think he would not be disturbed till morning, when there came a tap at the door.