The count took care not to show himself, although, through information which he had procured at Koswig, he was not slow to learn that I had left for Bad-Elster.
The police notified nothing out of the way to my keepers. Personally I was, as usual, neither impatient nor excited. My "lady-in-waiting" could not deny my affability. But within myself I felt that deliverance was at hand.
This intuition was promptly confirmed.
One day, when I was playing tennis, I noticed a fat man whose gait, hat and clothes pronounced him to be an Austrian. His eyes met mine in a very curious manner, but he saluted me respectfully. I could have sworn that his look heralded the coming of the count.
I was not deceived.
A little later, when I was coming out of the dining-room of the hotel, preceded by the doctor attached to my person, and followed by my "lady-in-waiting," a fair man brushed past me and whispered: "Listen! Someone is working for you."
I was obliged to lean against the door; I was suddenly incapable of movement. Fortunately I recovered myself. My two watch-dogs noticed nothing.
The following day I came down to dinner escorted by the doctor and my companion. The waiter who usually attended on us was a little late and was finishing laying the table. Ordinarily he hardly dared look at me, but I now saw that his eyes were speaking to me. At the same time he passed and re-passed his hand over the tablecloth. He first made a fold, and afterwards he arranged and rearranged the linen. I seated myself and, at the same moment, I carelessly touched the spot the waiter had seemed to indicate. I heard a crackling of paper underneath the cloth....
My two keepers were discussing Wagner; they talked on ordinary topics. They could see me approving their banalities with a gracious smile, and they redoubled their eloquence. I profited by this to seize and hide the letter so cleverly placed within my reach between the tablecloth and the table.
I read the letter—I devoured its contents—as soon as I was alone in my room. It was from whom I guessed! It announced my approaching liberty. It gave me explanations of what had been done and what still had to be done in order to effect my escape from my long torture. I was to answer in the same way. I could rely on the waiter.