Count Karlstein went out later, with the hounds; which lowered my spirits still further. Then, in the late afternoon, Frau Muller told me to take some logs up to the drawing-room and trim the lamps. I thought this would give me a chance to run up to the lumber room, but again I was thwarted, for I found Herr Snivelwurst snoring sulkily by the ghost of the drawing-room fire and I dropped a heavy pair of tongs on the stone hearth to wake him up with a start.

He jerked and snorted and sat up suddenly, then saw who it was and sank back into the chair again—and then woke up fully.

“Where were you when I fell in the river? I thought you’d gone to get help?”

“I had, sir! I ran and ran! I was so worried about you—”

“I might very easily have drowned, I suppose you realize. I’m a remarkably strong swimmer—many have said how powerfully I swim—but the force of the current was overwhelming. I was near carried to my death—” Here he broke off for a fit of sneezing. I turned away and made as if to leave. “Here, I haven’t finished!” he said. “I was going to tell you how I trapped that little minx—you’ll enjoy that.”

“I’m busy, Herr Snivelwurst,” I said. “I expect I’ll hear it again.”

He sneezed once more and sank back, grumbling. I left.

But then, at last, came the chance I’d been waiting for. They’d relented; or Frau Muller’s stony heart had softened to the extent of allowing that Charlotte might, at least, be fed in her imprisonment, and so Frau Wenzel had prepared a tray with a bowl of soup, some bread, and an apple, and I was to take it—not to the tower, indeed, but to Frau Muller herself, who was presently in the hall on some business and who would take it up to the prisoner. I took the tray and went up the stone steps from the kitchen, while Frau Wenzel clattered away behind me at some pots and pans. The passage to the hall led past Frau Muller’s parlor, and there, I knew, hung a full set of duplicate keys for all the rooms in the castle except the count’s study.

It only took a moment. I slipped into the room, set the tray on the table, turned to the great board behind the door and ran my eyes feverishly up and down until I saw the key; and then I put it into the bowl. Frau Wenzel’s soup was good and thick, thank goodness, and the key was completely hidden.