The Ludwig Conspiracy (42 page)

Steven stood in the middle of the throne room as if frozen, staring at the industrialist, who was scrutinizing him sardonically from the marble stage of the apse. Sara and Albert Zöller were also incapable of any movement.

“But . . . but you’re . . .” Steven stammered.

“A woman. I know.” Luise nodded. “You made the mistake of taking me for a man once before, do you remember?” A smile, narrow as a knife blade, appeared on her face. Steven thought of their first meeting at the Grotto of Venus. What had the industrialist said on that occasion?

Women in leading positions always have to contend with that prejudice . . .

“I . . . I don’t understand.” Steven stood there, his shoulders drooping, his mouth open, and could make no sense of the scene before him. The woman who was head of a leading German IT company sat there, wearing a royal cloak and holding an old-fashioned pistol.

“Do you seriously believe that
you
are Ludwig the Second?” Steven asked.

He had certainly heard that there were lunatics who thought they were Ludwig reincarnated, but the idea of a successful woman like this, head of a large company, falling victim to that delusion left him speechless. He cursed quietly. When he saw the logo of Camelot Security and saw the connection between Bernd Reiser, who had died in his bookshop, and Manstein Systems, he ought to have guessed that the head of the firm was involved in all this somehow. But by then, of course, it was too late anyway.

“You disappoint me again, Herr Lukas,” Luise said. “Of course I am
not
Ludwig. The king has been dead for more than a hundred years. All I want is the book.” She gave him a thin smile and pointed to his rucksack. “Or let’s say what is hidden in the book.”

By now Steven had recovered from his initial surprise. Unbridled fury rose in him. “
You
set that lunatic on us, then?
You
handed us over to him at Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee?” With revulsion, he indicated Lancelot, who still stood behind Sara with his gun at the ready. “But why? With all your money, you could simply have bought the damn diary.”

Luise Manstein leaned forward on her wooden stool. “Do you think I didn’t try? When I found out that the professor had discovered the diary in someone’s effects, I wanted it at once. I offered him any price he cared to ask. But he remained obstinate. And then, when I was going to . . . well, question him, it was too late. He had already passed it on to you.” She frowned. “Unfortunately, Herr Lukas, you preferred to go underground. Even the police couldn’t find you.”

“Then
you
tipped off the cops and left Uncle Paul’s clothes in the bookshop,” Sara said, as Lancelot dug his Glock into her back. “I always wondered who had told the police about the connection between Steven and my uncle.”

Luise caressed the butt of her Derringer and played dreamily with the trigger. “Just a little trick. Of course, my attorneys would have ferreted out Herr Lukas twenty-four hours later and brought him to me, along with the book. But you had to stage a dramatic escape.” She sighed and cast a theatrical glance up at the cupola. “It was pure chance that I met you at Linderhof, Herr Lukas. A dispensation of Providence, if you like. But unfortunately you gave me a false name at the time, and I did not know what that ominous character, the antiquarian bookseller Steven Lukas, really looked like. Your picture does not appear on Facebook, or any other website. Most old-fashioned.”

“I knew there was a good reason for me to steer clear of the damn Internet,” Steven murmured.

“Well, well, you are a little antiquated, with all your books.” Luise smiled. “Be that as it may, only the description given by one of my paladins made it clear to me that the blundering provincial journalist Greg Landsdale was really Steven Lukas, a wanted man. So I simply waited for you at Neuschwanstein and finally lured you here.” Luise’s right eyebrow rose. “Although I would have been very glad to meet you on your own. Just the two of us. But never mind, this way we’ll sort everything out.”

Unbidden, memories flared up in Steven again, like little flashes of lightning striking before his eyes. And here was that sense of nausea again.

The Chinese lantern lying crushed on the ground, the burning pages, the struggle, the flight down the long corridors, out through the window, down into the garden by climbing down the ivy . . .

What was all this? What was going on in his head? He forced down the impulse to retch and tried to concentrate on the woman sitting in front of him in the royal cloak.

“What do you want the book for?” he asked. The two gorillas to the right and left of Luise Manstein hadn’t moved an inch, yet it seemed to Steven that they were just waiting for a pretext to fire their Uzis at him. “To prove that King Ludwig was murdered? Professor Liebermann would have done just that.”

“I suspect it’s about something very different,” Zöller said, speaking up for the first time. His voice sounded curiously calm, almost apathetic. “Something beyond the power of your imagination, Herr Lukas. This woman is . . .”

“Silence, you scoundrel!”
Luise leaped off her wooden throne and pointed the little Derringer straight at Zöller. Her hands were trembling, her eyes cold and piercing. “Why I need that book is no business of anyone here. All that matters is for me to have it in my hands at last. For the damn riddle to be solved after more than a century.”

Zöller took a step back and held his tongue, but Sara intervened.

“I suspect that Uncle Lu was about to say, ‘This woman is a total nut case.’” She turned to the bookseller. “Come on, Steven! Look at her! She thinks she’s a new Ludwig, and these thugs are her paladins. You can’t
get
crazier than that. And this giant monkey here,” she added, turning furiously to Lancelot, who was just behind and towering above her, “is just her favorite toy knight.”

“You have made Lancelot very angry, Frau Lengfeld.” The head of Manstein Systems sat down on the stool again, but now her voice was cold as steel. “Very angry. You are part of his fee, did you know that?”

Lancelot grinned, then winked at Sara with his one sound eye.

“I’ll make you an offer, Frau Manstein,” Steven said. He opened his rucksack and went over to the gallery, holding the little cherrywood chest
.
“I’ll give you the book. The book and the little treasure chest. And in return, you let us go. The police would never believe us anyway, and you’ll save yourself a great deal of trouble.”

“She’ll never let us go.” Zöller shook his head. He seemed like an old man again. “We know the secret of the book, or at least almost. And what’s more, we could always tell the police about this lady’s large-scale art theft.”

“Art theft?” Sara asked, baffled. “What are you talking about?”

A slight tic on the industrialist’s face showed Steven that Zöller had found out something important. The two guards to the left and right of the throne exchanged nervous glances.

“You can deceive millions of tourists, maybe the castle administration as well, and a few self-styled experts, Frau Manstein,” Zöller growled. “But you don’t deceive me. I’ve taken a very close look at the bed, the washstand, and the rest of the furnishings of the castle, and I’ve taken photographs. It’s only a matter of tiny details, but I’ve seen too many pictures of the original fittings and furnishings to miss seeing the difference.”

“Nonsense,” hissed the industrialist. “The copies are perfect.”

“The
copies?
” Bewildered, Steven looked from Uncle Lu to Luise Manstein. “What copies?”

“Herr Lukas, do you really think that Manstein Systems accepted the commission in Neuschwanstein just for the prestige of it or out of pure love for humanity?” Zöller laughed quietly. “A leading German IT company renovates a dusty castle? Sees to unimportant details like personally hiring the security staff? That struck me as odd all along. When I had a chance to take a look at the furniture in the royal bedchamber today, I couldn’t believe it at first. I thought I must be mistaken. But now I know that we are witnesses to one of the greatest art thefts of the century. For that very reason alone, Madame here isn’t about to let us go.”

“Are you saying that all the furniture and works of art in the castle are only . . . 
duplicates?
” Steven remembered how thin and cheap the wood of the king’s bedside table had looked to him just now. Could it be possible? All at once he felt as if the ground had been pulled from under his feet.

Most of this stuff is just smoke and mirrors . . .

“I don’t know exactly how many pieces of furniture,” Zöller said. “The bed, the chairs, and the washstand in the bedchamber, in any case. Presumably on the nights when Manstein Systems’ people were installing the security system, they gradually dismantled everything here, bringing in the duplicates at the same time. The furniture in the study and the dining room also struck me as a little different. And here . . .”

He looked curiously up at the ceiling, where the great chandelier hung, with nearly a hundred candles.

“We did a good job,” Luise boasted. “The chandelier weighs approximately a ton. A fragile, unique work made of Bohemian glass. I think it looks magnificent in its new location.”

Spellbound, Steven looked around him in all directions. The chandelier, the candleholders that were as tall as a man, the magnificent tables and chairs in the neighboring rooms . . . Had they all been stolen? Did nothing but
duplicates
still stand in Neuschwanstein?

“Where in God’s name did you take all those things?” he asked, horrified. “To a storeroom? Are you going to sell them? Surely you have enough money already.”

Luise laughed out loud; it was an almost girlish giggle. “I see you still don’t understand me, Herr Lukas,” she said, smiling. “Ludwig never wanted ordinary mortals walking around his castles, desecrating the pictures and furniture here by staring at them. I have had the exhibits taken to a sacred place where I alone can look at them.”

“Ah,” Sara said. “Your living room, I presume. Because you are no ordinary mortal, are you? Other people get reborn as a butterfly, Napoleon, or a potted plant, but you, of course, are the reincarnation of Ludwig the Second.”

“How dare you insult me,”
Luise cried, jumping up from her temporary throne. She aimed the Derringer straight at Sara now, while her voice rang through the hall. “You’ll find out soon enough who it is you’re dealing with. Lancelot, teach this insolent bitch a lesson.”

With a swift movement, the giant pressed against the hollows of Sara’s knees from behind, so that she bent over, with a cry of surprise, and dropped to the ground. Then he swung his leg back and kicked her in the stomach with all his might. Sara folded like a pocketknife; a gurgling sound emerging from her throat, and she brought up gall and saliva.

“You . . . you bloody bastard!” she gasped, writhing in pain.

Steven watched this scene as if he were in a trance. Then he dropped Marot’s little treasure chest and ran, fists up, toward Lancelot, who stood two heads taller than he did. The giant swerved aside at the last moment and delivered a right hook to the bookseller’s chin. Fighting for breath, Steven fell to the floor. For a moment everything around him was black, and then, unsteadily, he got to his knees. He was holding his lip, and blood dripped to the mosaic flooring. Suddenly he felt incredibly weary.

“Damn it, what the hell are we doing here?” he cursed quietly. He leaned down to Sara and caressed her trembling body. A shudder ran through her; she seemed to be weeping silently. “Why did your uncle have to come to
my
bookshop?” Steven asked. “So many booksellers in Munich, but no, he had to pick me.”

Steven felt a hand on his shoulder. When he looked up, he saw the anxious face of Uncle Lu. For the first time he noticed the deep lines on the old man’s face and the infinite sadness in his eyes.

“Herr Lukas, it’s time you learned something very important about yourself,” Zöller began in a quiet voice. “It wasn’t by chance that Paul went to you. He knew you and your parents. And he knew that . . .”

The gunshot rocked the throne room as if lightning had struck the cupola. Albert Zöller staggered several steps back, clutching his stomach. For a moment Steven thought it was only the noise of the shot that had alarmed the old man, but then Zöller put out his hand and stared incredulously at his fingers.

They were red with blood. Thick liquid dripped from them onto the brightly colored mosaic floor.

Now Steven could also see the red stain on Zöller’s shirt, almost exactly where his navel had to be. The stain spread and spread, and soon his pants and shirt were wet with blood. Uncle Lu groaned quietly, then tipped forward and lay motionless.

Luise lowered her Derringer, from which a small puff of smoke rose to the cupola, and breathed out deeply.

“You . . . you’ve killed him.” By now Sara had scrambled to her feet. She was still bent over in pain and clutching her stomach, but at least she could speak again, more or less. “Damn you! What did that old man ever do to you?”

“He poked his nose into things that are none of his business.” Luise stood up and handed the little pistol to one of her paladins. “And he’s not dead. See for yourself.” She pointed to Zöller’s body. A slight tremor passed through it; his rib cage rose and fell faintly. “I suppose the bullet didn’t hit a major organ. Maybe he can still be saved, but he doesn’t have much time left.”

“Then call a doctor!” Steven cried. “At once!”

The industrialist smiled. “I’ll call a doctor. I’ll even have a specialist flown in from Munich if it’s necessary. But not until you tell me the answer to the puzzle. So where did Marot hide it?”

“Hide
what?
” Steven turned Zöller’s heavy body over on its back. He looked at Luise, bewildered. “Why would Marot have hidden anything?”

“Don’t lie to me!”
the industrialist screeched. Once again she seemed to have slipped into the world of her delusions. “The puzzle leads somewhere. Out with it, before I shoot another one of you.”

“What are you raving on about?” Sara asked defiantly. “We don’t know of any place. All we have are the titles of a few poems and a whole lot of numbers, nothing more.” Meanwhile she had hurried over to Zöller and unbuttoned his shirt. Cautiously, she felt his weak pulse. “You ought to have waited a little longer before firing that shot. Without Uncle Lu, we’ll never find out what the solution to the puzzle is. Steven hasn’t even finished reading the book yet.”