The Ludwig Conspiracy

  “Manstein, yes, I know.” Steven nodded and pointed up at the Grotto of Venus. “Listen, couldn’t I take a little look all the same?”

  “Forget it,” the steward said. “Better find somewhere else to go for a walk.” His walkie-talkie squawked, and he turned abruptly away as he muttered unintelligibly into it.

  Steven waited for the man to be out of sight, and then he turned around. He walked back the way he had come, until a narrow path turned off into the wood to the right. There was another tape barrier here, too, with a notice in red lettering dangling on it.

  NO ENTRY. PRIVATE FUNCTION.

  Rather undecided, Steven stopped in front of it, but there was no steward to be seen.

  What the hell, he thought. It’s not like they’re going to shoot me.

  After looking carefully around once more, he slipped under the tape and climbed the steep path that led to the upper part of the park. He heard laughter and the occasional car engine in the distance, but apart from that, it was quiet among the beech, spruce, and linden trees.

  Another shady path branched off to the right, leading Steven to a small mound of rocks. Past it was a door-shaped stone slab with a keyhole. Knocking gently, he sensed a hollow space behind the slab.

  The entrance to the Grotto of Venus.

  Should he just go in? Once again Steven looked around, but apart from a few curious squirrels, he couldn’t see a soul. He took a deep breath and pushed the stone slab.

  At the same moment, the revolving door concealed in the rock opened in front of him, and a woman in her midforties with short gray hair came out.

  “Can I help you?” she asked sharply, inspecting Steven as if he were a piece of garbage.

  The bookseller was so surprised that at first he was at a loss for words. Only after what felt like an eternity did he finally get his mouth open. “I . . . I only wanted to see the grotto,” he stammered.

  “Forget it. It’s closed today.” The gray-haired woman folded her arms and looked challengingly at him. Her close-fitting pantsuit and lack of makeup gave her an austere, masculine appearance.

  “Oh, how stupid,” Steven said. “Now what am I going to tell my boss when I come home without a story?”

  “Story?” The stranger, probably another steward herself, raised her right eyebrow. Apart from that, her attitude had not thawed one bit.

  “Er . . . I’m Greg Landsdale from the Wisconsin News.” Following a sudden inspiration, Steven brought out his crumpled notepad and a pencil, and bowed to her slightly. “I’m writing a story for our readers in Milwaukee about Ludwig’s fairy-tale castles. Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee, Linderhof . . . A great many people locally are descended from German immigrants who are interested in that kind of thing. Oh man . . . I fly back to the States tomorrow, and my boss said I absolutely had to visit the Grotto of Venus or he’d have my head.”

  Steven spoke with a strong American accent, trying to sound like a provincial Milwaukee reporter who had studied German for a few semesters. He had remembered, just in time, that David, Sara’s ex-boyfriend, had traveled in these clothes as a magazine journalist. Steven gave the woman a beaming all-American smile—the world belongs to me—while sweat dripped into the collar of his leather jacket.

  “Just a little look?” he asked, twinkling at her. “The United States of America will be grateful to you.”

  The woman eyed him suspiciously, and then without a word went back inside the cave. Unsure what to do, the bookseller was lingering at the entrance when he heard the woman’s voice come out of the grotto, with a slight echo.

  “Well, come on then. Hurry up before I change my mind.”

  Steven breathed a sigh of relief. The woman hadn’t even asked to see his press pass. He followed her into the cave, which at first was only a narrow passage with a few niches in the rock, but broadened into a large hall. It was all exactly as it had been described in Marot’s diary. The shell-shaped golden boat rocked gently on the lake. Beyond it, at the back of the cave, was the painting from Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser, and in front of the painting there was a small stage made of artificial stone. Only the lighting, the swell of the waves, and the swans were missing.

  “It . . . it’s magnificent!” Steven cried enthusiastically as he looked around desperately for any sign left by Marot.

  “It is indeed. A magnificent illusion, and a masterpiece of technology,” said the woman, pointing to the stalactites hanging from the roof. “All that is only linen sprayed with cement. There was a machine to make artificial waves, and a device to project a rainbow. The lighting installation responsible for the red and blue light in the grotto was driven by twenty-four dynamos.”

  “Dynamos? Lighting installation?” Steven was intrigued. “I thought the king lived in the nineteenth century?”

  “And was well ahead of his time,” the woman said. “Neuschwanstein Castle has one of the first telephones, the moon-lamp of his sleigh was battery-powered, and he even planned to build a flying machine. Ludwig tried to unite technology and nature into a single whole.”

  “You obviously know a lot about it,” Steven said, smiling. “Is it a hobby or your profession?”

  The woman’s lips narrowed in a thin smile. “My vocation, if you like. Only those who know the roots of technology can see its future.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t entirely understand,” the bookseller replied. “Are you responsible for maintaining this grotto?”

  At this the woman genuinely laughed, a soft, gurgling sound like a babbling brook. “Not entirely; my business is with computers.” She gave him a small bow. “Luise Manstein of Manstein Systems.”

  Steven nearly dropped his notepad. “You . . . you’re Herr . . . I mean Frau Manstein?” he stammered. Only now did he register the fact that the middle-aged lady’s suit was perfectly cut, and she was wearing an expensive perfume. “But I thought . . .”

  “That I would be a man.” The head of Manstein Systems nodded. “Women in leading positions always have to contend with that prejudice. The fact is that my dear husband died more than ten years ago. I have been running the company since then, and I think I may say that I do it well.” She gave Steven a sharp look. “Our revenue has increased by almost fifty percent in that time, and we have expanded considerably.”

  “Forgive me, I didn’t . . .”

  Luise Manstein waved this away. “Forget it. I don’t have much time. As you probably know, I have planned a private birthday party for today. Part of it will take place in here, too. So if there’s anything else you want to know, please hurry up.”

  Steven industriously brought out his pencil and concentrated on where Theodor Marot might have hidden a clue. In his mind he went through everything that the assistant doctor had written about the grotto.

  The king’s favorite spot . . . the boat like a huge seashell . . . the red and blue light . . . the painting from Tannhäuser . . .

  The bookseller started. Sure enough, Marot had written at some length about the picture. Could there be something hidden in it? Maybe hinting at a theme that would get him and Sara farther forward? Some legendary figure, relating to the subject of love, that they had forgotten? A name of some kind?

  “Er . . . the painting over there?” He pointed to the large canvas, which showed a handsome man enchanted by the scene and surrounded by half-naked women and cherubs. “What does it mean?”

  “Interesting that you ask about that in particular,” Luise said. “It is known as Tannhäuser with Lady Venus and illustrates the first act of Wagner’s famous opera. The knight Tannhäuser visits the pagan goddess and stays in her cave.” She pointed to the stalactites under the roof. “This hall is intended to be Venus’s Cave, and at the same time it is modeled on the Blue Grotto of Capri. Ludwig took refuge here from the modern world when he found it too menacing.” She looked at Steven, who was busily pretending to make notes as she talked. “How about yourself, Mr. Landsdale? Don’t you, too, sometimes feel that the present day is threatening?” br />
  More than you can begin to imagine, Steven thought.

  “Not really,” he replied. “And Ludwig himself was obviously inconsistent if he wanted to live in an old-fashioned fairy tale, but at the same time he had Siemens dynamos clattering away here.”

  “As I said, it’s a matter of uniting the new and the old.” Luise Manstein abruptly turned to the way out of the cave. “But now we really must go. I have a good deal to do before this evening.”

  Steven hurried after her. “But I still have so many questions to ask.”

  And what’s more, damn it, I still have no idea where I ought to be looking, or what for.

  At the exit from the grotto, the industrialist stopped and locked the door in the rock behind them with a large, rusty key. Then she gave Steven a long, searching look.

  “Did you know that Ludwig gave an interview to a newspaper only once in his life?” she suddenly asked. “It was with an American journalist, and they talked about Edgar Allan Poe. So don’t underestimate King Ludwig. In certain areas he was way ahead of his time.” She hesitated for a moment, and then her hard face relaxed and she smiled almost girlishly. “I’ll tell you something, Mr. Landsdale: I like you. Come to my little party this evening, will you? Maybe we’ll have a chance to talk some more.” She handed him two gleaming golden plastic tickets. “This is your security pass. And another for a companion in case you’d like to bring one. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

  Without another word, she went away along the path and soon disappeared among the trees.

  SARA LENGFELD TURNED up about midday.

  Her lemon yellow Mini Cooper pulled up, brakes shrieking, on the hotel forecourt as Steven, sitting in the restaurant, was leafing through Marot’s notes yet again. When he looked through the restaurant window and saw Sara coming, he hurried to meet her.

  “Where in heaven’s name have you been?” he asked. “I was worried about you!”

  Sara, a broad grin on her face, held up a thin white box about the size of a lady’s purse.

  “I’ve been shopping in Garmisch. A MacBook Pro with a 500-gigabyte hard disk and one of those superfast Intel Core 17 processors. I’ve always wanted one of those.”

  “And you had to go off to buy it now?”

  “Herr Lukas, just because you’re still writing with a quill pen doesn’t mean I have to do the same. Someone wrecked my smartphone in your basement, remember? And this will make our search a whole lot easier. I’ve already downloaded a pair of deciphering programs, and if we want to surf the Net, we don’t have to go to the hotel lobby anymore. How about a word of thanks for a change?”

  “Thank you, Frau Lengfeld.”

  “You couldn’t manage to make it a tad chillier, maybe, Mr. Freeze?”

  Steven took Sara aside and gripped her hard by the shoulders. “Listen,” he whispered, “I really don’t have time for this nonsense right now. Marot’s account indicates that there could be a clue in the Grotto of Venus. I was there early this morning, although . . .”

  Sara looked at him in surprise. “You were there? I thought it was closed.”

  “Believe it or not, Frau Lengfeld, I can do quite a lot with my quill pen.”

  Steven filled her in about his meeting with Luise Manstein in the Grotto of Venus. He ended by telling her about the invitation.

  “You want me to go to some party for a bunch of pompous idiots given by Manstein Systems?” she asked. “Warm prosecco, small talk, boring, boring, boring . . . Christ, as if I didn’t get that all year round at gallery openings.”

  “Then I’m sure you can manage it one more time.” Steven looked at her hard. “Don’t you understand? This may be our last chance to search the grotto. So pull yourself together.” He raised an admonitory forefinger. “You were the one who wanted me to get involved, remember? ‘The greatest coup an antiquarian bookseller can land’—those were your words. So don’t let me down now.”

  Sara sighed, then suddenly turned and walked to her car.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Steven called after her.

  “Where do you think? Back to Garmisch.” Wrinkling her nose, she held up the hem of her green wool skirt. “You don’t suppose I’m going to some hoity-toity party with you in this getup, do you?”

  15

  THE PARTY THAT EVENING outdid all expectations. Steven and Sara stood beside a statue, a little way apart from the other guests, and from that vantage point watched the high society of Bavaria celebrating with champagne and caviar. A heated marquee had been put up outside the castle, with a small string orchestra in Baroque costumes and wigs playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Although it was nearly mid-October, many of the guests, adorned with Venetian masks, were only lightly clad as they strolled in the park, which looked like a bright fairy-tale land lit by torches and candles. Butlers in frock coats served canapés and glasses of bubbling champagne; farther off, a magician with his face painted white held onlookers spellbound with a top hat and a rabbit. Women stalked around the arbors and gardens in their cocktail dresses like exotic jungle birds, accompanied by gentlemen in classic double-breasted suits whose every gesture spoke of power and authority. Carriages drawn by teams of four horses took the guests over to the nearby hotel, where the party would continue.

  With a sour expression, Sara sipped from her glass and then poured out the contents on the gravel path. “You’d think they could lay on a better champagne for such a fancy party,” she grumbled. “And the salmon rolls taste like cotton batting.”

  “Oh, stop complaining. We’re not here to eat and drink,” Steven said. “Just enjoy the atmosphere a bit.”

  Unobtrusively, he looked down at himself. He wore a black suit with a shirt and bow tie, all of which he had bought with the last of his cash as he shopped with Sara. He felt properly dressed for the first time in days. Only the glittering silver mask over his eyes bothered him, but he had finally let Sara persuade him to wear it. After all, it was perfectly possible that one of the guests would have seen his photograph on TV or in a newspaper. He wasn’t so conspicuous among all the other masked guests. The diary was safely locked in their hotel room’s safe.

  The art detective, too, wore a Venetian mask with her dress. After much deliberation, she had opted for a red evening dress cut very low in the back, a Prada jacket, and high-heeled shoes with pointed toes. Considering that the art detective had made such a fuss about going to the party, she had spent quite a lot on her outfit. All the same, he thought it had been worth it.

  If she didn’t have such a sharp tongue, it would be easy to fall in love with her, he thought. But no doubt I’d have to be at least ten years younger to have any chance.

  “There’s some kind of Wagner event going on in the grotto,” Steven said, dismissing his thoughts. “But when it’s over we can go and have a look around.”

  The art detective nodded abstractedly and went on watching the guests, frowning. You know, Manstein Systems have actually booked Mario Baldoni for the Wagner event.”

  “The Baldoni?”

  “Yep, the world-famous tenor. He’s singing right now in the seashell boat, in front of about thirty people. Wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve also hired a couple of genuine nymphs for the lake. Oh, and look over there.”

  She pointed to a tall, stout man in a noticeably ill-fitting suit, approaching Luise Manstein. The industrialist wore a close-fitting gray jacket and skirt, with a sparkling ring on one finger. When she recognized the man, she smiled, and offered him her hand to kiss.

  “Well, at least we now know why the lady there is throwing herself a party,” Sara said. “The interior minister of Bavaria himself has done her the honor of attending. Now they can negotiate the next party donation over champagne and caramel mousse.”

  “Why are you always so negative?” Steven asked crossly. “I’ve made inquiries, and the money coming in here is used exclusively to restore the castle.”

  “Sure, and I’m Mother Teresa.”

  Sighing, Steven ga
ve up and ate his salmon canapé. He had to admit that Sara was right; the little roll really did taste like cotton batting spread with mayonnaise. He put his plate down and watched Luise Manstein talking to the interior minister. She had not given Steven so much as a glance since the party began. Only when the minister had left her, with a bow, did her eyes chance to fall on Steven. Her lips twisted in an ironic smile as she raised her glass to him.

  “Ah, our American journalist,” she called cheerfully. “I almost failed to recognize you with that mask on. Are you enjoying my birthday party?”

  “It’s . . . more than spectacular,” Steven replied hesitantly. “I thought only movie stars threw parties like this.”

  Smiling, Luise Manstein came a few steps closer to him. “Parties are always theatrical performances as well, don’t you agree? Think of Ludwig—I’m sure he’d have enjoyed this one. After all, his whole life was nothing but an ostentatious spectacle.”

  “I admit I’ve never thought of it like that.”

  “Well, you should. That explains much of his bizarre behavior, interpreted by posterity as derangement. It’s all a question of perspective.” The industrialist looked attentively at Steven. “Have we already met somewhere? You seem familiar to me somehow.”

  “Sorry, no.” Steven shook his head, hoping desperately that she didn’t read the local papers. “Not that I know of.”

  “Well, be that as it may—if you’ll excuse me now, I have a couple of important guests to welcome.”

  Luise Manstein turned away with something like a wink, and Sara audibly spat out her prosecco. “More than spectacular! Wow, you certainly buttered her up. If you ask me, the old trout wants to get you into bed.” She went on in a falsetto. “‘Have we already met somewheeeere?’ What a laugh!”

  “That’s nonsense. It’s known as civility, Frau Lengfeld. A word that obviously isn’t part of your vocabulary.” Steven bit grimly into his smoked salmon canapé. He would have liked a little more conversation with Luise Manstein. Her brusque way of leaving just now annoyed him more than he wanted to show Sara.