The Ludwig Conspiracy

  “Thank you, Herr Zöller. Uncle Paul often talked about you.” The art detective took a deep breath before going on. “To be frank, we’re here because we want to find out more about his death. We think the murder had something to do with the mysteries surrounding King Ludwig the Second.” She pointed to Steven beside her. “My friend here, an antiquarian bookseller from Munich, was the last person to see my uncle alive. Paul left something behind with him. Something mysterious, and we need your help.”

  “Just a moment.” Uncle Lu frowned, which made him look like an angry bison. He scrutinized Steven without moving. What felt like an eternity passed before Zöller finally moved again.

  “Aren’t you the fellow the police are looking for in connection with Paul’s murder?” he finally asked.

  “Herr Zöller, I give you my word that Herr Lukas has nothing to do with it,” Sara said soothingly. “It’s all a big misunderstanding. If you’ll let us in, I can explain everything to you.”

  “Your word of honor, eh?” Uncle Lu shook his broad head thoughtfully, as if he were x-raying the bookseller through his reading glasses. “Very well,” he said at last, “but only because you’re Paul’s niece.”

  The old man abruptly turned to the house, almost bumping into the door frame. Sara and Steven followed him into a little room that seemed to be both kitchen and living room.

  There was an old-fashioned white enamel stove against the back wall. A scratched table with several books open on it stood in one corner. In another, they saw a sofa and a TV set; Steven thought it was probably still a black-and-white one. A door with flowered wallpaper over it led to a backroom.

  “I was just going to make myself tea and work on my book,” Uncle Lu said. “Would you like some tea yourselves?”

  Steven nodded. “Thank you, yes. What kind of book are you writing?”

  “It’s on Ludwig’s connection with Edgar Allan Poe.” Zöller shrugged his shoulders and filled three cracked cups with a steaming-hot brown brew. “Not that I expect any publishing house to take an interest in it. Just like my last five books. All the same, plenty of journalists come knocking at my door. Good God, what are you gawking at in that stupid way?”

  Steven jumped. He had been staring at the stout old man. His likeness to Ludwig II was indeed striking.

  “It’s only because . . . er . . .” he began carefully. But Uncle Lu interrupted him with an impatient gesture.

  “Yes, yes, I know that I look like him,” he growled. “I was often invited to act as his double at meetings of those loyal to the king’s memory. But I won’t have any more to do with those demented royalists. Too many nut cases, not a serious scholar among them.” Zöller slurped his tea with relish. “Well, never mind that. You’re here because of Paul. So how can I help you?”

  Sara quickly cleared her throat, and then she began telling him their story—about her uncle’s murder, the find of the little treasure chest, the mysterious diary, and their search for the crucial keyword. She left out only their pursuit at Linderhof and the Cowled Men. As she told her tale, Uncle Lu sat there as if turned to stone. He seemed to have forgotten his tea entirely. When Sara came to the end of the story at last, he said nothing for some time. Then he spoke up.

  “This little chest with the diary,” he began quietly. “Could I have a look at it?”

  “Of course.” Steven unzipped his backpack and took the container out. Reverently, as if he were in a church, Zöller stroked the lacquered wood; then he lifted the lid and took out the photographs, the lock of hair, and the book. He arranged them on the table as if they were magical artifacts.

  “Can it be possible?” he whispered. “Did he really write it all down?”

  “What do you mean?” Sara asked, looking attentively at the old man. “Have you heard about this book before?”

  “There have been . . . theories,” Uncle Lu replied hesitantly. “Nothing precise. Shortly after the king’s death, Dr. Schleiss von Loewenfeld and Theodor Marot expressed their opinions to a small circle of friends. But the sources are vague. And now this . . .”

  He carefully opened the diary and looked surprised to see the secret writing.

  “It’s the Shelton’s shorthand that I told you about,” Sara said, and pointed to Steven. “Herr Lukas has managed to decipher it. We’ve also deciphered part of a Vigenère code. But as for the titles of those poems . . .” She sighed. “To be honest, we’re at a loss.”

  “Ludwig and very likely Theodor Marot, too, were profoundly romantic characters.” Uncle Lu leafed thoughtfully through the yellowed pages of the diary. “So it’s not surprising if the assistant physician used those poems as a code. More interesting is what he wanted to encode. And above all, why Paul was killed for getting involved.” He looked deep into Steven’s eyes. “I’ll believe that you had nothing to do with his murder, Herr Lukas. But if you’re lying to me, I’ll deal with you in exactly the same way as those deranged men dealt with Paul. Understand?”

  “On my word of honor, I really had nothing to do with . . .” Steven began, but Sara interrupted him.

  “You haven’t told us yet what you know about the book,” she said in a loud voice, changing the subject. “Obviously it’s far more than we’ve managed to find out.”

  “Very well.” Breathing heavily, Uncle Lu rose from his chair and adjusted his pants. His stomach hung over his belt like a squashed medicine ball. “It’s about time I let you into my holy of holies. And bring that with you, for heaven’s sake.” He pointed to the little box containing the diary. “It mustn’t fall into the wrong hands no matter what.”

  Without another word, he shuffled toward the door at the back of the room.

  “YOU’RE . . . ER, renovating?”

  Disappointed, Steven looked around the room on the other side of the door. He had expected a library, a study, at least a desk covered by documents. But what he saw was a combination of a living room and a temporary toolshed. Newspapers were stacked on a shabby armchair; an old Bakelite telephone stood on an otherwise-empty bookcase along the back wall. To the left was a row of old crates that had once held fruit, with assorted drills, screwdrivers, and a sledgehammer sticking out of them.

  “Forgive the mess, but I have to extend the place again,” Uncle Lu said. “And since my wife died—God rest her soul—my housekeeping here has left something to be desired. You get to feel increasingly lonely.”

  Steven nodded sympathetically, although most of his sympathy was for the dead woman who had put up with this eccentric for so long. He also wondered where Zöller was planning to build an extension in this little house with all its nooks and crannies. At a loss, the bookseller looked at Sara, who merely shrugged.

  “What’s the point of this?” Steven whispered to her. “The man’s a compulsive hoarder. How is he going to help us?”

  “Shut up,” Sara hissed. “Look over there.”

  Steven turned back to Uncle Lu, who now stood by the empty bookcase and pushed it aside, breathing heavily. Behind it, an opening came into view, with a flight of stairs leading down beyond it.

  “Careful, the stairs are very steep,” Zöller said, going ahead. In surprise, Sara and Steven followed him along the narrow downward climb, and finally reached a dark cellar. When Zöller switched on the light, the bookseller gasped.

  The room was at least as large as the entire ground floor of the house above them. Shelves of the finest grained cherrywood reached to the ceiling on all sides and were crammed with books, folios, and files. In the middle of the cellar stood an old mahogany table, with a brand-new computer, a laser printer, and a scanner on it. Halogen lamps fixed to steel cables bathed the scene in muted light.

  “My cabinet of curiosities,” Uncle Lu announced. “It contains everything that has been written about King Ludwig.” He pointed to the opposite wall. “And there’s another room behind one of the bookcases; I’m extending it at the moment. The torrent of rumors and information about the Fairy-tale King never dries up.”

/>   Steven stared, open-mouthed, at the vast archive. He knew several large private collections, but this exceeded anything he could have imagined.

  “How . . . how many books do you have here?” he asked reverently.

  “Exactly three thousand one hundred fifty-seven,” Uncle Lu proudly replied. “Some of them are in Japanese. Some are even in Finnish. As well as countless files, newspaper reports, and much other information that I’ve scanned onto my hard drive. It’s astonishing what an echo a single man can set going all over the world. But here we have the most valuable item.”

  Zöller went up to a framed oil painting of the king hung between two bookcases. When he took it down, a safe came into view. The old man laboriously entered the combination and finally took out a bundle that he placed reverently on the desk.

  Only at a second glance did Steven realize that he was looking at a torn, pale summer coat. On the back there were two black-rimmed holes the size of marbles. The entire garment was flecked with bloodstains.

  “The king’s coat,” Albert Zöller whispered. “The coat he was wearing on the night of the murder.”

  Sara stuck her finger into one of the frayed black holes. “They really were made by gunshots,” she said. She turned to Zöller. “But how do you know that this is really the coat the king was wearing at the time of his death? It could have belonged to anyone.”

  Uncle Lu shook his head vigorously. “The coat comes from the estate of an old countess who credibly convinced several people in the 1950s that it had belonged to the king. She herself always insisted that Ludwig had been shot and the coat exchanged at the scene of the crime.”

  “What became of this countess?” Steven asked.

  “She died in an unexplained fire in her apartment. Luckily the coat was saved from the flames.”

  Sara frowned. “Do you really mean she was killed because she knew the truth about the king’s death?”

  “I don’t mean anything.” Uncle Lu shrugged. “All the same, I think it’s better for as few people as possible to know that this coat is in my hands.”

  “But what does all this have to do with Marot’s diary?” interrupted Steven impatiently.

  “Wait a minute,” Zöller snapped. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  Once again he went to the little safe, and this time he came back with three notebook-sized portrait sketches mounted on a piece of cardboard. They looked old and were stained. Steven thought he saw the marks left by water when it dried.

  “These drawings are by the portrait painter Hermann Kaulbach, who carried out many commissions for Ludwig the Second,” Uncle Lu said. With his fat fingers, he pointed to the two outer pictures. “These two are the personal physician, Max Schleiss von Loewenfeld, and the king’s equerry, Richard Hornig. There are rumors that they were on Lake Starnberg, with Marot and Kaulbach, on the night of the murder. The sketches were done in the rain, very fast, probably on that ill-omened day, the thirteenth of June 1886. You ought to recognize the man in the central picture for yourselves.” Zöller paused while Steven and Sara stared at the portrait of a stout middle-aged gentleman with a beard. His eyes were closed, his mouth open in a silent scream. Dark blood flowed from the left corner of his mouth.

  It was the face of the king.

  “Some people claim that Kaulbach sketched Ludwig the Second only minutes after his death,” Zöller said in a low voice. “Loewenfeld and Marot are said to have been there, and were, so to speak, the first eyewitnesses. The physician’s assistant spoke of murder later, and so did Hornig, the equerry. And Loewenfeld was silenced.” He heaved a deep sigh. “I haven’t been able to prove all this yet. But now here you are, with this diary . . .”

  “Can you explain why Uncle Paul had to die for the sake of that little box?” Sara asked. “Obviously someone still cares a lot about this little book, even after more than a century.”

  Uncle Lu scratched his unshaven, fleshy face and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Let me think. A scholar perhaps, wanting to grab the glory for himself? Or maybe the Wittelsbachs. Large parts of the archive of the royal house are still not accessible to the public. The family is very anxious for Ludwig’s death to remain a mystery.”

  “Do you think they would kill for it?” Steven asked skeptically.

  Zöller shook his head. “Not really. Although I’m sure the Wittelsbachs would very much like to know what’s in the book. But they have barred all access to any form of enlightenment about the matter for decades. If it were finally possible to examine Ludwig’s body in St. Michael’s Church in Munich, then the cause of his death could surely be established.” He sighed deeply. “But you might as well ask them to sell Neuschwanstein to the Japanese. The Wittelsbachs don’t play games, especially when it’s about Ludwig, a member of their family.”

  “How about the Cowled Men?” Sara asked.” Could they have anything to do with it?”

  Uncle Lu laughed so much that his cheeks shook like a fat dog’s jowls. “Those crazy bastards? The last time I heard anything of them, they wanted to mint euros with Ludwig on them, because they don’t like the Prussian eagle.” He leaned over to Sara. “Did you know there’s a theory that the Cowled Men are just the invention of a Cologne advertising agency? An interesting idea.”

  Steven was tempted for a moment to tell Albert Zöller that that crazy bunch had lain in wait for him twice already, but he decided against it. They wanted Uncle Lu to help them. It would be better not to alarm the old man unnecessarily, not that he looked afraid of very much.

  Sara changed the subject. “If your story is true, and Loewenfeld and Marot really were eyewitnesses, then it will certainly say so in the book,” she began. “And someone or other wants to prevent its coming to light. Only who, and why? And what about those coded words? Obviously there’s some far greater secret they don’t want aired.” Wearily, she rubbed her eyes. “I suppose there’s no other option—we must decipher the rest of the diary. Maybe we’ll discover the murderer that way.” She pointed to Steven’s backpack, which held the diary. “Herr Lukas and I think the next keyword is hidden at Herrenchiemsee.”

  “Herrenchiemsee?” Zöller asked, astonished.

  Steven nodded. “It’s the next word written in capitals in Marot’s account. Like Linderhof before it. And Marot left us another clue by adding the word KOENIG, king, in capitals. But I rather doubt that we’ll find anything at Herrenchiemsee. After all, the island there is much larger than the castle grounds of Linderhof.”

  Uncle Lu’s eyes lit up. “So there’s a puzzle to be solved,” he whispered. “Am I right in assuming that you want me to help you?”

  Sara smiled. “Would you do that?”

  “Would I do that?” Once again Zöller burst out laughing, so that his big belly hopped up and down like a being with a life of its own. “You’d have to tie me up and leave me here to make sure I don’t help you.” Suddenly he was serious again. Puffing as he rose from his chair, he went over to the bookshelves and picked out a stack of thick folios. “Better begin right away,” he murmured, lost in thought. “There are about a hundred books on Herrenchiemsee here. Do you think we can fit them all in your car?”

  17

  SOMETHING IN THE CAR beeped, but Steven couldn’t make out what it was. He twiddled the radio, checked the air conditioning, and tapped the instrument panel, but the beeping went on.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked, looking helplessly at Sara, who was now behind the wheel again. “Is your Mini by any chance giving up the ghost?”

  “If so it’s because we’re overloaded.” Sara pointed behind her to where Uncle Lu sat on the rear seat like a fat giant in a toy car. Zöller’s massive head brushed against the roof, and his knees poked Steven’s back through the upholstery. All the same, the old man seemed to be pleased with life, mainly on account of the laundry basket that was slipping back and forth beside him at every bend in the road. It was crammed with books. Now and then Uncle Lu picked up one of these large tomes, leafe
d through it, and made notes on a greasy little writing pad.

  “The Herreninsel in the Chiemsee covers almost five hundred seventy acres, and the lake has a circumference of more than four miles,” he growled without looking up. “A small world unto itself. Ludwig even wanted to build a little railroad on it, like the one on the fictional island of Lummerland in Michael Ende’s book. You know Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, don’t you? Ever heard of that children’s book?”

  “Herr Zöller, all I can hear right now is beeping,” Steven said, his nerves on edge. “And it’s driving me crazy.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Uncle Lu put his hand to his right ear and fiddled with something. The beeping stopped. “My hearing aid. Must have misadjusted it.”

  “Oh.” Wearily, Steven closed his eyes and tried to get a bit of rest. They had been on the road for almost three hours, and the car smelled of male sweat, cow dung, and the smoke of Sara’s menthol cigarettes. It was making him feel slightly unwell. The drive had taken them along small, winding country roads, through quiet villages, past chapels, and into the Chiemgau district. They had twice had to wait as a farmer drove his herd of cows across the road at a leisurely pace, and once they lost their way so badly that the Mini almost got stuck in a stinking manure heap in a blind alley. Now, at last, the blue waters of the Chiemsee opened out before them, looking near enough to touch and apparently going all the way to the first mountains of the Alps. All around, green hills and meadows lay in the fall sunlight like something out of a glossy brochure from the Upper Bavaria Tourist Board.

  “Damn bleak around here,” Sara muttered, lighting herself a new cigarette. “I really don’t know why so many city dwellers want to move to the country. It stinks of cow shit.”

  “Ludwig loved these lonely places,” came Uncle Lu’s deep voice from the back seat. “He disliked Munich. If he’d had his way, he would probably have lived in a remote Alpine valley with a few mountain farmers.”