As Sara struggled up, her right hand met the little box containing the diary. She snatched it up and crawled on through the smoke-filled room on all fours. She heard suppressed coughing somewhere, and soon after that saw someone curled up in a corner, barely moving. Cautiously coming closer, she saw that it was Steven. He had drawn up his knees in the fetal position and was staring apathetically into the smoke. A slight tremor ran through his body.
“Steven, what is it?” Sara whispered. “What’s the matter?”
“The . . . the fire,” the bookseller answered. His eyes were vacant. “It’s like that time in the library. My parents . . . they’re somewhere in there.”
Sara shook him. “You’re dreaming! We’re in the museum at Herrenchiemsee. Your parents died years ago.”
“I . . . I heard screaming. They’re burning alive. It’s my fault; it’s all my fault!”
“You didn’t hear your parents—it was the Cowled Men,” Sara hissed desperately. “Someone shot their boss. And it’s not a fire in here—it’s some kind of smoke bomb. There’s someone in this room, and if we don’t hurry, he’s going to shoot us the way he shot that Herr Huber.”
“Must . . . must hide,” Steven whimpered. “I’ve ruined everything. The library’s on fire. Mom and Dad won’t find me in the teahouse . . .”
“Damn it, what teahouse? What are you talking about? Steven, you leave me no choice.” With all her might, she gave the trembling bookseller a slap in the face that brought him halfway back to consciousness. He shook himself and, dazed, felt his cheek.
“That hurt.”
“It was meant to. Now, we have to get out of here.”
Sara hauled the still-lethargic Steven up by his arms until he could stand on his own. Then, together, they stumbled and groped their way through the room, hoping to find a way out through the smoke.
“I think we ought to look for that boat,” Sara gasped, the smoke constricting her throat more and more. “There was a door into the next room with the marble statue there. Then if we go right and straight ahead, we ought to . . .”
She stopped dead when she heard soft footsteps only a few yards away. There was a steady hissing sound, as if from a pair of bellows being blown.
“Oh God, there’s someone here!” Sara froze where she was and clung to Steven. They waited in silence until the footsteps and the hissing sound died away. The bookseller signed to her to stay quiet, then drew her into the back right-hand corner of the smoke-filled room. His expression was tense but concentrated. Sara heaved a sigh of relief; Steven seemed to have overcome his strange trauma.
Suddenly there was a scraping sound, this time from the other side of the room. Sara still held the little treasure chest, clutching it to her breast like a talisman. Her heart thudded; she expected to hear the “pop” of the silencer at any moment, followed by unbearable pain. The smoke around them was still so thick that she couldn’t see more than a pace in front of her. With difficulty, she fought down her urge to cough. Any sound now, however slight, might give them away.
She was about to steal along beside the wall with Steven, hoping to find one of the two passages at some point, when a figure emerged from the vapor ahead of them.
The figure looked like a giant out of a fairy tale, and this giant was in a very, very bad mood.
The strange figure was more than six feet tall. He wore jeans, a black leather coat, and a close-fitting pullover. In one hand he held a long, slim pistol with a silencer; in the other a flashlight the length of his forearm. The worst thing, however, was his head. His face was covered by a black gas mask, which gave him the look of a monstrous fly.
“Hello, Sara,” Lancelot said. His voice came through the gas mask in a curiously muted hiss. “Not very nice to Papa, were you? But now you have all the time in the world to make up for it.”
STEVEN FOUGHT WITH all his might against his rising faintness. Once again, parts of his childhood took shape before his eyes.
When he saw the giant striding toward him through the smoke, he thought at first he was seeing the firefighter in the gas mask who had carried him away from the ivy-covered teahouse on that dreadful evening. His parents’ screams had died away, and Steven had opened the pagoda door a little way to glance out at the fire, now lighting up the whole street like a hundred searchlights. The party guests were still standing around the large garden in dinner jackets and evening dresses, staring at the burning villa. Many of them were shedding tears; others held handkerchiefs over their mouths to protect themselves from flying ash.
All my fault . . . Mom and Dad will be very cross . . .
Steven had finally been given away by his whimpering. The gigantic firefighter had found him in the teahouse, picked him up like a kitten, and carried him through the smoke and outside.
But when he saw the black pistol in the giant’s hand, Steven knew that he was facing not good but the depths of evil. This must be the man who had lain in wait for Sara at Linderhof; now the bookseller could understand why she had called him the worst nightmare of her life.
And you are my nightmare, too, although you don’t know why . . .
Beside him, Sara screamed, while the tall stranger calmly trained his gun on the bookseller.
“Good evening, Herr Lukas,” he growled. The smoke was beginning to clear, and the man pushed his gas mask up. He had a scar on his face and wore a black-colored eye patch. “I have a score to settle with your girlfriend,” he went on in a deep, sonorous voice. “I suggest you go to sleep for a while now, and then the two of us will be taking a little journey.” He smiled and ran the muzzle of his pistol over his lips, which were moist with sweat. “Sara will be staying here, I’m afraid. She has been a very, very naughty girl. Goodnight now, Herr Lukas.”
Without any warning, the giant swung the pistol and struck Steven a blow over the temple. The bookseller staggered, everything went black before his eyes, and he collapsed.
Surprisingly, he did not entirely lose consciousness; the blow had not been quite hard enough for that. From the floor, Steven saw the dead leader of the Cowled Men lying in front of him, covered in blood. He watched, despairingly, as the giant marched through the drifting smoke toward Sara. There was a fire in her eyes that Steven had never seen there before.
“One more step, you great castrated ox,” she hissed, “and I’ll scratch your other eye out.”
“I hardly think so,” the giant said. “This time I’m better prepared.” He pointed with the pistol to the body of the steersman of the Cowled Men. “I suppose you don’t want to end up like that. So put that damn box down on the floor very slowly, understand?”
Sara nodded and bent to put the treasure chest with the book in it down. At first Steven was surprised to see the art detective comply so quickly, but then he saw how Sara’s eyes were feverishly moving over the floor.
She’s looking for her purse. The thought flashed through his head. She’s looking for her purse with the pistol in it.
Cautiously, the bookseller turned his head the other way. There, only six feet from him, lay Sara’s green purse. Steven swiftly worked out the length of time he would need to draw the pistol and shoot. Two seconds to jump up, with his head still ringing from the giant’s blow, and grab the purse. Then at least three more to open it, take out the gun, and pull the trigger.
Five seconds. Too long, damn it!
Unless someone distracted the giant . . .
At that moment his eyes and Sara’s met. The detective seemed to have guessed at his thoughts, because as soon as she was standing upright again, she spoke to the giant with the pistol.
“I don’t know what you plan to do with the box, but help yourself. You’re welcome to it,” she said in a firm voice. “Good luck finding the book, though.”
The giant looked at her grimly. “And what do you mean by that?”
“I mean the book isn’t in that box, you idiot. The bookseller hid it somewhere. Unfortunately, you’ve knocked him unconscious, and I have no ide
a where it is. You’d better think something up quick if you don’t want to piss off your boss.”
“If you’re trying to fool me . . .” The giant bent over the container and picked it up. Curious, he opened the little box.
At that moment Steven jumped up and ran to the purse. The seconds stretched endlessly. He grabbed the green purse, unzipped it, and brought out the pistol. Shaking, he aimed it at the giant, who had frozen where he stood, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“Ah, you always have to take the safety off a gun first,” the giant said, smiling and pointing to a small lever on the butt of his own pistol. “My gun’s safety is already off, by the way.” At his leisure, he aimed the pistol at Steven’s legs. “The boss did say to take you alive,” he growled. “Never specified in what condition, though. Watch out, this is going to be very, very painful.”
Steven closed his eyes and waited for the shot.
It didn’t come.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the giant was staring at the door on his left in confusion. In the now-clearing smoke, a broad-shouldered figure stood in a voluminous royal cloak, one hand raised in admonition or greeting, his black-haired head angrily thrust forward.
It was Ludwig II.
Steven’s mouth hung open in astonishment. No doubt about it, the man in the vapors was the Fairy-tale King. Incredulous, Steven closed his eyes and then opened them again. But the king was still there.
Am I losing my mind? Is there something in that smoke that sets off hallucinations?
The giant seemed baffled at first, too. He seemed unable to assess the situation. Slowly, he lowered his gun.
“But, Your Majesty . . .” he stammered. “You’re here? I thought . . .”
“Stay your hand, unworthy man,” said a deep, resonant voice, “before my anger strikes you like a flash of lightning from a clear blue sky!”
When Steven heard the voice, he started in surprise. Only now did it occur to him that, even for Ludwig II, the figure was decidedly fat. The smoke was still drifting quite densely over the floor, but the bookseller could see beige front-pleated pants under the royal mantle, and a pair of casual shoes splashed with mud.
Furthermore, this Ludwig wore glasses.
Steven looked at Sara, who had also been staring at the figure in the mist. At the same moment, she seemed to realize, as he did, who the king really was. It took the giant a moment longer.
That was his mistake.
Steven flicked off the safety, aimed into the smoke, and pulled the trigger. After the “pop” of the silencer on the giant’s gun, the sound of the shot that followed was deafening. In spite of the small size of the weapon, the recoil was so violent that the bookseller almost dropped the pistol. For a moment Steven thought he had missed, but then the giant dropped his own pistol and staggered several paces back until the smoke finally swallowed him up. To be on the safe side, Steven fired a few more shots, and then he ran over to Sara.
“Is everything okay?” he cried, reaching for the little treasure chest.
She nodded. Together, they went over to the doorway where the fat king still stood.
“I stole the coronation cloak from one of the broken glass cases,” Albert Zöller panted. “His Majesty will never forgive me, but I had to distract that lunatic’s attention somehow, before he shot you both. Who was he, anyway? Just as I was going over to join you in the museum, the lights went out, there was a crashing and a clanking, and two men came toward me, screaming.”
“We’ll tell you all about it later,” Steven said, ushering the group at a run to the museum exit. At last they reached the castle entrance, where the door was wide open. Outside, rain poured down in torrents, the night was starless, and only occasional flashes of bright lightning passed over the sky. Not until they had reached the fountains did the three fugitives stop to catch their breath.
“Where . . . where do we go now?” Sara asked, turning and looking around her. In spite of the cool fall air, sweat ran down her face, joining the rain to form small streams. “Over to the monastery? At least there’ll be a few people there.”
“I don’t think that’s a great idea.” Zöller frowned. “The security staff will probably have us up against the wall for lèse majesté. I did switch the alarm system off, but when they see all this, they’ll put two and two together. There are some fanatical Ludwig fans among the night watchmen. I doubt that they’d settle for just banning us from Herrenchiemsee for life.” Uncle Lu searched his pants pocket and brought out a scratched cell phone. “I tell you what we’ll do. I’ll call Alois at the Prien fisheries and tell him to pick us up down at the chapel. And then I’ll give myself until morning to work out how we can extricate ourselves from this mess.”
“One way or another we’d better hurry,” Sara said suddenly. “Looks like there’s no way to kill that knight.”
Steven glanced back at the castle, where a figure in a leather coat was staggering through the exit. The man was clutching his right leg, but otherwise he seemed to be uninjured. Pistol in hand, he looked searchingly into the rain-lashed night.
“He’s alive and kicking, Steven, damn it!” Sara cursed. “Where the hell did you learn to shoot? At the Oktoberfest carnival?”
“I wish I had. To tell you the truth, I’d never held a gun in my life before.”
“Get out of here . . . He’s seen us.” Puffing and panting, Albert Zöller ran over to the small tool-filled truck that the gardeners had parked there. The giant seemed to have spotted them. He limped toward them, his gun raised.
“What’s the plan?” Sara called to Uncle Lu, who was now sitting, legs apart, in the driver’s seat of the truck. “Are you planning to hotwire the truck? We don’t have time for that.”
“Didn’t I tell you the head of the security staff gave me all the keys to Herrenchiemsee?” Zöller produced the large, rusty bunch of keys from his pocket. “As far as I remember, there’s a single key for all the minitrucks on this island,” he muttered. “The only question is, which is it . . .” Slowly, he tried to put one of the many keys into the ignition. “No, not this one.”
“Damn it, hurry!” Sara screamed. She and Steven had clambered up on the bed of the truck. “That lunatic will be in firing range any second.”
Sure enough, Steven heard a hiss, and soon after that, stone dust sprayed up from the rim of the basin of the fountain.
“Let’s try this one,” Uncle Lu muttered. “This could be it. Oh no, not this one either.”
Another bullet struck one of the statues in the Fountain of Fortuna. In spite of his injury, the giant was astonishingly fast. He had now covered almost half the distance between them, and Steven could see his face distorted by hatred. He was dragging one leg, and seemed to be in great pain. Now the man stood still again and aimed at the truck. Steven instinctively knew that he wasn’t going to miss this time.
There was a rattle, and the rusty truck leaped forward. With a tinny sound, three more bullets riddled the load surface.
“There we go!” Zöller cried in relief. “As usual, the last key. Now, where’s first gear on this?”
At last the little truck began to move, rattling. It reached a speed of 18 m.p.h., and soon they had left the castle forecourt behind. The figure of the giant grew smaller and smaller. Steven thought he heard one more faint hiss pass above him, and then the woods swallowed them up.
“He’ll follow the tire tracks,” Sara said, staring into the darkness behind them. Small twigs whipped her face, but she didn’t seem to notice them. “He’s not going to give up so easily. Not him.”
“I don’t think he’ll be able to get far with that wound,” said Steven, shrugging his shoulders. “The way he’s limping, I did at least hit his lower leg.”
Sara grinned. “Not bad for five shots fired at point-blank range. Wyatt Earp would have been proud of you.”
“I’d settle for you being proud of me,” Steven said, drawing her close. The little treasure ch
est, wet from the rain, lay safely on his lap. In spite of Sara’s body heat, he was shivering slightly, and not because of the wind and storm. The dark dreams had disappeared, but Steven knew they could come back at any time.
In front of them Uncle Lu, in the king’s voluminous cloak, was squawking into his cell phone. Alois, the fisherman, didn’t seem to be especially amused by his old friend’s nocturnal call, but Zöller had some persuasive arguments. Finally the old man put his cell phone away and grinned at his two passengers.
“I’ve promised Alois the king’s cloak,” he said, turning to them in the back of the truck. “And I’ll probably have to back his chloroform theory at the next meeting. Ah well, it isn’t really such a crazy theory.”
“No crazier than a diary, a dead Cowled Man, and a contract killer in a castle museum,” Sara replied.
A few minutes later they finally reached the little harbor near the chapel. Alois, the fisherman, was waiting for them, with his outboard engine chugging. The stormy wind whistled over the Chiemsee, and the boat was bobbing up and down on the waves like a wet paper ship, but that didn’t seem to bother Alois. The promise of the cloak had improved his temper considerably.
“Lord almighty!” the old fisherman said. “I took you for the king himself. What the devil were you doing over there, Lu?”
“I’ll tell you back at your hut over a beer,” Zöller said. “Now, let’s go, damn it. Otherwise we’ll both be lying dead in the water like Ludwig and Gudden.”
LANCELOT STOOD ON the bank, watching the bobbing boat as it grew smaller and smaller across the heavy swell of the lake. The wound on his left leg hurt like hell, but the giant was sure it was only a graze. A fresh dressing, some disinfectant, and the hunt could go on. That was the good news.
The bad news was that they had escaped him again.
Cursing, Lancelot kicked a rotting wooden post into the water. The king would go berserk. As so often, there would be threats to flay Lancelot alive, or to have him deported to Papua New Guinea.