The Ludwig Conspiracy

  Or like Frau Schultheiss, who just can’t wait to open her fashion boutique, thought Steven.

  Would she really go that far? Had she hired a few thugs to hurry things along and make sure Steven moved out?

  He was so deep in thought that at first he failed to hear the police officer’s next question.

  “Can you tell us if there’s anything missing?” she repeated gently. “Money? Valuable items?” She took out a notepad.

  Steven looked at the chaotic muddle of torn, dirty, soiled, and slashed books, and heard himself laugh quietly.

  “Sorry, silly question,” said the young woman sympathetically. “We’ll just record details of the scene and report back to police HQ, and then you’ll probably want to start cleaning up.”

  She patted him on the shoulder, then went over, notepad in hand, to her colleague, who was dispersing the crowd of onlookers in a loud, official voice.

  Steven said nothing, just went on staring at his wrecked shop. He corrected his earlier impression: this was not just the lousiest day of the year; it looked more like one of the lousiest days of his entire life.

  3

  “ARE YOU OPEN?”

  Steven paused his tidying up, and looked at the broken pane of the display window, which he had sketchily and temporarily mended with sticky tape. It was evening, and an unpleasantly cold wind whistled through the cracks and kept sending torn pages flying about.

  The face of a young woman peeked through the network of black strips of tape. She had dark hair and was wearing a bright green headscarf and a pair of black-framed 1950s sunglasses that made her look remarkably like Audrey Hepburn. Steven had always admired that delicately built movie star, but right now he simply was not in the mood to make polite conversation to anyone, not even her double.

  “Closed for now,” he growled, and went on putting any books still intact back on the shelves. A heap of torn copies on the counter had grown larger and larger over the last few hours. Actually, the damage had turned out to be not quite as disastrous as Steven had feared at first—but it was certainly bad enough to be depressing. The restoration of old books was very expensive. Steven knew that he would never be able to scrape together the money to have approximately forty damaged volumes restored to their original condition. At least the Grimm had survived. He had found it lying under an overturned bookshelf, slightly crumpled, but otherwise unharmed.

  “Stock-taking?” the woman asked curiously, pointing to the pile of books that he hadn’t looked at yet.

  Steven sighed. “If you really want to know, someone broke in. And I’m just trying to get my ruined shop back into some kind of order. Thanks for asking. Goodbye.”

  “Oh,” Audrey Hepburn said. After a moment, she asked, “Was anything stolen?”

  “I really don’t know what business that is of yours.”

  His tone was far harsher than he had intended, but he was worn out. Hours of dealing with damaged books had hit him harder than he liked to admit. Curiously enough, as far as he could tell, only one book was actually missing. It was a volume of German ballads that had not been especially valuable. Perhaps he just hadn’t found it yet. Which was why he had said at the precinct house that afternoon that nothing was missing. The duty officer told him in friendly but detached tones that they would be looking into the crime committed by a person or persons unknown, and sent him back to his shop, where he had been clearing up and brooding ever since.

  Over the next few hours, Steven had kept wondering who could be behind the mysterious break-in. He didn’t really think Frau Schultheiss was capable of hiring someone to trash the place. Maybe her husband, though? And then, of course, there was yesterday evening’s stranger in the Bavarian-style suit. What was it he had said before leaving?

  We’ll come back to you.

  Whom had he meant by we? The same people who had turned his shop upside down? Searching for something that was still, apparently, in his possession? Were these people after the little treasure chest?

  I am interested in eyewitness accounts from the time of King Ludwig the Second. Do you have anything of that nature?

  Steven sneezed as the dust he had raised went up his nose. When he had blown his nose thoroughly, he looked up. The woman was still standing outside the broken display window, smiling like a diva.

  “Gesundheit.”

  In spite of the circumstances, Steven couldn’t help grinning. “Sorry I snapped at you like that, but all this”—he pointed to the pile of wrecked and damaged books and loose pages on the table—“has been a bit too much for me.”

  Audrey Hepburn nodded. “No need to apologize. I just have one very simple question, and then I’ll be off.” She took something out of her purse, which was bright green like her headscarf, and handed it to Steven through the open doorway. “Do you know this man?” she asked seriously. “He’s my uncle. Did he by any chance visit your shop?”

  Steven looked at the photo and gave a start. No doubt about it, it was the elderly man who had been in the bookshop yesterday—the man with the bundle done up in wrapping paper and the hunted look in his eyes who had disappeared so suddenly. It was not a good picture, but all the same it was easy to recognize the amiable old gentleman with the gray blazer and the nickel-framed glasses.

  Steven nodded and gave the photo back to the woman. “Yes, in fact he was here yesterday morning,” he said. “We talked a bit, and then he left.”

  “About what?” The young woman’s voice suddenly had a hard edge. “What did you talk about?”

  “Oh, this and that. Mainly literature. He was interested in the diaries of Samuel Pepys, and . . .”

  “You didn’t by any chance talk about King Ludwig the Second?”

  Steven froze. He straightened up and gave the young woman with the black sunglasses a dark look. “Listen, if you have anything to do with the guy who turned up here yesterday evening, then . . .”

  “What guy?”

  “The guy who asked me the same thing. If I have any books about King Ludwig the Second.”

  “Who asked you that?”

  At that moment Steven saw something flash behind the woman’s back; it was a brief flicker behind the side window of a black Chrysler just pulling up to the deserted sidewalk. Two powerful-looking men in dark green tracksuit jackets got out and slowly came toward the bookshop in the twilight. When the woman saw them, her face behind her sunglasses suddenly went white as a sheet. She came into the shop and looked around the still-untidy room in a harried way. “Can you lock the door?” she whispered.

  “Er . . . that wouldn’t be much use.” Steven pointed to the broken glass. “The window’s done for. And anyway, what . . .”

  “For God’s sweet sake, do it! And quickly.” The woman’s voice was nothing like Audrey Hepburn’s in Breakfast at Tiffany’s now. Only at this point did he catch the faint touch of a Berlin accent in it. “Lock the door, then help me push that bookcase in front of the window. That ought to hold them up for a little while, anyway.” She was already tugging at the bookcase, while Steven, in total confusion, locked the door.

  “I’m afraid you owe me an explanation,” he said. “Did those men do something to you? Are they after you?”

  “Not after me, you idiot. They’re after you. Now, push this hard, will you?”

  Too baffled to say anything, Steven helped her push the bookcase over to the broken window. Only a moment later someone was hammering at the door.

  “Herr Lukas,” called a deep, hoarse voice. “We know you’re in there. Don’t be stupid. We won’t hurt you. We just want to have a little talk. You have something that belongs to us. Unfortunately, we didn’t find it last night. Herr Lukas, can you hear me?” The voice sounded like it was running out of patience. “We’re ready to pay you a hefty sum for the book. How much do you want? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand?”

  Steven was about to say something, but the woman beside him put a finger to her lips.

  “Do you have it?” she whispered.

/>   “Have what?”

  “You know what I mean. Do you have it?”

  Steven hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “I . . . I think so,” he said. “In my briefcase on the table. Although I don’t know—”

  “Is there a back way out?” the woman interrupted.

  Steven pointed to the bookshelves on the back wall. “There’s a little door beside the toilet, out into the backyard. Do you really think that . . .”

  Just then the man’s deep voice spoke up again outside. “Listen, Herr Lukas, we can always do it another way. Last time we only searched your shop. Next time we’ll burn it. All that paper—what do you bet it’ll burn so bright that they can see for miles around? So how about it? Think of the money you can earn. One . . .”

  “We have to get out of here,” the woman beside him hissed. “And don’t forget your briefcase.”

  “Two . . .”

  Steven swore quietly. He didn’t get the impression that the men out there were joking. If he gave them the little treasure chest, they would presumably leave him alone. And they’d also just offered him twenty thousand euros. Twenty thousand! That would pay the rent until the Easter after next, maybe even longer. He wouldn’t need customers. He could keep his own company in the shop. His eyes went to the briefcase on the table.

  “Two and a half . . .”

  “Don’t do it,” the woman whispered, obviously reading his thoughts. “You don’t think they’ll just hand you a few euro bills and let you go, do you? They killed my uncle, and they’ll do the same to you. Faster than you can say Principal Decree of the Imperial Diet, my antiquarian friend.”

  Steven looked nervously at the barricaded display window. He could see the outlines of two broad-shouldered figures on the other side of it. One of them took a small black object that looked suspiciously like a pistol from under his jacket.

  “Three!”

  “For crying out loud, what have I gotten myself mixed up with here?”

  Steven snatched up his briefcase and ran for the back door with the unknown woman. At the same time, he heard the bookcases along the wall fall to the floor with a crash behind him, and someone climbed through the wrecked window.

  They’re going to torch my books. My beautiful books.

  Audrey Hepburn hauled him out into the backyard, which was full of garbage cans, bicycles, and old junk, and surrounded by the high walls of buildings. An old neighbor stared curiously down at them over the geraniums in his window box. Bavarian folk music came from a radio nearby. To their left was the wall, as tall as a man, between his and the neighboring property. A paper-recycling bin overflowing with newspapers stood beside it.

  “This way,” the strange woman called, hurrying toward the wall.

  With catlike agility, she hauled herself up onto the bin, climbed the wall, and the next moment she had disappeared. Hesitating, Steven looked around. When he heard footsteps coming, he heaved himself up on the recycling bin, too, cursing. A brief glance over the wall showed him another yard beyond it, with a broad entrance leading into the street. It was at least six feet to the ground.

  “Come on, jump,” the woman urged him. She was already on her way out of the yard. “They’re right behind us.”

  Steven could hear shouting behind him now. He closed his eyes, then spread his arms wide, jumped down to the asphalt of the yard next door, stumbled, and ran to the exit, clutching his briefcase close to his body. When he was finally out in the street, the woman closed the double doors after him with a metallic clatter. Next moment there was loud hammering at the doors inside the yard.

  “We’ll take my car.” The strange woman ran out into the street. “It’s just around the corner. I only hope you don’t suffer from claustrophobia.”

  She made for a yellow Mini Cooper, and opened the door. Then she took off her dark glasses for the first time. The green scarf had slipped back, revealing a sternly pinned-up chignon. Steven put her age at somewhere in her late twenties.

  She really does look like Audrey Hepburn, he thought. Or Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest. Only I’m no Cary Grant.

  “Get in. I’ll take you to my place. You’ll be safe there.” The stranger’s eyes twinkled at Steven. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite. Unlike those guys behind us.”

  “Only if you promise to tell me what all this is about,” Steven said breathlessly.

  “I promise. But first we’ve got to get out of here.”

  He could still hear the furious hammering on the door in the backyard. Audrey Hepburn slammed the car door, turned the ignition key, and stepped on the gas.

  Steven had had no idea how fast you could drive a Mini Cooper.

  4

  THEY RACED ACROSS A busy square, past a couple of fruit and snack stalls, and then, accompanied by loud honking, turned right onto the Mittlerer Ring. Audrey Hepburn overtook a silver Audi and then stepped on the gas so suddenly that Steven was briefly pressed back in his seat.

  This is all a bad dream, he thought. Just a bad dream. I’ll wake up in my bed any second now, with a few volumes of poetry and a book by Gabriel García Márquez beside me. I’ll brush my teeth, go into my shop . . .

  “Are they following us?”

  The voice of the brunette stranger beside him brought him back to reality.

  “What?” he asked, dazed. Only now did he realize that the bag with the little treasure chest in it was on his lap.

  “I asked if they’re following us. Those guys in the black Chrysler.”

  Steven turned around and looked through the rear window at the traffic behind them. Now, at about seven in the evening, a lot of people were on their way home from work, so the streets were crowded. He didn’t see a Chrysler among the mass of cars blinking their indicators, pulling into and out of traffic.

  “I think we’ve shaken them off.” The bookseller looked straight ahead again, until finally he began to feel unwell.

  “Right. We’ll go back to my place, and then . . .”

  “And then nothing. It’s about time you finally dropped all this mystery,” Steven interrupted. “Just tell me straight out what’s going on here. Or I’m getting out of the car right now and taking the bag with me, understand?”

  “What, doing ninety on the Mittlerer Ring? Okay, have fun.”

  Steven sighed. Once again he noticed the touch of a Berlin accent in the woman’s voice, sounding rather unusual here in Munich, the capital of Bavaria.

  “Look, seriously,” he said, emphatically calm now. “Don’t you think we’re a little too old for this childishness?”

  “You may be. I’m not.” The stranger switched down into third gear to get past some lights just as they turned red. “But you’re right. Too much blood has been spilled to call it childish.”

  “Blood? What do you . . . ?”

  Without slowing down, she reached into the glove compartment and brought out a crumpled newspaper, which she handed to Steven without comment. He saw that it was the day’s evening edition.

  “Take a look at page twelve. The story at the top of the page.”

  Steven leafed through the paper until he found the place she meant. His pulse instantly sped up. In the middle of the page of newsprint, he saw the slightly blurred picture of a man he knew. It was the likable old man with the gray bundle, who had come to his shop yesterday. A screaming headline in bold twenty-point type leaped out at him.

  HORRIFIC DEATH IN THE FOREST

  University professor tortured and murdered

  Police face a mystery

  Steven swiftly skimmed the report, which emphasized the sensational aspects. Its vigorous phrasing told him that sixty-seven-year-old Professor Paul Liebermann of Jena University had died a horrific death. He had been found the previous evening in a forested area just outside Munich with his head shot to pieces. Before his death, the retired history professor had been drugged, abducted, and tortured. His body had been discovered lying among torn-up pages of a book; further inquiries were being pursued. Th
e police expected to find evidence regarding the remarkable murder weapon. More would follow in tomorrow’s edition. Then there were a few lines about Professor Liebermann’s career, and a couple of risqué assumptions associating him with the red-light district.

  “It was a Derringer,” the woman suddenly said.

  Steven gave a start and looked up from the newspaper. “What?”

  “The murder weapon. I’ve kept my ears pricked. Two .44 caliber rimfire cartridge cases were found at the scene. That kind of cartridge is out of use these days. However, ammunition like that was very common in the nineteenth century, in small ornamented pistols but most of all in the American Derringer. A pretty toy. But Abraham Lincoln was shot with a Derringer just like that.”

  Steven frowned. “You mean the murder victim was killed by a weapon that doesn’t exist today?”

  “Or by someone who shouldn’t be alive today,” the strange woman replied, and turned into a side street, tires squealing. “Which at least narrows down the suspects.”

  “How do you know all this?” Steven asked suspiciously. “You said you were the niece of the professor who came to see me yesterday, but you sound more like a police officer.”

  “Wait until we reach my place. I’ll explain it all to you then.”

  In silence, they joined the evening traffic that took them down Ludwigstrasse, with its imposing white buildings, to the upmarket Schwabing district of Munich. They passed boutiques, discotheques, trendy bars with the first nocturnal revelers already gathering outside, talking noisily with one another or shouting into their phones. Their journey ended at a quiet side street near the large park of the English Garden.

  Audrey Hepburn parked her Mini in a gap so narrow that Steven suspected he wouldn’t even have been able to fit his bicycle into it. With the newspaper in hand, she climbed out and walked toward a low-built, old-fashioned little house with a tiny front garden. Among the modern buildings with their expanses of glass, it looked as if it had fallen out of another time. There was a bronze plate with elaborate lettering beside the door. Steven glanced at it and then looked in surprise at the woman in the black sunglasses.