The Ludwig Conspiracy(119)

“Welcome to my castle, Herr Lukas,” Luise Manstein said. “I must confess that you have given me considerably more problems than I assumed you would. Strong blood flows in your veins.”

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.