The Ludwig Conspiracy(12)

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. The 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.”