The Ludwig Conspiracy(128)

Steven rapidly leafed through the diary. “‘Erl-King,’ it was the ‘Erl-King.’ The first roman numeral is XVI, which would be line sixteen. That would mean . . .” He closed his eyes for a minute so as to concentrate on remembering the poem. “. . . Be calm, my dear, keep calm, my child, In the dry leaves rustles the wind so wild. Those are lines fifteen and sixteen, so the first word would be in.”

“The second poem is Heine’s ‘Belshazzar,’” Sara said. “That’s no problem, I still remember learning that one in school. How did it go again? The midnight hour was coming on, In peace and quiet lay Babylon . . .” She glanced at her screen. “Line five, as far as I remember, is Up there in the royal hall, so the fourth word is the. Put the words together and we have In the.” She snapped her fingers. “I think we’re getting somewhere.” She glanced with satisfaction at the screen, where the first two poem titles and the relevant roman numerals had formed into a table.





Ballad Line Word Solution

Erl-King XVI I In

Belshazzar V IV the





“Gold star, Frau Lengfeld, well done,” Steven said. “Although the third word is Thal for valley, and I haven’t the faintest idea what poem that refers to. I have nothing for Zauberin, Winsperg and Siegerich either.”

“Maybe the words are each just part of a line of poetry. Think about it. You’re the bookseller here.”

Resigned, Steven shook his head. “Forget it. Like you say, I’m a bookseller. I don’t spend my life reciting poetry. Damn!” He threw the book down on the cold mosaic floor. Suddenly it all seemed to him pointless. He was tired, very, very tired. He would have liked to lean against Sara and go to sleep.

“Why didn’t we think of all this before?” he cursed quietly. “They’d probably have had a book of German poetry in the library.”

Sara’s own nerves seemed stretched to the breaking point. She was tearing her hair, her face was pale, her mascara smudged. All the same, at that moment she looked to Steven almost impossibly beautiful.

As beautiful as Maria, he thought. Except that she and Marot weren’t at the mercy of a raving lunatic who thinks she’s the reincarnation of Ludwig and shoots people in cold blood.

He glanced in concern at Albert Zöller. The old man still lay on the floor close to them, breathing heavily, and the makeshift bandage was already drenched with blood.

“The library,” she mused. “You’ve given me an idea. Just before we left the hotel, Uncle Lu said there was a book of poetry among the stuff he brought, do you remember?” She frantically rummaged among the pile of well-worn books. “It must be here somewhere. We can only hope that . . . voilà!” Triumphantly, she held up a shabby little book with a blue binding. “German Ballads! Published in 1923. Not the latest thing, but poems don’t deteriorate as time goes on. And unlike us, Uncle Lu thought of bringing a poetry book along. It may save his life now.” She opened it to the table of contents. “Now we just have to find the right titles.”

Steven picked up the diary from the floor in front of him. He had a feeling that their time was running out, that they were scurrying around like hamsters on a wheel yet getting nowhere. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “I suggest you put your mind to the ballads while I go on reading. We don’t want to miss another important clue at the very end.”

And if I’m going to die anyway, I’d at least like to know how Ludwig lost his life, and what it all has to do with my own past, he thought gloomily. Because we’re never going to get out of here. Luise Manstein will spare our lives for as long as we’re useful to her, not a minute longer.

He leafed back through the diary again and began to read. There were only a few pages left.





34





JG, IT





We divided up between three boats going back and forth on Lake Starnberg by day and night.

So as not to attract unnecessary attention, we usually changed places on the boats, and there were also times when the three of them gently rode the swells side by side, like fishermen in search of fat freshwater whitefish. We wore dark coats by way of camouflage, and they were soon dripping wet. The rain, which only occasionally fell more gently, made it hard to see the banks of the lake, and we used field glasses as an aid. But they, too, could not penetrate the gray haze in the castle park.

Now we had to play a waiting game.

We knew from those we trusted in the castle that the king was a prisoner. His keepers had unscrewed the door handles and bored peepholes in the thin doors so that they could watch every step that Ludwig took. Although all seemed quiet, we knew that the subversives were expecting resistance. After dark, those inside Berg Castle were forbidden to leave, and gendarmes patrolled the park day and night.