At this moment I feel like a king.
Signed,
Dr. Theodor Marot, in the year of our Lord 1887.
PS: I will keep this diary for posterity, together with a lock of Leopold’s hair and a few carefully chosen photographs. After Maria and I die, it will pass into the possession of Leopold, the only son of Ludwig II, then to the hands of his children, and so on, until at last the time is ripe for the truth.
37
AFTER THAT LAST SENTENCE, there was silence for some time in the throne room, broken only by Albert Zöller’s rattling breaths.
“Ludwig had a son?” Sara asked at last, incredulously, grinding out her cigarette. “Is that the secret that was kept for so long?”
Steven nodded. “As far as I know, there have always been rumors about an heir. Zöller mentioned something like that once. To all appearances Ludwig was gay, yes, but certain women fascinated him. He’s even thought to have had a relationship with the sculptor Elisabeth Ney.” He tapped the sentence giving the solution to the puzzle in Sara’s laptop. “Remember. In the king’s fourth castle a scion shows the dearest of his treasures. That scion was obviously Ludwig’s son, Leopold, and the statutory declaration bears it out.”
“Just a moment,” Sara objected. “So you think the treasure in that fourth castle is nothing but the statutory declaration made by Ludwig at the time?” She shook her head. “All that suffering, all those deaths, for a single scrap of paper? But why . . .”
Their conversation was interrupted by a yapping cough. When they turned around, they saw that Zöller had hauled himself, with difficulty, into a sitting position, and was leaning against the wall.
“My God, Uncle Lu!” Sara cried. “You mustn’t try to stand up. We hope there’ll be a doctor here soon . . .”
“Forget the doctor, children,” Zöller moaned. “You don’t seriously think that Manstein woman will get treatment for me, do you? It’s probably far too late for that anyway.”
“But Herr Zöller,” Steven reassured him, “you’re not in such serious condition that . . .”
“Nonsense.” Zöller gestured impatiently. “I can tell for myself what kind of condition I’m in. So don’t pretend to me. It’s much more important for you to understand at long last, Steven.”
“Understand?” Steven blinked incredulously at the old man. “I’m afraid I don’t see what you mean.”
“Don’t you realize why the Manstein woman shot me just now?” Zöller winced in pain. “Because I was on the point of telling you the truth.”
“What truth?”
“The truth about that damn diary! The reason why Frau Manstein is after it like a Fury, why she’s climbing over corpses to get her hands on it. Why Paul made sure he left the diary with you.” The old man took another deep breath, while Steven and Sara stared at him in suspense.
“Go on,” Steven whispered. “I want to know.”
“Two months ago my old friend Paul Liebermann came to see me,” Zöller began, breathing heavily. “He said he had bought the estate of an old junk dealer at auction over the Internet. A pile of worthless books, but among them a curious little box containing the diary of a certain Theodor Marot, along with several old photographs and a strand of dark hair. Paul knew that this man, Marot, had been the assistant to the royal physician Max Schleiss von Loewenfeld. There has always been speculation that the diary would contain the truth about Ludwig’s death.”
“Herr Zöller, we know all this already,” Sara said gently. “You really must spare yourself now.”
“Kindly let me finish what I was saying.” For a moment the old annoyance flashed into Zöller’s eyes, but then he had to cough again. It was a while before he could go on.
“Luise Manstein got wind of that auction when the book had already been sold to Paul,” he said. “She wanted it for herself and showed my friend a family tree demonstrating that . . .” He took a deep breath and coughed up blood. “Demonstrating that her family is descended from a certain Leopold from Oberammergau, whose mother Maria had been a maidservant of Ludwig the Second’s.”
Silence reigned for quite a while, and finally Sara whistled softly through her teeth.
“So loopy Luise is really a descendant of Ludwig the Second?” She looked disbelievingly at Zöller. “Is that true? That’s why she wants the diary?”
“I’d already suspected it was something like that,” Steven said wearily. “And it was probably for the same reason that Frau Manstein made off with Ludwig’s furniture from Neuschwanstein. She thinks she’s his legitimate descendant. All she needs as proof is that statutory declaration.”