The Ludwig Conspiracy(14)

Steven put the catalog aside and looked around. “Obviously a lucrative job. But what does it have to do with your uncle?”

At once Sara was serious again. “How about if I see what’s in that bag of yours first?”

Carefully, Steven handed her the little treasure chest. She opened it and took a quick look at the photographs and the lock of black hair. Then, lost in thought, she leafed through the yellowed pages of the notebook. Almost reverently, she ran her fingers over the velvet binding with the ivory decoration.

“So it’s really true,” she murmured at last.

“True?” Steven asked. “What’s true?”

The art detective went on staring at the book, as if trying to recognize something in it. Only after a long while did she look up again.

“Uncle Paul had a rather unusual hobby. He collected literature about King Ludwig the Second, especially literature to do with his death. As he saw it, Ludwig’s murder was the greatest unsolved crime in German history.”

“Murder?” Steven said skeptically. “I’ve heard speculation, but . . .”

“Herr Lukas,” Sara interrupted, “what exactly do you know about King Ludwig the Second?”

Steven shrugged. “He was a cranky Bavarian king who slowly lost himself in a dream world, built some fairy-tale castles, and was finally certified insane and deposed. Soon after that, he died in a way that’s unexplained to this day.”

“A rather abbreviated account, but generally speaking correct. Though you could say that Ludwig the Second wasn’t just any Bavarian king. He was the Bavarian king. At least as far as his popularity was concerned.” Sara took one of the black-and-white photographs out of the little chest and held it in front of Steven’s nose. He noticed that the art detective had painted her fingernails green.

“There’s no other German monarch as well-known as this man,” she said, smiling. “The perfect mirror to reflect our hopes and imagination. A dreamer who actually had the money to put those dreams into practice.”

“But politically he . . .” Steven began to object.

“Was a total failure. Yes, I know.” The art historian sighed. “If we judged Ludwig the Second solely by his political achievements, no one would give a damn about him now. But what are politics compared to the fairy-tale castle that you see at the beginning of every Disney movie? And then there was his death.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, mysteries are always intriguing,” she replied, carefully returning the photograph to the little chest. “I’m sure you have your own ideas about his death.”

“My own ideas? All I know is the official version,” Steven said. “As best I remember, after he was declared insane and deposed, the king was taken to Berg Castle on Lake Starnberg. While he was there, he gave his psychiatrist the slip. The psychiatrist ran after him and finally caught up with him on the banks of the lake. They fought and Ludwig drowned the doctor, then committed suicide in the lake.”

“In waist-high water?”

Steven frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The water King Ludwig is supposed to have drowned himself in would have only come up to his waist,” the art detective replied. “Ludwig was an excellent swimmer. Not to mention that no water was found in his lungs.”

“You mean . . .”

“I don’t mean anything at all,” Sara went on. “I’m just stating the facts. And those are only a couple of the inconsistencies surrounding Ludwig’s death. They all nurture his legend. Did you know that the doctors who came to the scene weren’t allowed to examine the two bodies? And that the pocket watch belonging to the psychiatrist—Bernard von Gudden—didn’t stop until an hour later than the king’s? Then a bunch of witnesses either died in strange ways, or went missing, or suddenly became rich overnight. And, and, and . . .” She waved the subject away. “Whole libraries could be filled with the books that have been written about the strange events of the thirteenth of June 1886.”

“I had no idea that qualified art historians went in for conspiracy theories,” Steven said. “Clearly, you’ve inherited a taste for your uncle’s unusual hobby. But I guess that would suit a detective.”

Sara gave him an icy stare from her gray eyes. “Herr Lukas, if you take me for a fool, you’re mistaken. I do indeed specialize in nineteenth-century art, but aside from that, I couldn’t care less how Ludwig the Second died. As far as I’m concerned, he could have drowned in a cream pie, heavily made up and wearing high heels. What I do care about is my uncle’s death. And that’s what it’s all about here, right?”