The Ludwig Conspiracy(141)

All at once he hears many voices coming from the garden, a firefighters’ siren wailing in a crescendo. Steven also hears his parents’ voices: “Steven! Steven!” But he doesn’t dare to call back.

Suddenly they are shouting so loudly that Steven has to cover his ears. No, they are not shouting; they are screaming. Steven shouts back. He shouts, “Stop it!” After all, he is a stone, a mute stone in the earth. But Steven is not mute anymore; he shouts until at last silence reigns. The door opens, and there stands a tall firefighter in his helmet and armor like a real knight. He carries Steven out to his car with the flashing blue light on top. Someone takes the little treasure chest away from him and gives it to one of the police officers. The little chest sways up and down in his hands like a jack-o’-lantern, becomes a tiny dot, and suddenly disappears behind two parked cars.

The little chest . . . the little chest . . . my little chest!





A LOUD REPORT brought Steven back to the present. He saw Zöller suddenly fall aside, blood spurting from his body, a great deal of blood. With horror, Steven saw that something had blown the whole left-hand side of Zöller’s face away. The old man was dead before he even hit the floor.

Luise Manstein stood behind the balustrade, with her smoking Derringer in her hands. She leaned against a man-sized opening that had been hidden behind one of the pictures of heroes in the upper part of the great hall.

“Hello, Steven,” she hissed from the balcony, pointing to Zöller’s body. “Did the old man talk in the end?” She looked at her silver wristwatch. “I came to tell you that your time has run out. But what does that matter? You know the truth now.”

The industrialist spread her arms out. In the royal mantle, she looked like a tall, white angel.

Just as she looked back then in her white dress, Steven thought. Except that she doesn’t have those blond braids now.

Luise gave an almost childish smile, then swept her arm in a circular gesture around the throne room, with the body of Albert Zöller lying in his own blood in the middle of it.

“Welcome, my dear cousin. Make yourself at home here in our great-great-grandfather’s castle.”





38





AS LUISE LOOKED DOWN ON THEM, the double doors opened, and Lancelot came into the throne room with three of the other bodyguards. Each held a submachine gun.

“You’re the girl from all those years ago,” Steven said. “The girl with her dress on fire. The girl with the blond braids who tried to scratch my eyes out in the library.”

“Correct. And it’s a great pity that I didn’t succeed. That would have spared us all a lot of trouble.” Luise pointed to Sara’s laptop on the throne room floor. “But now it will all be set right. Looks like you’ve solved the whole puzzle.”

Lancelot had reached the middle of the throne room. He cast a glance at the laptop and frowned.

“It says something about a fourth castle, Your Excellency,” he growled. “And a scion showing the king’s dearest treasures there. Can you make anything of such nonsense?”

Luise was taken aback for a moment; then she began to giggle. Briefly, Steven wondered if she was about to tip over into full-blown insanity.

Or maybe I am.

“Can I make anything of it?” she asked at last. “That’s a good one, very good. Theodor Marot had a real sense of humor.”

“Whatever’s so funny, I hope it chokes you. You and your entire bunch of deranged gorillas.” Sara’s voice was shaking, and tears of rage glittered in the corners of her eyes. “You’re none of you anything but a gang of crazy murderers.” She pointed to Zöller’s body. “That old man was no danger to you, and yet . . .”

Lancelot waved that away. “Stop making such a fuss. He wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway. It was just putting him out of his misery.” He grinned. “Better start worrying about your own future instead, girlie.”

“Stop blathering, paladin, and pick up that diary,” Luise hissed.

Lancelot strode toward Steven, bent slightly, and picked up the little wooden treasure chest from the floor. The bookseller still felt numb. Before him lay Uncle Lu, shot in cold blood, just after he had told Steven his true origin. Yet he did not have the strength to look down at the body of the murdered man.

I am a descendant of Ludwig the Second, Steven told himself. How much of Ludwig is there in me? My yearning for past times, my dreams, the way I like to immerse myself in books—is all that a mild form of insanity? Ludwig’s brother, Otto, was raving mad, and so is Luise. What about me? Do I, too, carry the germ?