The Ludwig Conspiracy(33)

Steven nodded, even though he couldn’t imagine that the world would ever look right to him again.





HALF AN HOUR LATER, they were sitting together at the table in Sara’s untidy, little built-in kitchen, munching a couple of microwaved chocolate croissants. Although the croissants tasted terrible, Steven felt himself slowly coming back to life. He had told Sara everything he had read in the diary. She had listened in silence, sipping her strong coffee.

“If that diary is genuine, it’s a sensational find,” she finally said. “I don’t think there are any other documents that actually prove that Ludwig was the victim of a plot by his ministers.”

“What do you mean, plot?” Steven objected, dipping his croissant in his coffee. “The king was as crazy as they come. Think of the black mask that one of his servants had to wear. The conversations he imagined having with Louis the Fourteenth, those ostentatious castles, the bizarre costumes . . .”

“Just one question, Herr Lukas,” Sara interrupted. She seemed aggrieved, as if Steven had insulted her personally. “Was Michael Jackson crazy?”

The bookseller’s forehead wrinkled. “Michael Jackson? What does he have to do with anything?”

“Well, the King of Pop lived it up on his Neverland ranch, he hid his face behind a mask, he had a pet monkey, and he slept under an oxygen tent. Was he crazy?”

“In a way you could say he—”

“Would you have locked him up in a madhouse?”

Steven shook his head indignantly. “Of course not.”

“You see, that’s the problem,” Sara said. “A lot of people aren’t normal. They’re wacky, eccentric, downright peculiar if you like. But that doesn’t mean they’re insane. And it’s no reason to lock them up.”

Steven nodded. “I see what you’re getting at. Presumably that’s why Dr. von Gudden hesitated when he was told to certify Ludwig insane.”

“All the evidence in the later medical reports came from the king’s lackeys,” said Sara, spreading honey thickly on her chocolate croissant. “Careerists and corrupt, fawning courtiers. It’d be like asking the assembly-line workers in a factory whether their boss is an asshole, and promising them a new boss and better pay at the same time.”

Steven smiled. “One might think you have a soft spot for Ludwig.”

“I just can’t stand it when people are called crazy for no reason except not being the same as everyone else.”

There was silence at the table for a while. Finally Steven cleared his throat.

“What do you think I ought to do now?” he asked. “Go to the police and explain myself?”

“After they found my uncle’s hat and coat at your place, plus a corpse covered with blood?” Sara frowned. “That might be difficult. Let’s see if we can find out any more about this diary first. Maybe we’ll find some kind of hint about the killer that will convince the police.”

Steven nodded. “Okay, then let’s sum up what we know so far,” he began. “The diary is an eyewitness account of the king’s last year of life, written by one of his loyal companions. My guess is we’ll find something about his death in it, too. But what about those weird jumbled letters in the text?” He reached for the diary lying on the kitchen counter beside him. “QRCSOQNZO. Or NECAALAI. In all, I’ve found five of those words in the pages I’ve decoded so far. And I’m sure there will be more of them.” He shook his head. “There’s no hint at all about deciphering them in Shelton’s Tachygraphy.”

“Maybe it’s another kind of secret writing,” Sara suggested. “A code inside the code, so to speak. Maybe Marot wanted to hide something so appalling that it had to be put into an additional code.”

Steven frowned. “You think it will tell us about more than just Ludwig’s murder?”

“I’m only saying that Marot went to a great deal of trouble to hide something. And these unpleasant strangers who are trying to get the book away from you seem to have pretty sophisticated methods. More than I would expect from the Cowled Men.”

Wearily, Steven rubbed his temples. “We’re probably never going to solve this riddle. It’s already taken me hours to decode just a few pages of that damn shorthand.”

“Let’s have a look.” Sara reached over the table for the diary, leaving a large chocolaty mark on the first page.

“Careful!” Steven snapped. “This isn’t . . .”

“Some tabloid, I know,” Sara said, leafing through the pages. “Looks to me like some letters have deliberately been used instead of others. What’s more, they’re all capitals, and written in the normal alphabet, not Shelton’s shorthand.”