The Ludwig Conspiracy(4)

Memoirs of Theodor Marot, Assistant to Dr. Max Schleiss von Loewenfeld.

Steven rubbed his eyes. He had never seen either the book or its container before. Or had he? A strange sense of familiarity passed through him. For the life of him, though, he couldn’t remember how the little box came to be in his possession. It hadn’t been part of the estate left by the old lady from Bogenhausen; he would certainly have noticed such an unusual item. And he had been through all his purchases from flea markets over the last few weeks, classifying them one by one and keeping a written record. So how did this little treasure chest come to be in his shop?

He picked up the photographs again. Suddenly he was sure he’d seen a picture of the gigantic older man in them somewhere before. He hadn’t looked quite so portly, but the gentle eyes, the beard, and the full head of black hair were the same. He made a genuinely imposing, almost regal impression.

Suddenly Steven stopped dead.

Was it possible?

Thoughtfully, he tapped one of the photographs. Carrying the little box, he hurried into the stockroom behind the shop, where the books from flea markets and estate sales that he had already classified lay in stacks, waiting to be sorted and placed on the crowded shelves. He rummaged busily around in the cartons, in search of a book that he had bought quite cheaply when he found it only a few days before at a stall in the Munich Olympiad Park, among trashy novels and wartime stories. At last he found it at the bottom of the third carton that he searched.

The book, which was falling apart, was a treatise on the royal house of Bavaria written early in the twentieth century. It featured a whole series of heroic paintings of members of the Wittelsbach dynasty, beginning with Maximilian I Joseph, and ending with Ludwig III, the last king of Bavaria, who had to abdicate at the end of the First World War in his senile old age. Steven leafed quickly through the book until he found the right picture at last. There it was! A handsome young man with black hair looked out of it at him. He had no beard yet, but he had the same hairstyle and the faraway look that was in his eyes until the time of his mysterious death. He wore a blue coat with a white ermine cloak over it.

Steven smiled. No doubt about it, the portly giant in the photograph was none other than King Ludwig II, the Fairy-tale King. He must have been one of the best-known of all Germans, and his youthful portrait adorned beer mugs, T-shirts, and postcards all over Germany.

Steven compared the painting in the book with the photograph in his hand. Judging by the king’s appearance, the photo must have been taken in his later years. But there was no question—the little box really did contain photographs of the world-famous Bavarian monarch, probably taken shortly before his death. Maybe even still unpublished? Steven knew that in certain circles, one could ask a high price for such things. All of a sudden the rent problem seemed to retreat into the distance.

At that moment, the bell at the front of the shop announced another visitor coming in.

Irritated, Steven put the book and the photographs back in the little box and placed it on a shelf. Then he left the stockroom and went back into the shop. Couldn’t he ever be left in peace? It was seven in the evening already. Who on earth could want to buy something from him so near to closing time? Or was it Frau Schultheiss again with another offer?

“We’re really closed,” he began brusquely. “If you’d like to come back tomorrow morning . . .”

As he took a closer look at the man, he knew at once that this wasn’t one of the usual Perry Rhodan customers. The stranger was around sixty, with sparse gray hair, an old-fashioned pair of pince-nez perched on his nose, and he wore a suit in the Bavarian style of the kind favored by elderly gentlemen from the country complete with lederhosen. He was tall and thin, with a high forehead; his whole bearing suggested that he wasn’t used to having his authority questioned.

“I won’t take up much of your time, I promise you,” the man said in a gruff voice, inspecting Steven through his pince-nez. “My interest is only in very special literature.”

A slight shudder ran through Steven. “What kind of literature do you mean?” he asked, smiling faintly. “If you’re looking for typical Bavarian writers like Ludwig Thoma or Oskar Maria Graf, then—”

“I am interested in eyewitness accounts from the time of King Ludwig the Second,” the stranger interrupted. “Do you have anything of that nature, Herr . . . ?”

“Lukas. Steven Lukas.”

Steven bravely went on smiling, but he was feeling uneasier with every moment spent under the other man’s gaze. The newcomer seemed to be scrutinizing him closely, as if he didn’t trust him for some reason. Then he looked hard at the bookshelves. He was obviously searching them for something.