The Ludwig Conspiracy(53)

The bookseller started. Sure enough, Marot had written at some length about the picture. Could there be something hidden in it? Maybe hinting at a theme that would get him and Sara farther forward? Some legendary figure, relating to the subject of love, that they had forgotten? A name of some kind?

“Er . . . the painting over there?” He pointed to the large canvas, which showed a handsome man enchanted by the scene and surrounded by half-naked women and cherubs. “What does it mean?”

“Interesting that you ask about that in particular,” Luise said. “It is known as Tannhäuser with Lady Venus and illustrates the first act of Wagner’s famous opera. The knight Tannhäuser visits the pagan goddess and stays in her cave.” She pointed to the stalactites under the roof. “This hall is intended to be Venus’s Cave, and at the same time it is modeled on the Blue Grotto of Capri. Ludwig took refuge here from the modern world when he found it too menacing.” She looked at Steven, who was busily pretending to make notes as she talked. “How about yourself, Mr. Landsdale? Don’t you, too, sometimes feel that the present day is threatening?”

More than you can begin to imagine, Steven thought.

“Not really,” he replied. “And Ludwig himself was obviously inconsistent if he wanted to live in an old-fashioned fairy tale, but at the same time he had Siemens dynamos clattering away here.”

“As I said, it’s a matter of uniting the new and the old.” Luise Manstein abruptly turned to the way out of the cave. “But now we really must go. I have a good deal to do before this evening.”

Steven hurried after her. “But I still have so many questions to ask.”

And what’s more, damn it, I still have no idea where I ought to be looking, or what for.

At the exit from the grotto, the industrialist stopped and locked the door in the rock behind them with a large, rusty key. Then she gave Steven a long, searching look.

“Did you know that Ludwig gave an interview to a newspaper only once in his life?” she suddenly asked. “It was with an American journalist, and they talked about Edgar Allan Poe. So don’t underestimate King Ludwig. In certain areas he was way ahead of his time.” She hesitated for a moment, and then her hard face relaxed and she smiled almost girlishly. “I’ll tell you something, Mr. Landsdale: I like you. Come to my little party this evening, will you? Maybe we’ll have a chance to talk some more.” She handed him two gleaming golden plastic tickets. “This is your security pass. And another for a companion in case you’d like to bring one. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

Without another word, she went away along the path and soon disappeared among the trees.





SARA LENGFELD TURNED up about midday.

Her lemon yellow Mini Cooper pulled up, brakes shrieking, on the hotel forecourt as Steven, sitting in the restaurant, was leafing through Marot’s notes yet again. When he looked through the restaurant window and saw Sara coming, he hurried to meet her.

“Where in heaven’s name have you been?” he asked. “I was worried about you!”

Sara, a broad grin on her face, held up a thin white box about the size of a lady’s purse.

“I’ve been shopping in Garmisch. A MacBook Pro with a 500-gigabyte hard disk and one of those superfast Intel Core 17 processors. I’ve always wanted one of those.”

“And you had to go off to buy it now?”

“Herr Lukas, just because you’re still writing with a quill pen doesn’t mean I have to do the same. Someone wrecked my smartphone in your basement, remember? And this will make our search a whole lot easier. I’ve already downloaded a pair of deciphering programs, and if we want to surf the Net, we don’t have to go to the hotel lobby anymore. How about a word of thanks for a change?”

“Thank you, Frau Lengfeld.”

“You couldn’t manage to make it a tad chillier, maybe, Mr. Freeze?”

Steven took Sara aside and gripped her hard by the shoulders. “Listen,” he whispered, “I really don’t have time for this nonsense right now. Marot’s account indicates that there could be a clue in the Grotto of Venus. I was there early this morning, although . . .”

Sara looked at him in surprise. “You were there? I thought it was closed.”

“Believe it or not, Frau Lengfeld, I can do quite a lot with my quill pen.”

Steven filled her in about his meeting with Luise Manstein in the Grotto of Venus. He ended by telling her about the invitation.

“You want me to go to some party for a bunch of pompous idiots given by Manstein Systems?” she asked. “Warm prosecco, small talk, boring, boring, boring . . . Christ, as if I didn’t get that all year round at gallery openings.”