The Ludwig Conspiracy(61)

“I don’t know,” Sara said, staring while lost in thought at the two cones of light cast by the headlights on the road ahead. “But I think this is the time to ask someone for help. Someone who really knows his way around all this Ludwig stuff.” She pointed to an exit road that suddenly appeared before them in the darkness. “Turn off there to the right. We’re going to see Uncle Lu.”





LANCELOT HELD HIS hand over his right eye socket, from which reddish fluid still ran. His pain and hatred threatened to drive him mad. She had escaped him. A woman! How the hell could that have happened?

It had been pure luck that he’d recognized her in her mask, among all the guests. Erec and Bors had taken a lot of photos of her outside the antiquarian bookseller’s shop, but most of them had been shaky or blurred. Basically, it had been his unusually strong hunting instinct at work again. As a former bodyguard, he had developed a sense of what people were like as a whole. He recognized victims by the way they walked and held themselves, or by their nervous movements. Sometime he even thought he could smell fear in their sweat.

As the bookseller had not been with her, it had taken Lancelot some time to recognize the woman. Then he hadn’t been able to get close to her among all the guests. But when she finally started along the leafy pathway, he had thought she would be easy game.

She’ll pay for this. By God, she’ll pay for it.

Half-blinded, he staggered toward the castle, almost knocking into a couple of lovers who fled, screeching, at the sight of him. Finally the giant ducked down behind a hedge and scrutinized the loud, lively activity of the guests from there. There wasn’t a sign of the bitch and the bookseller.

Where could they be?

Next moment Lancelot remembered what the woman had said just now: they’d already been searching since yesterday and found nothing. So they’d stayed overnight, and where did people stay overnight here?

Lancelot’s glance moved slowly to the hotel, and he smiled. If his luck held, the birds hadn’t flown yet, and he could give them a nice surprise in their room. He would also call a doctor from the hotel, although he was afraid there would be no saving his eye. But someone would have to pay for that. The giant brushed the dirt off his suit, pressed his white handkerchief to his bloodstained eye socket, and hurried toward the Castle Hotel.

The night porter on duty at reception was tired and unshaven. He had seen too many guests at too many glittering parties already. But when Lancelot leaned over to him, he held his breath.

“What . . . what can I do for you?” he stammered.

“My wife has a room here, with her lover, if you see what I mean . . .” Lancelot’s lips distorted into a menacing grin. “The slut’s a brunette, wearing a low-cut evening dress and a little red jacket, kind of thing a tart would wear. I’d like to have the key of that room.”

“Was that . . . did the other guy do that?” the porter hesitantly asked, pointing to the bloodstained handkerchief held over the right-hand side of Lancelot’s face. When the giant nodded, the trembling man handed him the key.

“Room 113,” he whispered, secretly picturing what this monster would do to his wife up in the top-floor bedroom. Maybe he’d better call the police?

Without another word, Lancelot ran upstairs. But when he saw the door standing ajar, he knew he had come too late.

Hell and damnation. They’re gone!

The room was empty, the beds unmade, two dirty plates and two wineglasses stood on the table; that was all. But on the floor near the door lay something that looked as if it had been forgotten in their headlong flight. Lancelot bent and picked it up.

It was an envelope full of crumpled brochures. They showed, in bright color, Ludwig’s three castles: Linderhof, Herrenchiemsee, and Neuschwanstein. The brochures looked well-worn, as if someone had spent a long time poring over them.

Suddenly Lancelot remembered something else that the woman had said.

If anything was hidden, it must be somewhere else . . .

Lancelot smiled. For a brief moment the pain of his eye socket was forgotten. He pocketed the brochures and went downstairs to call a doctor.

That bitch was going to wish she’d never been born.





16





IT WAS THE LAST BUILDING in a hamlet somewhere in the Bavarian Allgäu area. A low-built, crooked house with a little front garden, where the last sunflowers of the year were blooming, stood right beside the outskirts of the forest. With its weathered fence, its window shutters painted sky blue, and the old stone chimney from which thick black smoke was rising, it reminded Steven of a witch’s house. He could practically smell gingerbread. It was early morning; the sun was slowly rising behind the mist clinging to the trees.