The Ludwig Conspiracy(68)
“I may be wrong, but I think it’s been following us,” Sara whispered. “I’ve seen it behind us at least twice in the last few hours. And now here it is at the harbor.”
“Oh my God. Do you think it’s the police?”
The art detective shrugged again. “I don’t know how they could have found us. And the police probably don’t drive green Bentleys, even when they’re out of uniform. Although I bet they’d like to.”
Steven glanced back at the car, which could be only vaguely made out through the steam from the locomotive. Now the driver stepped on the gas, and the Bentley disappeared, tires squealing, into a narrow alley leading up to the town.
“We ought not to say anything about this to Albert,” Steven said quietly. “Two of us worrying are quite enough.”
By now they had reached the boathouses. A wiry man with a wrinkled, weathered face was sitting on a crumbling landing stage, dangling his legs over the planks. He wore green oilskins and was morosely chewing the stem of a pipe; below him, a decrepit boat in urgent need of a fresh coat of paint rocked on the water. As Uncle Lu approached the fisherman, the latter glanced up and uttered an exclamation of surprise. He spat noisily in the water.
“Well, I’ll be damned. It’s Lu!” he crowed cheerfully. “For a moment I thought the king was back on his island.” The fisherman rose and approached Albert Zöller with arms outspread.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Alois,” Uncle Lu growled. “The king was never as fat as me, even on the dissecting table.” He heaved the basketful of books up on the landing stage, then shook hands with Alois. “But thanks for the compliment. Well, how about it? Would you do us a favor and row the three of us over to the Herreninsel?”
Alois put his head on one side and inspected Zöller’s companions disapprovingly. “Are they tourists, or are they friends of yours? Because I’m sick and tired of foreigners. There’re more of ’em here than whitefish in the Chiemsee.”
“They’re people on our side, Alois,” Zöller told him with a grave expression. “The king needs our help.”
The fisherman raised his eyebrows. “The king? Well, of course that’s different.”
In silence, the little man helped Sara and Steven into his ancient, dilapidated boat. They were followed by the heavy weight of the laundry basket, and the even heavier weight of Uncle Lu, tilting the boat on its side at a dangerous angle.
“Move over to the middle, Lu,” Alois said, pushing off from the landing stage with the oars. “Or you’ll end up drowned dead like our Ludwig, and that’d be a shame.”
Grinning, Zöller made his way to the middle of the seat and then turned to Sara and Steven.
“Many of the simple folk of the Chiemgau area still support the king,” he whispered softly. “Alois won’t give us away. Most Bavarians stick together when it comes to Ludwig the Second.”
“Sorry, but are we talking about the same king as the one who died one hundred twenty-five years ago?” Steven interrupted, smiling. “You talk as if he were still alive.”
Zöller put his head on one side and looked at Steven in surprise. “And isn’t he?” Then he roared with laughter. “To be honest,” he finally said, puffing to get his breath back, “Ludwig the Second is far more than a fat drowned body to many Bavarians. He’s their identity and a myth at the same time, and as a myth, of course he lives forever.” Uncle Lu pointed to the morose fisherman behind them dipping his oars steadily into the water. “Every myth has its keeper of the Grail, and Alois is one of them. I’ve always known him as a loyalist. We once met every year at Berg on Lake Starnberg. Alois backs the chloroform theory, but otherwise he’s a reasonable man.”
“The chloroform theory?” Steven asked, at a loss.
“Its adherents claim that Gudden anesthetized Ludwig with chloroform and then threw him into the water,” Sara said. “One of at least a dozen theories about the death of the king.”
“Yes, indeed.” Zöller smiled and let his right hand dangle in the cool water of the lake. “There’s even a theory that only a waxwork dummy was buried at St. Michael’s in Munich, and the real king lived on for decades as a wealthy private citizen. As you see, Herr Lukas, by comparison with King Ludwig, all the conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination are just cheap soap operas.”
By now they were approaching the wooded shore of the island, which was surrounded by a dense belt of reed beds. A small chapel stood on a little promontory, with a boathouse and a landing stage beside it, and the fisherman was rowing that way.