The Ludwig Conspiracy(76)

“Yes . . . you’re probably right,” he replied after what felt like forever, pushing back a few strands of hair from his face. “I . . . I guess I’m rather nervous at the moment.”

Sara laughed. “Not surprising, with the police after you. I’d call those mitigating circumstances.” She offered him her hand. “Let’s be on first-name terms. After all, we’ve kind of been brought together by fate.”

“Yes, you’re right. We really ought to be friends.”

“Maybe even a little more.” She was smiling slightly. “Sara and Steven. Sounds good. I think we ought to seal the bargain.”

“Seal it? What with?”

Sara’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, what do you think, you idiot? With a proper kiss. That one was just a peck.”

She took his head between her hands and kissed him firmly on the mouth.

It was better than a book by Voltaire.

Much better.





THE WHITE YACHT rolled gently on the small, crystalline blue waves of the Chiemsee, while gulls flew above the deck, screeching. There was a strong wind, so that it looked as if the Alps, powdered with snow, stood right on the banks of the lake.

Lancelot was sitting in a deck chair much too small for him, leaning forward, and letting his gaze sweep over the yacht’s equipment. Each of the two engines at the stern was 435 h.p., the diesel tank could hold a good four gallons. At almost fifty feet, the yacht was about the length that Lancelot had planned for his own ship, but he would opt for Brazilian rosewood rather than teak for the interior fittings, and he would have a riveted aluminium seat built in for deep-sea fishing. But all things considered, the yacht was roughly what Lancelot imagined when he was planning to enjoy the evening of his days to the full. Apart from the girls in close-clinging bikinis, of course, although they might be a little scared of his new appearance. The black-colored eye patch that Lancelot now wore, together with his black braid and the scar on his right cheek, made him look like a fierce pirate captain—a more menacing Captain Hook.

Well, there is something exciting about fear . . .

Lancelot was so deep in his thoughts that he did not feel the pain until broken glass was lying on the deck around him. The king had thrown a half-full glass of champagne at him, and now the royal’s bright little eyes were bent on the vassal. Legs crossed and in a white fur coat, The Royal Majesty sat on the swiveling seat at the controls in the open cabin, looking down disparagingly, as if from a throne, on the giant in the deck chair.

“My best knight,” the king hissed. “Loses an eye and lets the book be snapped up under his nose into the bargain. Snapped up by a woman.”

“She didn’t have the book,” Lancelot said, licking warm champagne and a few drops of blood off his lips. “That bookseller had gone off with it. She admitted it herself.”

“And you believed her?” The king laughed scornfully. “Women are crafty and cunning. Looking at your face in that state, I’m inclined to think that the woman is the one really pulling the strings. Who is she, anyway?”

“We . . . we don’t know that yet.”

The king raised an eyebrow. “And this man Lukas? What have you been able to find out about him?”

Lancelot was visibly uncomfortable. In his mind he saw his own luxury yacht foundering somewhere in the Atlantic. “Not much, except that he’s a rather eccentric antiquarian bookseller. Professor Liebermann apparently visited him by chance and then decided to hide the book among his wares.” Lancelot scratched under the bandage over his eye; the freshly disinfected socket itched horribly. “God knows why the lunatic is running all over with it now. He obviously guesses that the man Marot hid something. But he has no idea where.”

Lancelot still felt a slight sense of satisfaction to know that his assumption had been right. The brochures on the floor of the hotel room had pointed him in the direction of the next stop for the bookseller and his unknown girlfriend. There had been two possible destinations; he had posted men at both places. When they had told him at midday today that the couple they wanted had arrived in Prien, he had immediately passed the news on to his boss.

“Looks as if he’s found out something already, and now he’s curious,” said the king thoughtfully. “He’s thinking along the same lines as we are. Strange . . .” The king studied freshly manicured fingernails. “He comes from the United States, right?”

Lancelot nodded. “We’ve had his personal details checked. He has an American passport, although he’s been living in Germany since he was six.” The giant’s gaze was fixed on a place, some way off, where a couple of gulls were fighting over a fish just below the surface of the lake. “Unfortunately, he’s left hardly any traces on the Internet. No Facebook account, no e-mail contacts, no homepage. The man’s an oddball, if you ask me.”