She took the laptop out of her bag and typed in the word. There was a soft beep.
“Fuck,” she said. “If NZC is the title of a poem, then it has to be a pretty modern one, definitely not from the Romantic period.” She tried typing in a few more words but soon gave up, swearing to herself.
“Can’t you think of anything?” she asked Zöller, her nerves obviously on edge. “After all, you’re supposed to be the expert.”
Uncle Lu rolled his eyes. “I’m an expert on Ludwig the Second, not on your word games.”
“We won’t get anywhere like this,” Steven said. He stared at the almost life-sized portrait of the Sun King behind the writing desk. It showed Louis XIV in his blue coronation cloak, with a pattern of little golden crosses, wearing a full-bottomed wig and with a cane held solemnly in one hand. He seemed to be looking down on the three of them, trying to solve their puzzle with something close to mockery.
“I’m sure that guy up there is trying to tell us something,” Steven murmured. “But for the life of me I can’t figure out what. The keyword must be something that’s hidden and obvious at the same time, like the name Maria carved into the bark of the linden tree.”
“What other rooms are there on this floor?” Sara asked, turning to Uncle Lu. “Could be we’ll find something in them.”
Zöller frowned. “As far as I know, only the robing room and bathroom were even half finished. Oh, and the kitchen with the apparatus working the magic table. Technically very interesting, but not the sort of room where you might expect to find a clue.”
“All the same, I think we ought to take a look.” Sara was already hurrying to the door, while Uncle Lu, grumbling, rolled up his map. “If only to see what kind of a wardrobe Ludwig had.”
They went back to the first floor down a flight of stairs still in a rough state of construction. Now, at night, the echo of their footsteps sounded even more sinister than earlier in the evening when there were still a few other people in the now-empty building. Steven thought he heard soft voices, and gravel crunching outside the windows. He pressed his nose flat against one of the dim panes, but all he could see through it was the tops of linden trees, looking in the dark like the shaggy heads of gigantic rock trolls.
“Oh, come along,” Zöller grumbled. “I told you it’s only the night watchman. You’ll get me shitting my own pants next.”
Steven followed the others into a room where the beams of their flashlights revealed a huge metal structure. It looked to Steven like Dr. Frankenstein’s dissecting table. Only at second glance did he notice the crank and the weights on either side of it. The platform extended upward to the ceiling.
“We’re directly under the dining room here,” Uncle Lu explained. “Ludwig used this hydraulic elevator to bring the already-set table up to the dining room above. The famous magic table straight out of the fairy tales. Not bad, eh? But take a look at this.” He led Steven and Sara into a bathroom with a marble bath the size of a small hotel swimming pool.
“Ludwig’s bathtub. The basin holds more than thirteen thousand gallons of water,” Zöller said. “Presumably the king and his men friends . . . er, disported themselves here. But the room was never completed . . . Which means that Marot won’t have seen it, and he can’t have left a message here. I’m baffled, I’m afraid. End of guided tour.”
“Nothing unusual in the robing room either,” Sara called from a nearby room. “Apart from the fact that so many mirrors would have a terrible effect on my getting dressed in the morning. Seeing one big bum is quite enough. Here I’d see an infinite number of them. Not at all good for the ego . . .” Shrugging, she rejoined them in the bathroom.
Steven passed one hand wearily over his eyes. “I’m still sure we’ve overlooked something. Let’s go through all the rooms again in our heads. The Great Hall of Mirrors, the porcelain room, the Blue Salon . . .”
Another sound stopped him. This time it came from the right, where the stairs led up to the second floor. When Steven turned around, he saw the night watchman, shining his flashlight straight into his face.
“No offense meant,” the man intoned, “but I have to go over to the old monastery now. How much longer do you need?”
“Not long, Franz,” Zöller replied. “We’ll just take a quick look through again, and then we ought to be finished.”
“Heavens above, Lu!” the night watchman said. “You got any idea the trouble you could land me in? If admin hears that I’m letting private guests into the place at night, I’ll be fired. What are you doing here, anyway?”