The Ludwig Conspiracy (12 page)

Finally I reached the more salubrious Maxvorstadt district again, turned left down Schellingstrasse, and stopped outside the Schelling Salon, which had opened a few years earlier. The restaurant was built entirely in the Viennese coffeehouse style, with tall, bright windows and a pretty garden where a few chestnut trees grew, providing shade. Von Strelitz and Pfaffinger got out.

“You wait here,” the agent told me, and then they disappeared into the restaurant.

I had spent around ten minutes biting my nails on the driver’s box of my cab, when a second cab suddenly approached. The door at the back opened, and a small, elderly gentleman with a gray, full beard appeared. He was carrying a walking stick and wore a dark suit of fine fabric; clever eyes shone behind his pince-nez. I was sure I had seen the man somewhere before, but try as I might, I couldn’t place the occasion. It must have been at the court at some time or another.

The elderly gentleman went straight into the Schelling Salon, leaving me alone with my gloomy thoughts. What was I to do? So far all I had found out was that Prussia and the team of Bavarian ministers were planning to make some move against the king, which we already suspected. I cursed quietly, because I couldn’t place the gray-bearded man’s name.

Finally I could stand it no longer. In defiance of all caution, I got down from the driver’s box, walked over to the restaurant, and tentatively opened the door. Most of the customers were sitting out in the beer garden because of the fine September weather; indoors, gentlemen reading newspapers and smoking occupied only a few tables. At the back of the room, several billiard tables were visible through the haze of tobacco smoke, but no one was playing at them. From there, an opaque glass door led to a private room.

I smiled at the waitress and ordered a small beer, then went over to the billiard tables. The closed glass door was not far away, and I could in fact hear the quiet murmur of voices beyond it. Hoping to be inconspicuous, I picked up a billiard cue and acted as if I were about to practice a few shots, while my attention was entirely devoted to the conversation in the private room. If I concentrated, I could hear the voices behind the glass fairly clearly.

“. . . Must not delay a day longer,” Secretary Pfaffinger was saying. “New craftsmen whom the king can’t pay off are turning up every week. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

“You mean all his little delusions?” interrupted von Strelitz. “Bismarck has already told me about those.”

“He converses at the table with Louis Quatorze and the lovely Marie Antoinette,” said Pfaffinger. “With the dead. If he speaks at all, that is. Generally he gets up at five in the afternoon and rides all night. Then the rooms have to be darkened during the day because His Majesty is asleep or reading. And all that fancy dress. In Linderhof, the footmen have to go around in fur costumes and dance with him. While on Mount Schachen, he takes himself for the caliph of Baghdad. He is intolerable—a disgrace to our country.”

“Is it true that one of his servants may approach him only if wearing a black mask?” asked von Strelitz. “And another has to wear a seal on his forehead as a sign of punishment?” He laughed quietly. “Not a bad notion. Sometimes I’d like to brand my own seal into my officials’ foreheads.”

“All very well for you to talk,” said Pfaffinger with a sigh. “You don’t have to live with his crazy notions. What do you think, Doctor? Isn’t the man an outright lunatic?”

These last remarks were obviously addressed to the third man, who now cleared his throat and spoke for the first time.

“It does indeed all suggest paranoia. And it wouldn’t be the first case in his family. However, I ought to have a rather longer conversation with the king first.”

“We can’t risk that,” hissed Pfaffinger. “If Ludwig gets wind of our intention to have him declared insane, he’ll put us all up against the wall.”

I froze. The cue almost slipped from my hands as the full import of what I had just heard dawned on me. The ministers wanted to certify Ludwig insane and then depose him! They were not plotting an assassination, then, but a more insidious kind of murder. And now I remembered how it was that I knew the third man. He was no less than the famous psychiatrist Dr. Bernhard von Gudden, who had already certified Ludwig’s brother, Otto, insane. I had seen him once or twice in Fürstenried Castle. What the three gentlemen in that room were planning was nothing short of high treason.

The waitress at the counter cast me a suspicious look. I must have been getting paler and paler, and it obviously hadn’t escaped her notice. Nervously, I sipped my beer so as not to attract any more attention. When the girl turned to other customers, I crept very close to the glass door to go on eavesdropping on their secret conversation.

“I’ve spoken to Bismarck,” von Strelitz was saying. “He agrees that Prince Luitpold should become prince regent. But only if the medical report is unassailable. We can’t afford civil war in Bavaria.”

“A medical report drawn up without being able to examine the king?” murmured Dr. von Gudden. “That would be difficult.”

“Doctor, you must understand this,” insisted Pfaffinger. “The danger of his having all the ministers shot is too great.”

“Oh, come along. The main danger is that he’ll have them all dismissed,” replied Gudden brusquely. “Isn’t that what you’re really afraid of? If they go on refusing him money for his castles, he’ll simply look for other ministers.”

“Ludwig trusts the Lutz cabinet,” said Pfaffinger, keeping his voice down. “He doesn’t get along with the Ultramontane party and their papacy, so he’ll stay true to us.”

“For how much longer?” Dr. von Gudden sighed before he went on. “But I understand what you mean. The king is indeed becoming more and more of a burden on his country. The condition for such a medical certificate, however, is that the populace joins in making the decision. Remember, Ludwig still has his supporters.”

“Never fear,” the secretary reassured him. “We’ll put pressure on the newspapers and have a few damaging articles printed. Our people are everywhere.”

“Good,” said von Strelitz. “Then I can tell the imperial chancellor that it will all be done to his satisfaction . . .”

He broke off, and there was a pause. Much too late, I saw the shadows beyond the opaque glass. Someone inside the private room must have seen me. The Prussian agent flung the door open and stared at me furiously. “What the devil do you think you’re—?” he began. But I had already rammed the billiard cue into his stomach. Von Strelitz collapsed, groaning, while loud voices clamored behind him.

“Who in God’s name is that?” cried the agitated Pfaffinger.

“Presumably an agent of the king’s pretending to be our driver,” groaned von Strelitz, who was back on his feet much faster than I liked.

By now I had gone around one of the billiard tables and was about to run for it through the front door, when I heard a pistol shot. Something hissed past my left ear, coming within a hairsbreadth of it.

“Stay where you are,” snarled von Strelitz, aiming a small Derringer at me, “or my next shot will blow your brains out.” Behind him stood the distraught Secretary Pfaffinger, and Dr. von Gudden, who was nervously polishing his pince-nez.

I hesitantly nodded and let my hands drop to the table in front of me. The billiard balls from my practice game were still lying on it. My fingers slid nervously over the cold ivory.

“Put your filthy hands in the air before I . . .” von Strelitz began, but then the billiard ball I had just thrown struck him in the middle of the forehead. He fell to the floor, screaming, and the next one I threw hit his shoulder. I flung one last billiard ball, then leaped over the agent, who was cursing at the top of his lungs, and as I ran past the waitress, who had just come into the room with a tray of beer glasses, I knocked her over. The glasses crashed to the floor, shattering, and I hurried past the shrieking waitress, out into the open air, and onto my cab.

Unhesitatingly, I snatched up the whip, cracked it, and the one-horse carriage set off with a clatter. When I turned, I saw to my horror that von Strelitz, too, was running into the beer garden. He was making for the second cab, whose driver was still waiting for Dr. von Gudden. Von Strelitz pushed the surprised cabby off his box, loosened the reins, and followed me into Schellingstrasse, making for Ludwigstrasse.

We raced past the tenement blocks and taverns at a fast trot and finally turned onto the impressive Ludwigstrasse. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that von Strelitz was slowly but steadily catching up. His cab was only a carriage length behind me now. I could see his face, distorted by hatred and bleeding from the impact of the billiard ball; his left hand clutched the reins, while his right hand held the pistol, aiming it at me. Another shot rang out, and as I ducked, something that sounded like a furious bee passed through the air just above me. Von Strelitz sped up. Other vehicles had to swerve to avoid his one-horse carriage. I heard their drivers cursing and saw one cab tip over sideways, horses and all, and crash on the steps of the Feldherrnhalle monument.

Drenched with sweat, I whipped my horse as its hooves clattered over the paving stones in a wild gallop. I knew that if the Prussian agent caught up, he would shoot me down in broad daylight in the middle of Munich, and never mind if the place was teeming with police officers. Stopping me from informing the king of their treason was too important.

My carriage thundered, at vertiginous speed, past the royal residence and down to the Isar River, then along it, until finally the Reichenbach bridge was in sight. Von Strelitz was still on my heels. I turned left and raced into the dirty neighborhood of Au. The houses to my right and left were low and slanted sideways, the alleys narrow and winding. The beggars and day laborers watched, astonished, as two elegant horse-drawn cabs rattled through this impoverished area. Some of them shouted encouragement, assuming that we had arranged an illicit carriage race.

Suddenly a herd of lowing cows and bleating goats came out of a side street ahead of me and to my right. I slackened the reins and just managed to shoot past the animals before they leisurely trotted across the alley. I heard the agent cursing loudly behind me. But it did him no good; the beasts went not a jot faster.

When I looked around once more, I could see the furious von Strelitz on the box of his cab, bringing his whip down on several cows and trying in vain to force his way past the beasts. Grinning, I turned forward. At the next bend in the road, I took a sharp right, got the cab behind a hay wain, and jumped down from the box, dripping with sweat. I had shaken off my enemy—for the time being.

And I had indeed found out what Count Dürckheim must have suspected: they wanted to certify the king insane! Certify him insane, and depose him.

I knew that I had to tell Ludwig about this monstrous plan at once, even if it meant risking my life. Von Strelitz would certainly move heaven and earth to keep me from reaching LINDERHOF Castle, where the king was staying, and he would do it at once. Maybe his henchmen were already waiting for me at the city gates. But I LOVED the king, and that LOVE was stronger than my fear. That was the key that could open the door of truth to the world.

Only a little later, I had taken refuge in the narrow alleys of the Au district. But for a long time I could still hear the bark of von Strelitz’s pistol in my ears. It was not to be the last time I heard it.

FHRT, LALJEDIE

T
HE RAMSHACKLE HORSE-DRAWN
cab tossed Steven roughly back and forth. He felt the cobblestones under its wheels as distinctly as if his back were being dragged along the road. His mind buzzed with all he had learned over the last few hours. To make things even worse, the driver began shouting at him in a high-pitched voice.

“Wake up! Hey, wake up!”

Intrigued, Steven realized that the driver was a woman. Furthermore, the rattling noise had stopped. It was not the cab shaking him, but a hand tugging at his creased sleeve. Finally he sat up, blinking, and drowsily rubbed his eyes. Sara Lengfeld was standing in front of him, grinning and offering him a mug of steaming coffee. The open diary lay on the table among picture books and crumpled Post-it notes; he must have fallen asleep reading it. Sara had put a woolen rug over his legs in the night.

“Drink this,” Sara said. “There’s something I have to show you, and you’ll want to be in full possession of your faculties for it.”

“How . . . how long have I been asleep?” Steven asked, gratefully accepting the mug. The image of the dead man in his shop flickered briefly before his mind’s eye, and he reacted with a start. “The diary . . . I decoded several pages. I must have nodded off.”

Sara smiled. “It’s late morning. Also, you snore like a buzz saw.” She pointed to Steven’s unshaven face. “And you drool in your sleep.”

The bookseller, embarrassed, passed his hand over his lips. After falling asleep in the leather armchair, he felt as worn out as if he had genuinely been riding in a nineteenth-century posting coach. He probably looked terrible; pale, with tousled hair, bad breath, and unshaven. And of course his razor was back in his own apartment. It was high time he went back there. Maybe last night’s precautions had been overly paranoid.

“Listen, Sara,” he began. “It’s about time we stopped playing games and . . .”

She waved this remark away. “If you’re afraid I’m going to fall in love with you, don’t worry about it,” she interrupted him. “You’re not my type. Much too old.” She grinned. “Just a little joke. But the way it looks, you probably will have to stay here with me a while longer.”

Steven looked at her, baffled. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Then drink up your coffee like a good boy and follow me.” The art detective looked at her watch. “It’ll be eleven in a moment, and there’s something on TV that you definitely ought to see.”

“But what . . . what’s this about?” asked Steven, shaking his head. “Aren’t you interested in what the diary says? It’s a fascinating eyewitness account, and . . .”