Authors: Sharyn McCrumb
Alban shrugged.
“Maybe they’ve set a date for the inquest. I’d like to know when I can plan on leaving. I expect they’ll want to drag the lake first, though.”
Alban turned and stared at him. “Drag the lake?”
“Sure. In case whatever she got hit with was thrown into the lake. And maybe the painting was thrown in. The sheriff has to be able to say he tried all the possibilities.” Now that Shepherd had begun to talk about the case, he seemed unable to stop. His thoughts poured out in a rush of words, requiring no responses for priming. “I’ve been thinking about the psychological implications of this case, trying to come up with a pattern. The actions of every mind arrange themselves into some kind of order, which, if you study it carefully, should tell you something about the personality of the individual. There’s not much to go on in this case, though,
and of course everything could have six different meanings. Depends on whose subconscious you’re looking at. Take the snake for example. Now, is that a coincidence or a phallic symbol, or what?”
Alban had thrust his hands in his pockets and walked a few feet ahead. “I’m sorry,” he said absently. “What did you say?”
It was obvious that he had not heard a word of Shepherd’s unburdening, which was just as well, Shepherd decided. Perhaps the sound of his own voice had been so soothing in itself that the sense of the words had been unnecessary. He certainly felt better for having voiced his thoughts, even if they went unheard.
A small tendril of honeysuckle draping over the path brushed Alban’s cheek. He shrank back, flailing at the white flowers with a startled cry before he recognized them. With a grunt of anger, he snapped off the branch and ground it into the dirt.
Shepherd watched him thoughtfully. “This has been very upsetting for you, hasn’t it?” he said at last.
Alban nodded, turning away. “That was childish,” he muttered. “I’m jumpy, I guess.”
“Very understandable,” said Shepherd encouragingly. “I’ve seen about ten snakes so far myself, but they all turned out to be sticks.”
“I haven’t been able to sleep,” Alban said softly. “Did I tell you about my headaches?”
“No. Bad ones?”
“Yes. Just lately. I never got them before.” Alban reached out and patted an oak tree near the path. “Isn’t this a wonderful old tree?”
“Tell me more about your headaches, Alban.”
“It’s as if there were a noise inside my head. I keep thinking there’s something I ought to be concentrating on, but the noise gets in the way. Do you think it’s serious?”
Shepherd blinked. “Well, it’s hard to say. It might be a reaction to stress. Wouldn’t hurt to have it checked out, though.”
“Nonsense! I am perfectly well, and I am sure Lutz is aware of it.”
Shepherd blinked. “Lutz? Is he your doctor?”
Alban pointed straight ahead. Between the branches the sky shone lighter, a luminous gray indicating a break in the trees. “We have almost arrived. Just around that bend in the path, you will be able to see Starnberg Lake.”
“Starnberg? The lake has a name? How long has it been called that?”
Alban regarded him with a calm stare. “But it has always been called that, Dr. Gudden.”
Elizabeth did not know why she was afraid. She was nearly running, although the path to the lake was almost dark beneath the trees. There was no sound of voices on the path ahead of her. They must be far ahead—perhaps they had already reached the lake.
It didn’t make any sense. The Mailgram telling her to read about Ludwig … Alban going for a walk beside the lake with Eileen’s psychiatrist … and the curious coincidence. It had to be a coincidence, didn’t it? Because if it weren’t … Not far to the lake now. Elizabeth slowed to a walk. She mustn’t make too much noise.
She should have waited for the sheriff, but they would have lost valuable time in explanations and argument. Or she might have left a note with the book. Saying what?
Like someone mouthing a foreign language, she turned the encyclopedia article over in her mind.
“Ludwig II … mad king of Bavaria … attempted to be an absolute monarch in the style of Louis XIV, but several centuries too late.… Because of his financial excesses and eccentric behavior, Ludwig was deposed in June 1886, and confined as a private mental patient in Berg Castle. A few days later, Ludwig and his psychiatrist were found drowned in a lake on the grounds of the estate. It is generally believed that Ludwig killed the doctor in an attempt to escape, and subsequently died of a heart attack while attempting to swim to freedom.…”
And now Alban and Dr. Shepherd were walking by the lake, but—so what? Alban wasn’t a prisoner. And
what did it have to do with Eileen? Nothing. Eileen was dead. The reality of that had been eclipsed by other concerns: the sheriff’s lumbering attempts at finding a suspect; Bill’s attempts at detection; Amanda’s exchange of one social event for another; and Michael’s mixture of relief and fear for his own safety. Except as a puzzle to solve, no one seemed to mind that Eileen’s life had ended. But everyone seemed to care who killed her. Elizabeth didn’t see why it mattered so much. The person who had thrown Eileen into the boat had certainly killed her, but she had been fading out of existence for such a long time before that that the actual termination of her life seemed little more than a formality. Was that the reason that Eileen had broken the mirror? Because people had ceased to see her except as a reflection of their own needs? The family was missing an audience, a dressmaker’s doll, a possession—but the personality of Eileen had slipped away long before. Elizabeth decided that she didn’t want to play detective; she didn’t much care about getting the right answer in the murder game; but she hurried on toward the lake because she felt that the danger was still present. Preventing a murder mattered more than solving one.
As she came to the last bend in the path, Elizabeth could hear the murmur of voices. Instinctively, she left the path and eased her way through the underbrush until she could see them clearly through a thicket of honeysuckle a few yards from the lake. To her right lay the boat dock and the grassy verge where Eileen had set her easel; about five yards to her left she could see Alban and Dr. Shepherd standing on a small spit of land in the clearing where the path ended. Beyond them the trees and the underbrush made dark patterns in the deepening twilight.
Elizabeth could just make out Alban’s expression in the gray light. His eyes were narrowed, and his head was thrown back in a posture of arrogance or anger. His voice sounded different. She strained to catch fragments of the conversation.
“You are working for Lutz, aren’t you?” he said harshly. “You’ll tell them I’m not fit to be king!”
Carlsen Shepherd, who stood with his back to Elizabeth, spread out his arms in a cosmic shrug.
“You are part of the conspiracy! Admit it!”
Shepherd sighed wearily. “Look, Alban, are you putting me on? Because if so, I’m not laughing.”
“Did you laugh when they brought me to Berg, Dr. Gudden? When they took my kingdom? And what has become of my letters to Bismarck? Did you have them destroyed?”
Shepherd took a tentative step backward. “Uh—Bismarck. Wait a minute. Letters to Bismarck, huh? Something about your kingdom? Why don’t we go back to the house and talk about this, Alb—er, Ludwig?”
The false heartiness of Shepherd’s reply had made Alban even angrier. He stamped his foot and shouted something, while Shepherd continued to edge away. Should she run to the house and get the sheriff? Elizabeth wondered. It would take a little over ten minutes to get there and back, not counting the time it might take to explain it all to Wesley Rountree. She had left the encyclopedia for him, though. Perhaps it would make him curious enough to follow her. She had to gamble on the fact that he’d come, because if she left, there would be no one to help Carlsen Shepherd. But if she stayed, what could she do? Elizabeth looked about her for a rock or a stick.
“I’m not going back there,” Alban was saying. “So you can tell them I’m mad. I’m going to escape and get help from Bismarck or Maximilian! I will have my kingdom back!”
Shepherd looked at him. After a moment’s hesitation, he began to walk toward Alban with his hands outstretched. “I don’t mean you any harm,” he said gently. “I think you’re probably right about those guys plotting against you. I just need to ask you a few questions, though.”
Alban blinked. “Questions? What questions?”
“Did you ever get mad at any young girls?”
Alban looked puzzled. “Are you speaking of Sophie?”
“Who?”
“The youngest daughter of Maximilian. We were engaged
once, but she never understood me. Still, I felt no bitterness.”
“You didn’t hit her over the head or anything?” prompted Shepherd.
Alban drew himself up proudly. “I am a king,” he hissed. “Not a drunken peasant! If I take a life it is my divine right to do so.” He bowed. “I regret that such a step has now become necessary, Herr Doctor. I am going to swim that lake to freedom, and you must be prevented from stopping me.”
Elizabeth saw him lunge forward, choking off Shepherd’s reply in mid-sentence. She had begun to twist at the stem of a honeysuckle branch, thinking that it might distract Alban even if it were too small to be considered a weapon. Between the two of them, they might be able to subdue him. As she tugged at the branch, she noticed a movement in the clump of bushes to the left of the lake.
“Ludwig!”
Elizabeth stared into the darkness to see who had spoken, but the woods beyond Alban were black. She could see that his hands were wrapped around Shepherd’s throat, and the two of them had sunk to their knees in their struggle.
“Ludwig!
” said the voice, more loudly this time.
Alban stiffened, and turned his head in the direction of the voice. Elizabeth thought he had loosened his hold on Shepherd for the moment. Now she could make out a dark shape standing against an outgrowth of shrubbery. The voice was masculine, but not familiar to her.
“Well, Ludwig, I see you are back at Schloss Berg. Will you not come to Villa Pellet?”
“Pellet?” murmured Alban. He stood up straight, releasing his hold on the doctor, who fell to the ground at the water’s edge and lay still.
“Yes—to Pellet! Have you forgotten?”
“Pellet,” said Alban again. He took a step toward the dark figure.
“Surely my Wotan has not forgotten his Siegfried?”
Alban put his hands to his temples as if to shut out
the voice—or the unseen noises obstructing it. “Wagner?” he said hoarsely. “Is it you, then?”
The shadow chuckled. “Of course, Your Majesty. It is I. And you have promised to listen to my plans for the new play tonight, remember?”
Alban put his face in his hands. “No! Wait! There’s something …” He looked back at Shepherd’s body.
“Wait …”
“Your Majesty gave me his word,” the voice chided.
He continued to speak in a coaxing tone while Elizabeth edged forward, wondering what she should do and trying to make sense of the scene before her.
“Come along with me now,” the soothing voice urged. “Come now; come closer. It’s quite chilly here by the lake.”
Alban actually began to walk toward the woods. The figure, about twenty feet away from him, motioned him forward, gently encouraging him to come closer. Elizabeth was bracing herself to make a dash for Shepherd, while Alban was distracted, when she heard shouts up the path.
“Cobb! Elizabeth MacPherson! What is going on around here? Yo! Answer me somebody!”
The spell was broken. Alban’s head snapped in the direction of the voice. He looked back at Shepherd’s body a few feet away, and then straight at Elizabeth, who had come out of hiding in preparation for a dash to pull Shepherd to safety. Their eyes met, but in the darkness Elizabeth could not tell if he had known who she was. For an instant he stood perfectly still on the edge of the lake, and then he was gone.
“Sheriff!” she yelled. “I’m here! Hurry up!” She ran to Shepherd and knelt by his body, trying to turn him over. She glanced up at the churning water a few yards from shore and caught a glimpse of Alban’s arms flailing as he made for the tangle of weeds in the middle of the lake. “Sheriff!” she wailed.
A sound from the bushes made her turn. She suddenly remembered the strange voice who had been speaking to Alban. It was still only a shadow but it was coming closer.
“Now look, Whoever-You-Are … you are
not
Richard Wagner … The sheriff will be here any second and if you come any closer he’ll blow you away …”
Two more figures came snapping through the thicket. “I’m going after that son-of-a-bitch,” said one of them. “See what you can do for that guy, Milo.”
Elizabeth watched a tall, thin shadow dive into the lake. She sank down beside Shepherd. “Oh, shit,” she murmured. “It’s Bill.”
The man who had emerged from the thicket with Bill was wearing a sheriff’s department uniform, but it was not Rountree or his deputy; he was big enough to be both of them put together, she thought. He hurried to Shepherd and began to apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The Wagner imposter took her arm and led her away.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Elizabeth stared at him. He looked about Bill’s age, with clever brown eyes and good cheekbones. “Are you Milo?” she said finally.
“Of course.” He glanced back at the lake. “If you’re okay, I think I’ll go back and help Bill.”
She heard him hit the water as the sheriff and Clay burst into the clearing. Rountree took in the scene, and walked toward her. “Are you all right?” he demanded.
“Yes.”
“Then you want to tell me what’s going on down here?”
Elizabeth stared out at the lake. She could just make out two swimmers circling in midlake. Two swimmers; not three.
“Alban did it,” she said softly.
“Well, I knew that,” drawled Rountree. “I just want to know what this stunt was all about. And what is Hill-Bear doing here? Will somebody tell me that?”
Elizabeth shook her head. She felt dizzy.
Rountree steadied her arm. “Easy, now. Clay, get
her back up to the house and call for an ambulance. I’ll stay here and give these fellas a hand.”