The Secret Crown

have some fun with it.’

Payne glanced at the symbol on the lid. Admittedly, it did have a certain flair. ‘What type of organization are you talking about?’

‘The secret kind.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning he didn’t want people to know about it.’

Payne growled softly. ‘Believe it or not, I know what secret means. I meant, what was the function of the organization?’

‘Sorry,’ Ulster said, blushing. He was so excited about the discovery, he was rambling more than usual. ‘Ludwig’s goal was to acquire funds through illicit means.’

Kaiser laughed. ‘He became a thief? That’s awesome!’

Jones was tempted to tease Kaiser, then thought better of it.

Ulster shook his head. ‘Not a thief, per se. More like the head of a new syndicate. Ludwig hatched a series of crazy schemes, then recruited his most loyal followers to carry them out. Unfortunately, most of his men realized that Ludwig was bonkers, so they only pretended to follow his orders – often with comic results.’

‘Such as?’ Jones asked.

Ulster thought of a good example. ‘After being turned down for a loan by a Rothschild bank, Ludwig decided to steal the money instead. Realizing his men might be recognized in Munich, he sent a group of his servants to Frankfurt to rob a bank there. Not soldiers, mind you, but servants – cooks, butlers, stable boys and the like. Obviously these men had no intention of robbing a bank, but all of them wanted a free vacation. With that in mind, the group went to Frankfurt for a few days where they spent plenty of the king’s money. Eventually they returned home empty-handed. When asked about their lack of success, they claimed they had been this close to finishing the job but a last-minute glitch had prevented it.’

Payne, Jones, and Kaiser laughed. It sounded like the plot of a bad movie.

‘So,’ Payne guessed, ‘the government caught wind of these crazy schemes and decided to remove Ludwig before he did irreparable damage to the crown.’

‘Actually, no. The servants didn’t want to be punished – or ruin a good thing – so most of these stories didn’t surface until long after Ludwig had been murdered.’

‘Really? Then what got him in trouble?’ Payne asked.

Ulster pointed at the gold. ‘Rumours about the black swan.’

20

Unlike some historians who refused to offer an opinion about anything until every fact had been collected and studied ad nauseam, Ulster tended to develop theories on the wing. Sometimes that resulted in a rambling monologue that went on for ever, but Payne and Jones had been around him enough to understand his process. For Ulster, talking about the subject matter was the key. As he painted the scene for others, pieces of the puzzle fell into place in his own mind.

‘Nine months before his murder,’ Ulster explained, ‘Ludwig summoned the best horsemen in his kingdom to Linderhof – one of his castles – and asked them to deliver a series of letters across Europe. To escape detection, the riders were sent on their journeys in the dead of night. According to a witness who worked in the stables, each of the documents had been sealed in advance, and each had been stamped with an elaborate black swan. Other than that, not much is known about their mysterious quest. No one knows what the letters said, where they were sent, or if they were actually delivered.’

‘Why didn’t someone ask the riders?’ Payne asked.

‘Why? Because the riders never returned.’

‘None of them?’

Ulster shook his head. ‘No one knows if they were shot, captured, or ordered to stay away.’

‘That’s bizarre,’ Jones said. He was familiar with Ludwig and his castles, but he had never heard about the black swan.

‘Trust me,’ Ulster assured them, ‘it gets even stranger. The very next night, Ludwig disappeared – simply vanished without a trace for roughly thirty-six hours. No one knew if he had been kidnapped, killed or lost in the nearby woods. Obviously, it was a scary time for his advisors. Not wanting to start a panic and not wanting to give his opposition any ammunition, they decided to keep things quiet until they figured out where he was. Slowly but surely, they began to understand what had happened. In the middle of the night, Ludwig had snuck out of Linderhof – past a team of armed guards – and departed for Schachen, a small palace less than five miles from here. For some reason, he wanted to be left alone for a week.’

Ulster paused to gather his thoughts. ‘Once he was found, his advisors were relieved. With Ludwig on vacation, they could spin his departure any way they wanted. At least until rumours started to spread about the midnight horsemen and the mysterious letters. Worried that Ludwig had hatched another crazy scheme, they decided to pay him a surprise visit to see what he was plotting. When they got there, he was covered in dirt – as though he had been working in the fields all day. They asked him what he had been doing, but he refused to say.’

‘Any theories?’ Payne asked.

‘Not until you showed me the crate of gold with the black swan symbol. Now, if I had to guess, I’d say Ludwig got dirty while visiting this bunker.’

Payne furrowed his brow. ‘How is that possible? I thought you said your grandfather built this bunker in the 1930s?’

Ulster shook his head. ‘Actually, Jonathon, I said my grandfather used this bunker. I never said he built it. Considering all the Nazi activity in these parts, there’s no way he could have built something like this without detection. No, if I had to speculate, I’d say Ludwig commissioned its construction in 1886, and my grandfather found it fifty years later.’

To make his point, Ulster held up his grandfather’s journal. ‘Remember earlier when I said the black swan was an explanation? At the time, I meant it in terms of this book, but …’ He paused, still coming to grips with a theory. ‘On further reflection, the black swan explains a lot more than that. Actually, it explains just about everything.’

‘Everything?’ Payne asked.

Ulster nodded. ‘Imagine a set of directions with no starting point. No matter how many turns you make, you can never reach your destination because you don’t know where to begin. In many ways, that’s how I felt before you showed me that symbol. Similar to the Rosetta Stone, which helped linguists decipher the hieroglyphics, the black swan gave me the context I was lacking when I first entered this bunker. Suddenly, I see things in a different light.’

‘Wonderful,’ Payne said dryly. ‘Hopefully that means you’ll be able to address some of the questions you still haven’t answered.’

‘Such as?’

‘Why did Ludwig build this bunker?’

Ulster pointed at the crates. ‘To hide his treasure.’

Kaiser interrupted. ‘What treasure? I thought he was broke.’

‘So did his creditors,’ Ulster said, laughing. ‘At the time of his death, Ludwig was more than fourteen million marks in debt. Creditors were lining up at his door, demanding to be paid. In fact, the company that supplied water and fuel to his castles actually took him to court over non-payment. According to several sources, it was the biggest embarrassment of Ludwig’s life.’

‘What’s your point?’ Payne asked.

Ulster grabbed one of the gold bars for emphasis. ‘If Ludwig had this much gold lying around, why didn’t he spend it and avoid all that humiliation?’

Jones took a guess. ‘Because he was nuts.’

‘Or,’ Ulster countered, ‘the rumours about the black swan were true.’

‘What rumours?’ Payne demanded. ‘You keep mentioning rumours.’

Ulster smiled, relishing the opportunity to explain. ‘According to legend, Ludwig sent the mysterious letters – known as the black swan letters – to aristocrats throughout Europe, asking for their support in a secret project he was working on. At the time of his death, Ludwig’s reputation was far better in foreign countries than in Bavaria, so