‘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 there is a good chance that his letters would have carried a lot of weight. From the look of this gold and all these crates, a lot of people took the bait.’
Kaiser laughed. ‘Let me see if I got this straight. The King of Bavaria was running a Ponzi scheme on the richest people in Europe? That’s hilarious!’
Ulster shrugged. ‘Actually, no one knows if he was scamming people out of their money, or looking for investors in a legitimate project. The truth is he was killed before his plot was revealed. In theory, the Bavarian government wouldn’t have been pleased with either result – whether he was swindling the rich or hoarding money while refusing to pay his bills. Either way, Bavaria was going to be embarrassed by Ludwig’s actions. That’s why he was eliminated.’
‘Allegedly,’ Payne stressed. ‘Or was there proof?’
Ulster shook his head. ‘As I mentioned earlier, all this – his murder, his secret plan, his disappearance – is pure speculation. The only tangible evidence ever discovered regarding the black swan was a series of Ludwig’s sketches and a few snippets in his diary about a secret organization. Everything else is a mixture of rumours, hearsay and conjecture.’
‘Until today,’ Payne said.
Ulster beamed as he stared at his grandfather’s journal. ‘Yes. Until today.’
‘So,’ Kaiser said, anxious to open the other crates, ‘what’s the next step? Can we dive right in, or do you have to do some kind of archaeology shit?’
‘About that,’ Ulster said, ‘I’m afraid I might have some bad news for you. From the looks of these crates, I’m not sure you’re going to find anything of value.’
Kaiser laughed and snatched the gold bar from Ulster. ‘I don’t know about you, but gold has plenty of value to me. What does this thing weigh? Ten, twelve pounds? This crate alone will buy me an island.’
Jones looked offended. ‘Just a second! I pried off the damn lid. What’s my cut?’
‘Don’t worry, man. You can use my beach.’
Ulster cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. He wasn’t used to dealing with men like Kaiser and wasn’t sure how he would react to bad news. ‘Actually, that’s not what I meant. If my theory is correct, there’s a very good chance that most of these crates are worthless.’
‘Worthless?’ Kaiser blurted. ‘Why would they be worthless?’
Ulster ignored the question. Instead, he searched through the stacks – kicking a few crates, shaking another – until he found three that met his needs. ‘If you don’t mind, can you open these for me? They will illustrate my point.’
‘Sure,’ Kaiser said as he grabbed the crowbar.
‘Actually,’ Ulster told him, ‘tools won’t be necessary. The crates aren’t sealed.’
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘Remove the lid and find out.’
Intrigued, Payne and Jones moved closer as Kaiser pulled off the first lid. Much to their surprise, the crate was completely empty.
Ulster tapped on another. ‘Now this one.’
Kaiser did what he was told, but it was empty as well.
‘And this one.’
Same thing. The crate was empty.
Ulster motioned towards the stacks. ‘Unfortunately, I have a feeling most of them will be empty. Otherwise, my grandfather wouldn’t have stacked them like this.’
Payne grimaced. ‘Your grandfather? How do you know they were his crates?’
‘Simple. Look at the wood.’
‘What’s wrong with the wood?’ Kaiser demanded.
‘Nothing. And that’s the problem.’ Ulster ran his hand over one of the empty crates. ‘No nicks, no cracks, no scuffs of any kind. Much different to Ludwig’s crate, which was weathered and worn, but quite similar to the crate with my family’s crest. I noticed that earlier, but it didn’t make sense until now. If I had to guess, most of these crates were assembled here in anticipation of my grandfather’s next discovery.’