A Matter of Honor

ity of the wreckage have been returned to the Grand Duke. Prince Louis, it is understood, was particularly saddened by the loss of a family heirloom that was to have been a wedding gift from his brother, the late Grand Duke. The gift, a painting known as the “Czar’s Icon,” had once belonged to his uncle, Czar Nikolai II. The icon of Saint George and the dragon, although only a copy of Rublev’s masterpiece, was considered to be one of the finest examples of early twentieth-century craftsmanship to come out of Russia since the Revolution.

Romanov looked up at the researcher. “Twentieth century be damned,” he said. “It was the fifteenth-century original, and none of them realized it at the time—perhaps not even the old Grand Duke himself. No doubt the Czar had plans for the icon had he managed to escape.”

Romanov dreaded having to tell Zaborski that he could now prove conclusively that the original Czar’s icon had been destroyed in a plane crash some thirty years before. Such news would not ensure promotion for its messenger, as he remained convinced that there was something far more important than the icon at stake for Zaborski to be so involved.

He stared down at the photograph above the Zeilung report. The young Grand Duke was shaking hands with the general in charge of the salvage team that had been successful in returning so many of the Prince’s family possessions. “But did he return them all?” Romanov said out loud.

“What do you mean?” asked the young researcher. Romanov waved his hand as he continued to stare at the pre-war, faded photograph of the two men. Although the general was unnamed, every schoolboy in Germany would have recognized the large, impassive, heavy-jowled face with the chilling eyes that would become famous to the Allied powers.

Romanov looked up at the researcher. “You can forget the Grand Duke from now on, Comrade Petrova. Concentrate your efforts on Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering.”

When Adam woke his first thoughts were of Carolyn. His yawn turned into a grin as he considered her invitation of the night before. Then he remembered. He jumped out of bed and walked over to his desk: everything was in place exactly as he had left it. He yawned for a second time.

It was ten to seven. Although he felt as fit as he had been the day he left the army some seven weeks before, he still completed a punishing routine of exercise every morning. He intended to be at his peak when the Foreign Office put him through a physical. In moments he was dressed in a sweatshirt and a pair of running shorts. He pulled on an old army tracksuit and finally tied up his gym shoes.

Adam tiptoed out of the flat, not wanting to wake Lawrence or Carolyn, although he suspected she was wide awake, waiting impatiently. For the next thirty-four minutes he pounded the pavement down to the Embankment, across Albert Bridge and through Battersea Park, to return by way of Chelsea Bridge. Only one thought was going through his mind. After twenty years of gossip and innuendo this was going to be the one chance to clear his father’s name. The moment he arrived back at the flat Adam checked his pulse: 150 beats a minute. Sixty seconds later it was down to 100, in another minute 70, and before the fourth minute was up it was back to a steady 58. It’s your recovery that proves fitness, not your speed, his old Physical Training Instructor at Aldershot had drummed into him.

As Adam walked back through to his room, there was still no sign of Carolyn. Lawrence, smart in a gray pinstriped suit, was preparing breakfast in the kitchen while glancing at the cricket scores in the Daily Telegraph.

“The West Indies made 526,” he informed Adam forlornly.

“Have we begun our innings?” shouted Adam from the bathroom.

“No, bad light stopped play.”

Adam groaned as he stripped for the shower. He was ready for his morning game of finding out how long he could last under the freezing jets. The forty-eight needles of ice-cold water beat down on his back and chest, which made him take several deep breaths. Once you survive the first thirty seconds, you could stay under forever, the instructor had assured them. Adam emerged three minutes later, satisfied but still damning the PTI, from whose influence he felt he would never escape.

Once he had toweled himself down Adam walked back to his bedroom. A moment later he had thrown on his dressing gown and joined his friend in the kitchen for breakfast. Lawrence was now seated at the kitchen table concentrating hard on a bowl of cornflakes, while running a finger down the foreign exchange rates in the Financial Times.

Adam checked his watch: already ten past eight. “Won’t you be late for the office?” he asked.

“Dear boy,” said Lawrence, “I am not a lackey who works at the kind of bank where the customers keep shop hours.”

Adam laughed.

“But I will, however, have to be shackled to my desk in London by nine-thirty,” Lawrence admitted. “They don’t send a driver for me nowadays,” he explained. “In this traffic, I told them it’s so much quicker by tube.”

Adam started to make himself breakfast.

“I could give you a lift on my motorbike.”

“Can you imagine a man in my position arriving at the headquarters of Barclays Bank on a motorbike? The chairman would have a fit,” he added, as he folded the Financial Times.

Adam cracked a second egg into the frying pan.

“See you tonight, then, glorious, unwashed, and unemployed,” declared Lawrence as he collected his rolled umbrella from the hat stand.

Adam cleared away and washed up, happy to act as housewife while he was still unemployed. Despite years of being taken care of by an orderly, he knew exactly what was expected of him. All he had planned before his interview with the Foreign Office that afternoon was a long bath and a slow shave. Then he remembered that Reichsmarschall Goering was still resting on the table in the bedroom.

“Have you come up with anything that would indicate Goering might have kept the icon for himself?” asked Romanov, turning hopefully to the researcher.

“Only the obvious,” Anna Petrova replied in an offhand manner.

Romanov considered reprimanding the young girl for such insolence but said nothing on this occasion. After all, Comrade Petrova had proved to be far the most innovative of his team of researchers.

“And what was so obvious?” inquired Romanov.

“It’s common knowledge that Hitler put Goering in charge of all the art treasures captured on behalf of the Third Reich. But as the Führer had such fixed personal opinions as to what constituted quality, many of the world’s masterpieces were judged as ‘depraved’ and therefore unworthy to be put on public view for the delectation of the master race.”