A Matter of Honor

by Archer, Jeffrey

  “The bathroom is at the end of the corridor,” said Adam, a little feebly.

  “It wasn’t the bathroom I was looking for, silly.” She giggled. “I don’t seem able to wake Lawrence. After all that wine he’s passed out like a defeated heavyweight boxer.” She sighed. “And long before round fifteen. I don’t think anything will rouse him again until morning.” She took a step toward him.

  Adam stammered something about feeling rather beat himself. He made sure his back shielded her from any sight of the papers on the desk.

  “Oh, God,” said Carolyn, “you’re not a queer, are you?″

  “Certainly not,” said Adam, a little pompously.

  “Just don’t fancy me?” she asked.

  “Not that exactly,” said Adam.

  “But Lawrence is your chum,” she said. Adam didn’t reply.

  “My God, this is the sixties, Adam. Share and share alike.”

  “It’s just that …” began Adam.

  “What a waste,” said Carolyn, “perhaps another time.” She tiptoed to the door and slipped back into the corridor, unaware of her German rival.

  The first action Romanov took on leaving the Chairman’s office that morning was to return to his alma mater and hand-pick a team of twelve researchers. From the moment they had been briefed they proceeded to study in pairs on four-hour shifts, so that the work could continue night and day.

  The early information had come in almost by the hour, and the researchers had quickly been able to establish that the Czar’s icon had remained in his private quarters at the Winter Palace in Petrograd until as late as December 1914. Romanov studied religiously a photo of the small delicate painting of Saint George and the dragon—Saint George in a tiny mosaic pattern of blue and gold while the dragon was in red and yellow. Although he had never shown any interest in art, Romanov could well understand why people could be moved by the little masterpiece. He continued to read details of the icon’s history but still couldn’t work out why it was so important to the State. He wondered if Zaborski even knew the reason.

  A royal servant who had testified before the People’s Court three years after the Revolution claimed that the Czar’s icon had disappeared for a few days in 1915 after the visit of Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse. At the time, the inquisitors had taken scant interest in the misplaced icon because it was still on the wall of the Czar’s study when they had stormed the Winter Palace. What concerned the court more was why, in the middle of a fierce war with the Kaiser’s Germany, the Grand Duke of Hesse should want to visit the Czar at all.

  The professor of history at the university had immediately been asked for his opinion. The great academic was puzzled by the request, as the KGB had never shown any interest in the nation’s past history before. Nevertheless he briefed Romanov on everything that was known of the incident. Romanov pored over his report once again. The Grand Duke, it was thought, had been on a secret visit to his sister Alexandra, the Czarina. Historians now believed that it had been his intention to secure a cease-fire between Germany and Russia, in the hope that Germany could then concentrate her war efforts on the British and the French.

  There was no proof that the Czar made any promises on behalf of his people, but the Grand Duke, it seemed, did not return to Germany empty-handed. As the reports of the proceedings of the People’s Court showed, another palace servant had been instructed to wrap up the Czar’s icon and pack it with the Grand Duke’s belongings. However, no one on the palace staff could properly explain to the court how a few days later the icon reappeared in its rightful place on the wall of the Czar’s study.

  Romanov’s chief researcher, Prof. Oleg Konstantinov, having studied the professor’s notes and the other researchers’ contributions, had underlined his own conclusion in red ink.

  “The Czar must have replaced the original painting with a brilliant copy, having handed over the real icon for safekeeping to his brother-in-law, the Grand Duke.”

  “But why,” asked Romanov, “when the Czar had a palace full of Goyas, El Grecos, Titians, and Rubenses did he bother to smuggle out one icon, and why does Brezhnev want it back so badly?”

  Romanov instructed the professor and his twenty-four researchers to turn their talents to the Royal House of Hesse in the hope of tracing what had then happened to the Czar’s icon. Within ten days, they possessed between them more information about the Grand Duke and his family than any professor at any university had managed to gather in a lifetime. As each file appeared on his desk Romanov labored through the night, checking every scrap of information that might give him a lead to the whereabouts of the original painting. Romanov came to a dead end when after the Grand Duke’s death the painting had been left to his brother, who was tragically killed in a plane crash. Nothing had been seen or heard of the icon after that day.

  By the beginning of the third week, Romanov had reluctantly reached the conclusion that there was nothing new on the whereabouts of the icon to be discovered. He was preparing his final report for the Chairman of the KGB when one researcher, Comrade Petrova, whose mind did not work in parallel lines, stumbled across an article in the London Times of Wednesday, 17 November 1937. Petrova bypassed the research leader and handed the relevant photocopy to Romanov personally, who, over the next few hours, read the news item so often that he came to know it by heart.

  In keeping with the paper’s tradition, the foreign correspondent remained anonymous. The article carried the dateline “Ostend, 16 November 1937.” It read:

  Grand Duke George of Hesse and four members of his family were tragically killed this morning when a Sabena aircraft carrying them from Darmstadt to London crashed in thick fog over the Belgian countryside.

  The Grand Duke had been on his way to England to attend the wedding of his younger brother, Prince Louis, to the Hon. Joanna Geddes. The younger brother had been waiting at Croydon Airport to greet his family when the news was broken to him. He immediately cancelled his original wedding plans and announced they would be rescheduled with a small private service in the Chapel at Windsor.

  The Times went on: “Prince Louis, who succeeds his brother as the Grand Duke of Hesse, will leave for Ostend with his bride later today in order that they can accompany the five coffins on their journey back to Germany. The funerals will all take place in Darmstadt on 23 November.”

  It was the next paragraph that the researcher had circled boldly.

  “Some of the late Grand Duke’s personal belongings, including several wedding presents for Prince Louis and his bride, were scattered for miles in the vicinity of the crashed aircraft. The German government announced this morning that a senior German general has been appointed to lead a team of salvage experts to ensure the recovery of any family possessions that still belong to the Grand Duke’s successor.”

  Romanov immediately called for the young researcher. When Anna Petrova arrived a few minutes later she gave no impression of being overawed by her head of department. She accepted that it would be hard to make any impression on him with the clothes she could afford. However, she had put on the smartest outfit she possessed and cut her hair in the style of an American actress called Mia Farrow, whom she had seen in one of the few films not banned by the authorities. She hoped Romanov would notice.

  “I want you to scour the Times every day from 17 November 1937 to six months later, and also check the German and Belgian press during the same period in case you come across anything that would show what the salvage experts had discovered.” He dismissed her with a smile.

  Within twenty-four hours Comrade Petrova barged back into Romanov’s office without even bothering to knock. Romanov merely raised his eyebrows at the discourtesy before devouring an article she had discovered in the Berlin Zeitung of Saturday, 29 January 1938.

  The investigation into the crash last November of the Sabena aircraft that was carrying the Hesse royal family to London has now been concluded. All personal possessions belonging to the family that were discovered in the vicin
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.”

  “So what happened to them?”

  “Hitler ordered them to be destroyed. Among those works condemned to death by burning were such masters as Van Gogh, Manet, Monet—and especially the young Picasso, who was considered unworthy of the blue-blooded Aryan race. Hitler was grooming to rule the world.”

  “You are not suggesting Goering could have stolen the Czar’s icon,” asked Romanov staring up at the ceiling, “only then to burn it?”

  “No, no. Goering was not that stupid. As we now know, he didn’t always obey the Führer’s every word.”

  “Goering failed to carry out Hitler’s orders?” said Romanov in disbelief.

  “Depends from which standpoint you view it,” Petrova replied. “Was he to behave as his lunatic master demanded or turn a blind eye and use his own common sense?”

  “Stick to the facts,” said Romanov, his voice suddenly sharp.

  “Yes, Comrade Major,” said the young researcher in a tone that suggested she believed herself to be indispensable, at least for the time being.

  “When it came to it,” Petrova continued, “Goering did not destroy any of the denounced masterpieces. He held some public burnings in Berlin and Düsseldorf of lesser-known German artists, who would never have fetched more than a few hundred marks on the open market in the first place. But the masterpieces, the real works of genius, were moved discreetly over the border and deposited in the vaults of Swiss banks.”

  “So there’s
still an outside chance that having found the icon …”

  “He then had it placed in a Swiss bank,” added Petrova. “I wish it were that simple, Comrade Major,” said the researcher, “but unfortunately Goering wasn’t quite as naive as the newspaper cartoonists of the time made him out to be. I think he deposited the paintings and antiques in several Swiss banks, and to date no one has ever been able to discover which banks or the aliases he used.”

  “Then we shall have to do so,” said Romanov. “Where do you suggest we start?”

  “Well, since the end of the war many of the paintings have been found and restored to their rightful owners, including the galleries of the German Democratic Republic. Others, however, have appeared on walls as far-flung as the Getty Museum in California and the Gotoh in Tokyo, sometimes without a fully satisfactory explanation. In fact, one of Renoir’s major works can currently be seen hanging on the walls of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It undoubtedly passed through Goering’s hands, although the curator of the Museum has never been willing to explain how the gallery came into possession of it.”

  “Have all the missing pictures now been found?” asked Romanov anxiously.

  “Over seventy percent, but there are still many more to be accounted for. Some may even have been lost or destroyed, but my guess is that there are still a large number that remain lodged in Swiss banks.”

  “How can you be so certain?” demanded Romanov, fearful that his last avenue might be closing.

  “Because the Swiss banks always return valuables when they can be certain of a nation’s or individual’s right of possession. In the case of the Grand Duke of Hesse and the Czar’s icon there was no proof of ownership, as the last official owner was Czar Nikolai II, and he, as every good Russian knows, Comrade, had no successors.”