She grabbed the medals and began to slide them around, placing them against each other in a variety of positions to see if any of the lines matched up.
It was a fruitless exercise. And after ten minutes exhausting every positional combination they could think of, Tom was on the verge of suggesting they try something else when Dominique suddenly clicked her fingers.
"Of course! It must be three-dimensional."
"What?"
"The medals. They don't go next to each other, like a normal flat puzzle. They go on top of each other."
She grabbed one medal and placed it on top of another, sliding it this way and that to see if a pattern emerged. Then she tried changing one of the medals, and then changing the other to make a third combination, until finally she looked up with a smile. "Here you go."
By sliding the second medal over to the left and up from the center of the bottom one, she'd managed to align several of the marks. Then she took the final medal, placed it on top of the others, slid it to the right and then up from the second medal. As she moved it into place, the lines suddenly came together to form an image that could only be seen by looking down from above. Two elaborate crossed keys.
"The keys of Saint Peter," Tom said in a hushed voice. "Saint Peter? As in Rome?" asked Archie. "Well, it can't be there."
"It's unlikely, I agree," Tom said pensively. "Crossed keys. What else could that mean?"
"Your father said the portrait was the key. Maybe this relates to that particular painting," suggested Dominique.
"Or maybe it refers to the key on a map? Like our railway map?" Tom ventured.
"Well, while you two think that one through," Archie said, stooping to pick up the lantern where he had placed it on the ground, "I'll see whether our friends here have got anything else interesting on them. You never know — hang on," he interrupted himself as he raised his head level with the table. "What's that?"
He pointed at the side of the table where a small shape had been cut into the wood. A very distinctive shape.
"I wonder… Here, give me one of those…"
Dominique handed him one of the medals and he lined it up with the hole. It was a perfect fit. He slipped the medal inside.
"I'll bet you any money you like there are two more holes just like this one," Archie said excitedly.
"Here's one!" said Dominique, pointing at a section of the table's edge to Archie's right.
"And here," Tom confirmed, having moved around to the other side of the table so that they were now standing at three points of a large triangle.
"Put them in," Archie said, sliding the remaining two medals across the table.
Both Tom and Dominique did as he suggested and then straightened up, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.
"Well, they must do something," Archie insisted.
"What about if we press them in?" said Dominique. "They might release something."
They duly pressed, but still nothing happened.
"Let's try pressing at the same time," said Tom. "On three. One, two, three—"
Again they all pressed on the medals, and a firm click echoed around the chamber.
"Where did that come from?" asked Archie.
"The table," said Tom. "Look at the middle of the table."
He shone his light at a roundel in the center of the table that had popped a few millimeters higher than the surrounding surface. Kneeling on the table, Tom pulled out his knife and levered the roundel free, revealing a small but deep recess. He reached inside with the tips of his fingers and removed a dagger that the table had apparently been designed to house. From the way the blade had been elaborately engraved with a series of runic symbols, Tom guessed that it must once have fulfilled some long-forgotten ceremonial function. A piece of paper had been carefully wrapped around its ivory hilt. The others crowded around him as he hopped to the floor.
"What does it say?" demanded Archie.
Tom unscrolled it gently, not wanting to rip it.
"It's a telegram," he said. "Here, Dom, you read it. Your German's better than mine."
He handed the piece of paper to her and shone his flashlight on it so she could read.
" 'All is lost. Stop. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse overrun. Stop. Gudrun kidnapped. Stop.' " She looked up questioningly. "Gudrun? Wasn't that Himmler's daughter's name? The one in the portrait?"
"Yes," Tom confirmed with a nod. "And Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse was Himmler's HQ. What else does it say?"
"'Hermitage most likely destination. Stop. Heil Hitler.'" She looked up. "It's dated April 1945. It's addressed to Him-mler."
"The Hermitage," Tom said, shaking his head in frustration. "That's what the keys of Saint Peter meant. It's got nothing to do with maps or Rome — we're meant to be looking in St. Petersburg." He looked up excitedly and locked eyes with first Archie and then Dominique. "My father was wrong. The missing Bellak isn't in a private collection. It's in the Hermitage Museum."
PART III
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Tom and Dominique made their way down the Nevsky Prospekt toward the Admiralty's honeyed bulk, occasional dark veins forming along the pavement where it had emerged from under the snow's white marble. They passed two drunks lying slumped over each other in a doorway, each with one hand lovingly wrapped around a half-empty bottle of vodka. As they watched, a stray dog ambled up to the two men and sniffed gingerly around their feet until a flailing kick sent it yelping down the street. A veil of gray clouds clung stubbornly to the sky, torn by icicles of dirty yellow light.
"So when do you think Archie will get here?" Dominique asked, her eyes focused on where she was treading.
"You missing him already?" Tom laughed, his voice muffled by a thick scarf. Although allegedly a mild winter by Russian standards, it still felt dangerously cold. "Don't worry, he should be here by this evening."
"I'm not sure it was worth him traveling separately. I mean, if someone is looking for him, they're just as likely to spot him on his own as with us, aren't they?"
"True," said Tom. "But he seemed to think he'd have a better chance with only himself to worry about."
"And Turnbull? Did you get through in the end?"
"I updated him on everything we've found so far. Well, everything he needed to know, at least. He's due here tomorrow. I'll have to break it to Archie gently."
Reaching the end of the Nevsky Prospekt, they turned right into Dvortsovaya Ploshchad, or Palace Square. The Admiralty's gilded spike sat atop a white marble colonnaded cube that resembled the top layer of a gaudy wedding cake. To their right was the Alexander Column, while behind them, the curved sweep of the General Staff Building hugged them into its shadow. Here and there, through gaps in the buildings or over their rooftops came the unforgiving glint of concrete; ugly Soviet-era scars that the city was still trying unsuccessfully to heal over.
Dominique slipped her arm through Tom's, feeling strangely warm and content, despite the icy wind whipping against her cheeks. The events of the past few days, while exhausting, had also been exhilarating. She had always been a bit jealous of Tom and Archie, with their crazy stories of places they'd been or jobs they'd pulled. Now, far from sitting on the sidelines, she felt that she was finally part of the team. It gave her a sense of belonging that she had not had for a while. Not since Tom's father died.