“Yeah, when I was eleven or twelve. I was in boarding school so every summer my mother made it her mission to drag me to Europe from one church to another for a cultural experience. I must have seen one hundred churches over the years. They all begin to look alike especially if you see one right after the other. At that age, all I wanted to do was go to a Yankees game. I was resentful . . . stupid me.” McAdams chuckled. “Anyway, correct me if I’m wrong but St. Isaac’s is the tallest building in St. Petersburg.”

“It is. Which was why it was of use during the Second World War,” Sugar announced. “St. Petersburg was bombed badly. All the famous palaces that the tourists see were rebuilt, including the Hermitage.”

“The Hermitage?” Decker asked. “You mean the art museum?”

“Yes, indeed. It was built as a palace.”

“It was bombed?”

“Left to rot in ruins. They have pictures there of what it looked like. It was a mere shell of its former glory until the Russian artisans rebuilt it.”

“What happened to all the artwork inside? Don’t tell me that was destroyed as well?”

“No, the Ruskies knew they were in trouble. They stored it all in the basement of St. Isaac’s, which the Nazis did not bomb wholesale. Because St. Isaac’s was the tallest building in the city, the Luftwaffe used it as a navigational guide for its Messerschmitts. It’s one of the few buildings that, except for some random shelling, remained intact.”

McAdams was still reading. “I can’t find anything about St. Isaac’s being used for art storage . . . or for the Nazis using it as a navigational guide,” McAdams said. “Matter of fact, it says that the dome was painted over to avoid enemy aircraft detection.”

“Young lad, you are missing critical parts of the tale because you’re probably using some condensed encyclopedia site. If you really want to know history, you have to read something with more depth. Or take the lazy man’s way out and just go to St. Petersburg again as an adult and listen to one of their many well-informed guides.”

Decker said, “What does St. Isaac’s have to do with the Petroshkovich icons?”

“Nothing as far as I know,” Sugar said. “I just found it interesting because the cathedral had works missing from its iconography that have never been recovered.”

“Are they also Petroshkoviches?”

“No, nothing to do with Petroshkovich. These works were done in an earlier period.”

“Okay,” Decker said. “And you don’t think there’s a connection.”

“Can’t see how. The thefts were years apart.”

“Any ideas on who was responsible for the St. Isaac’s thefts?” Decker asked.