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Strauss had one last thought: 'If it was lost, I suppose that such a room could be re-created with the help of photographs?' It was an unhelpful suggestion that could not have been made at a worse time.

Session Two: '12 December 1949. What I know about Soviet pieces of art taken to Germany (translated by Captain Shukin)'.

Take the pressure off the witness. Let him relax. Talk him through areas that he feels more comfortable about. Seduce him. Knead his ego. Make yourself small. Kuchumov seemed to be calming Strauss as the next session began. What had Strauss witnessed during his wartime office as an air-raid warden with access to bunkers and storerooms? Strauss replied: 'Dr Rohde showed me things he had been given by Gauleiter Koch for safekeeping: things from Minsk, Kiev and Rostock. They came in 1942, or was it 1943? It was forbidden to talk about or show these items.'

What items? More precision please? Strauss replied: 'Pictures: eighteenth and nineteenth century. Also Chinese porcelain and vases manufactured in St Petersburg. Icons too.' Names? Descriptions? Strauss couldn't recall: 'Everything was in a good condition but they were not great works. We supposed at that time that only a small section of [Soviet] treasures was in German hands, that the most famous things had been hidden by the Russians.'

Where were these small number of Soviet items kept? 'Everything was located in the first floor of the round tower in the north-west corner of [Konigsberg] castle; the entrance was through the Knights' Hall.' Anything more? 'Well, there were church bells from Latvia. In 1942, or was it 1943? And not long before the end of the war, famous silver treasures from Riga and Danzig.'

Fearing incrimination, Strauss added: I got this information from Dr Rohde and members of his staff. This is all I know. I didn't work at the museum. I was only interested from a political and scientific point of view.' His answers were beginning to take on a defensive tone again.

Kuchumov placed yet another asterisk against this last statement. We know from his notes that the great curator had read some of the Nuremberg depositions concerning looted art, including that of Hermann Voss, director of the Dresden Gallery, who, according to his American inquisitors, relied constantly on 'failure of memory to explain discrepancies in his testimony, a tactic that did not improve the atmosphere of the interrogation . . .' Voss's captors had concluded: 'He takes the profoundly German attitude that art history is pure science, and that one can pursue it without exterior moral responsibility.'

Session Three: '12 December 1949. Where could the Amber Room be located? (translated by Captain Shukin)'.

Kuchumov returned to the events of January 1945. Strauss began: 'According to Rohde's letter of E2 January, the Amber Room was still in the city.' Asterisk. These letters were found by Brusov and passed on to Kuchumov, who knew that Strauss could not possibly have seen them. At best, he had heard about them from gossiping German museum curators.

If this information was third-hand, then what else in Strauss's statements was begged and borrowed? Strauss struggled to defend himself: 'Before 15 January [the Amber Room] could have been delivered by rail to Germany, after that it would have only been possible by sea or plane.' Asterisk. Wrong. Kuchumov had researched train movements out of Konigsberg. He knew that the last one left for the German heartland on 22 January 1945.

Did Strauss believe that the Amber Room remained in the castle until the fall of Konigsberg? Strauss was even more evasive: 'Dr Rohde was a lover of amber. There is no doubt that he would have tried to save the Amber Room. But I didn't see him again. I heard only gossip about hiding places at Gorlitz. But there were many hiding places in East Prussia too, you know.'

Gossip. Maybe. Perhaps. If Strauss was so misinformed, why had he tried four times to gain the attention of the Soviet authorities? No answer. Then Strauss volunteered: 'There was a