George Lomax and Herman Isaacstein: political and financial cooperation

George Lomax and Herman Isaacstein are political and financial partners in a proposed restoration of the Herzoslovakian monarchy. Lomax represents the British Government’s political interest in supporting Prince Michael, while Isaacstein represents a British financial syndicate seeking oil concessions in exchange for the loan that would help place the prince on the throne. Their cooperation binds diplomacy, dynastic succession, and commercial advantage together—and leaves both men exposed when the political assumptions behind the arrangement begin to fail.

The proposed bargain

The plan is organized around Prince Michael’s impending visit to Chimneys. Lomax tells Lord Caterham that the oil concessions must go to a British company and that the negotiations can be conducted at the estate under the cover of a shooting party. The shooting is only a pretext: the intended business is political and financial, with Isaacstein attending as the syndicate’s representative alongside the prince and his party.

The terms are not yet settled when Superintendent Battle asks about the proposed loan. Lomax explains that, if Prince Michael comes to the throne, he has pledged to grant oil concessions to companies in which Isaacstein is interested. In return, a loan of roughly a million pounds would help establish the prince on the throne. Lomax confirms that the British Government is prepared to support Michael’s claim because of his pronounced British sympathies. The arrangement therefore serves connected but distinct interests: the government backs a politically congenial claimant, and Isaacstein’s companies seek valuable commercial rights.

The deal also has competition. Lomax tells Battle that an American group of financiers has made overtures to Prince Michael. The British partnership is thus not simply a matter of financing a restoration; it is an attempt to secure influence and concessions against rival capital. Isaacstein’s role gives Lomax’s political project a practical financial mechanism, while Lomax’s government connection supplies the political support that may make the prince’s accession possible.

The memoirs as a threat to the alliance

Count Stylptitch’s memoirs threaten the bargain because their publication could change how the restoration is understood. Lomax warns Lord Caterham that Herzoslovakia wishes to restore the monarchy and is prepared to offer the crown to Prince Michael, who has government support. Caterham adds the financial terms plainly: Michael is prepared to grant concessions to Isaacstein’s company in return for a loan to secure his throne.

The danger is not merely public embarrassment. Lomax fears that the memoirs may describe tyranny and misconduct in the Obolovitch family, prompting questions in Parliament about replacing the republic with what critics could call an obsolete tyranny. Such a controversy could recast the restoration as a policy serving wealthy foreign interests rather than the people of Herzoslovakia. In that setting, the memoirs threaten both the political case for backing Michael and the legitimacy of the commercial bargain Isaacstein hopes to make.

Lomax’s urgency reveals how dependent the partnership is on controlling the political narrative. He urges discretion when Caterham discusses the transaction, and he treats the manuscript’s delivery as a danger to the whole undertaking. The effort to prevent or limit its effect is evidence that the alliance cannot rely on the proposed loan and concessions alone: it also needs public and parliamentary acceptance of the restoration.

The succession crisis and the alliance’s limits

The plan is built on Prince Michael’s claim, so his murder at Chimneys abruptly undermines its foundation. In the subsequent inquiry, Battle identifies Lomax and Isaacstein, as well as the Herzoslovakian Loyalist Party, as parties caught up in the consequences. Isaacstein accepts Battle’s description of their difficult position, suggesting that the partnership is not a secret advantage once the prince is dead but a liability requiring explanation.

When Battle asks who stands next in the line of succession, Lomax answers reluctantly that Prince Nicholas would probably be the next heir. Battle later identifies Nicholas as Michael’s first cousin and says there is reason to believe he is in the United States, where he had been raising money on his expectations. The heir’s absence makes the original arrangement still less straightforward: Michael’s death does not simply transfer the existing bargain to another claimant.

The eventual disclosure changes the premise of the negotiations. Nicholas was not dead, as some believed; Anthony Cade reveals that he had spread the report of his own death and had lived under that name after leaving the Congo. He identifies himself as Nicholas Sergius Alexander Ferdinand Obolovitch and offers himself as the prince promised to Isaacstein. This revelation shows how thoroughly the financial and political project depends on identity and succession, not only on money or policy. The proposed alliance between Lomax and Isaacstein begins as a coordinated effort to install Michael, but Michael’s death and Nicholas’s reappearance expose the fragility of the plan and force its principal interests to confront a changed claimant and a changed political bargain.