The Fabergé Secret Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Also by Charles Belfoure

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Also by Charles Belfoure

  THE PARIS ARCHITECT

  HOUSE OF THIEVES

  THE FALLEN ARCHITECT

  THE FABERGÉ SECRET

  Charles Belfoure

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2020

  in Great Britain and 2021 in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2021 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2020 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2020 by Charles Belfoure.

  The right of Charles Belfoure to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-9086-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-725-5 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0446-2 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described

  for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are

  fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  IMPERIAL RUSSIA

  1903

  PROLOGUE

  The Tsar stood up from the dinner table and smiled at Dimitri.

  ‘We have a new gramophone disk. It’s Tchaikovsky’s “Fantasy Overture” from Romeo and Juliet. Will you join us in the study, Dimitri?’

  ‘Oh, please come,’ Grand Duchess Tatiana cried, as she took the last bite of her raspberry tart. ‘We can play cards while we listen.’

  Dimitri bent over and kissed Tatiana on her cheek.

  ‘As you wish, my little Highness. I’ll be along in a few minutes.’

  There was still enough light coming from the window, so Dimitri could see everything on the shelves in the display room very clearly. He pursed his lips, then made his decision. This time it would be the ‘Coronation Egg,’ the third Fabergé Easter Egg Nicholas had given to Alexandra. He picked it up and opened the hinged yellow-enameled shell. Inside was an exact gold and diamond-encrusted replica of the carriage the Imperial Couple rode in for their coronation. Pulling it carefully out of the egg, he marveled at the incredible workmanship. Even the platinum wheels and the strawberry-red upholstery were exactly like the real thing. He opened its little door and placed a tiny piece of folded paper on the floor of the carriage, then put it back into the egg. As usual, he set it slightly forward from the line of the other eggs and gifts to let his fellow agents know which object held the message. He opened the door of the display room a crack to see if anyone was about, then hurried down the marble hallway to the Tsar’s study.

  ONE

  ‘What a beautiful Easter day,’ Grand Prince Dimitri Sergeyevich Markhov commented.

  He was sipping a zubrovka on the veranda of his host, Count Yuri Bykov.

  The Count, who was standing next to Dimitri, closed his eyes and raised his face to bask in the brilliant sunshine.

  ‘Much nicer weather here than in St Petersburg, eh, Dimitri?’ He took a sip of his vodka and walked back into the mansion.

  Dimitri watched him pass through the wide French doors that opened onto the veranda of the south wing. He admired this detail, as well as the rest of the beautiful house which he had designed two years ago. The seventy-five-room mansion, executed in the classical manner after the great Italian architect Palladio, was clad in whitish-gray Pentelic marble – the same marble that was used in the Parthenon in ancient Greece. He had created a small kingdom for the Count, who had demolished the original eighteenth-century manor house on his 38,000-acre country estate to build a more magnificent one with electricity, modern bathrooms, and central heating.

  Dimitri turned around to face the magnificent verdant landscape that spread out before him. It was a wonderfully hilly countryside in Bessarabia, a province in the south-west corner of the Imperial Russian Empire near the Rumanian border. Easter, the holiest feast day of all in Imperial Russia, was a holiday of great happiness for all in the Empire. Accompanying Bykov’s family, Dimitri and his wife of ten years, Princess Lara Pavlovna Markhov, had attended midnight mass last night at Kishinev’s main Russian Orthodox cathedral. At the end of the service, the long-bearded priest had proclaimed, ‘Christ has risen.’ Behind the religious procession led by the priests, people poured out of the cathedral holding their flickering candles, creating rivers of light through the dark streets as they headed home f
or the great midnight feast. Some made a detour to the cemetery to wish dead relatives a joyous Easter.

  The seven long weeks of fasting during Lent, when no butter, milk, eggs, and meat could be eaten, had ended at midnight, and Dimitri was starving for good food. After the Easter service, there was a tremendous supper waiting at Count Bykov’s mansion. The symbols of the Easter feast – kulich, a cylindrical cake topped with white icing, and pashka, a cheese curd packed with preserved fruits and vanilla baked in the shape of a truncated pyramid – lined the long linen-covered table in the big banquet room. Everyone cheered when the traditional suckling pig with its drowsy, half-closed eyes, brown crispy skin, and an Easter egg stuck in his mouth was set upon the table. The feast lasted until the early morning with the intention of staying up to watch the Easter sunrise, but most guests collapsed drunk into bed.

  It was now the afternoon on Easter Sunday. The Orthodox Church did not have services on Easter, but the city’s church bells still pealed all day long. Dimitri could hear them ever so faintly in the distance. Princess Lara came up alongside her husband.

  ‘I’m so glad Lent is over,’ Princess Lara said.

  After years of loveless marriage, Dimitri had to admit that he was still dazzled by his wife’s incredible beauty. Lara looked stunning in her lavender and white lace dress accented by a brilliant diamond necklace with a large heart-shaped pendant.

  ‘I know what you mean, I’ve been famished for weeks,’ Dimitri replied.

  ‘I didn’t mean that, silly,’ Lara said with disdain. ‘During Lent, you know that a woman can’t wear velvets or satins, and jewelry’s limited to one measly string of pearls. Now I can wear my best clothes and jewels again.’

  ‘Princess Lara, is there anything I may get you?’ asked Baron Boris Savarin, a portly man of about fifty with a broad, flat ruddy face. Every time Lara went to a social event, the men fawned over her and begged to fetch her food and drink. She loved it; Dimitri knew that she lived to be admired.

  ‘You’re so sweet, Baron. May I have a glass of champagne?’

  ‘Why of course, Your Highness. It would be an honor.’

  Easter Sundays were reserved for visits. Men and women hurried through the city from one house to the next making social calls to wish friends a happy Easter. Being a nobleman, Count Bykov didn’t have to do any visiting; people came to call on him.

  One of the most distinguished visitors here was Bishop Iakov, the highest priest in the Orthodox Church in Kishinev. As a courtesy to noblemen, he paid calls to bless the household and its food. In the corner of the veranda, the bishop was speaking to Count Krijitski. Bykov had returned to the veranda with a fresh glass of vodka and was speaking to Vassily Kulgin, a wealthy merchant, and General Léon Demin.

  As Dimitri and Lara walked over to join them, he noticed smoke on the horizon.

  ‘It looks like something’s going on in Kishinev,’ Dimitri said loudly to the men.

  Off in the distance, isolated towers of curling gray smoke stretched up into a blue sky strewn with fat puffy clouds.

  ‘I heard there’s a riot in the Jewish quarter,’ Kulgin said in a matter-of-fact voice, then continued talking to Bykov about this year’s wheat harvest.

  ‘What are you handsome men chattering about?’ asked Princess Lara in a sly seductive tone. Dimitri had seen his wife use that line many times before at the countless parties at Court and in St Petersburg society. Coming from an incredibly attractive aristocratic woman, it flattered the hell out of men, especially those fat and well up in years. It was particularly effective with provincial types, some of whom who actually blushed bright red. Even back when they had been in love, he never minded her flirting; it had amused him. It was when Lara had eventually followed up on several of her admirers’ interest that the heartbreak began. Savarin handed Lara her champagne, and she gave him a peck on his fat cheek as a reward.

  Before anyone could reply, Lara snapped, ‘Well, I hope it’s about the Imperial ballerina Elizaveta Roerich’s new lover, Prince Gorky.’

  Dimitri wasn’t surprised by this news. Many Russian aristocrats had their own favorite dancer from the Imperial Ballet as a mistress, as if they owned a prized thoroughbred racehorse. In exchange for sex and companionship, the ‘patron’ lavished jewels, money, and houses upon the ballerina. The dancers cooperated because they put away the gifts as retirement funds for when they became too old to dance.

  Countess Elena Bykov, a still ravishing woman in her sixties, walked up to the group with Princess Tremenisky, a forty-year-old of stunning beauty and grace who wore a magnificent ‘dog collar’ of pearls and diamonds. Other Court ladies who had broken out their best jewelry and dresses, as Lara had, followed them. Except for the military officers, male guests were dressed the same in black cut-away coats with tails and gray trousers.

  ‘Prince Gorky!’ the Countess exclaimed. ‘That old duffer? He’s the size of a polar bear. In bed, he’ll roll over and squish her like a bug!’

  ‘He’s become so fat, I heard he’s now wearing a custom-made corset,’ exclaimed Count Krijitski.

  The group roared with laughter – except Dimitri.

  ‘Let the old Prince have his fun, he has problems at home,’ Lara said gravely. ‘His oldest son and heir, Vladimir, has been dressing up like a woman and picking up men in the bars along the Nevsky.’

  ‘Vlad has such feminine features and a trim figure. I’ll wager he makes a very convincing woman with some rouge and powder!’ the Countess replied.

  ‘You know,’ exclaimed Princess Tremenisky, ‘at the last ball of the season, he asked me where I got my gown. I told it was from Worth.’

  ‘Well, at least he is a moral degenerate with excellent taste in clothes,’ said Lara.

  Dimitri shot them a furtive look of disdain as he stepped away from the group. He liked Prince Gorky – he was an old fool but he was kind-hearted. Dimitri knew that gossip was the mother tongue of the Russian aristocracy. Lara and these shallow foolish people spoke it fluently – and constantly. He was sick of it. He was no prig, he always enjoyed a little gossip. But lately, he had a great longing for an intelligent conversation. And he knew was not going to find such a thing at Court.

  ‘Your Highness, tea is served,’ announced a scarlet and gold liveried servant who had crept up on them. All servants wore soft-soled shoes to silence their footsteps.

  The Countess led a dozen guests into the drawing room with its barrel-vaulted plaster ceiling and blue damask walls divided by pink marble pilasters. Like a good English hostess, the Countess poured the tea from a bubbling silver samovar which servants in powdered wigs handed out along with plates piled high with pastries. They sat on upholstered chairs and sofas each with a white Louis XIV-style tea table. Servants were scurrying about refilling glasses and removing empty plates. Bykov had an army of four hundred servants just for this estate; some with extraordinarily specific jobs, like one man just to take care of Bykov’s hunting boots. On some estates, two footmen were there just to carry the mistress up and down the grand staircase, but Dimitri had ingeniously designed a closet for a small Otis elevator to take care of that job. While he ate, Dimitri could see servants in the ballroom across the hall with felt pads on their feet skating across the parquet floor to buff it to a glossy shine.

  ‘Yuri, what’s going on in Kishinev?’ he asked.

  ‘This stupid peasant boy was stabbed to death back in February. A crazy rumor got started that Jews did it as a ritual murder. It turned out that the boy’s cousin killed him to be in line for an inheritance. But these ignorant peasants still believe the Jews did it for the blood of a Christian to make matzah for their Passover holiday. Now, they’re attacking them,’ Bykov answered as he took another large cream cake from the silver plate a servant was holding.

  Dimitri grimaced. Although he found this news quite disconcerting, it made no impression on the party. Everyone went on chattering and gobbling sweets as before.

  ‘Yuri, slow down! You’ve already ea
ten more than the entire city of Kiev,’ the Countess scolded. She then shifted the conversation to a more agreeable topic.

  ‘I can’t wait to see what the Fabergé Imperial Eggs will look like this Easter,’ the Countess said enthusiastically.

  ‘Last year’s “Cover Leaf Egg” was just extraordinary,’ gushed Princess Tremenisky. The egg, which had translucent green enameling, held a surprise inside of four miniature portraits of the Tsar’s little daughters. The frames were encrusted with tiny blue diamonds.

  ‘The egg the Tsar gave his mother with the gold miniature of her palace in Gatchina was amazing,’ the Countess declared. ‘It was so accurate, down to the statue of Paul I.’

  ‘My favorite is the “Cuckoo Egg” with the red rooster. It pops up, flaps its wings, and sings,’ chimed in General Demin.

  ‘The beauty of Fabergé’s eggs is almost too overwhelming for the eye,’ added Dimitri. ‘It stuns you.’ He loved anything Fabergé and went to their shop in St Petersburg frequently to buy gifts. Peter Carl Fabergé, the official jeweler to the Imperial Court, set the taste of St Petersburg society.

  Speaking more to her tea glass than the guests, Lara said, ‘This year’s egg is a Peter the Great design.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ snapped Dimitri. ‘How would you know? That’s the most closely guarded secret in the Russian Empire.’