Brilliant (18 page)

T  H  I  R  T  Y  -  N  I  N  E

We trailed Mr. Rush along the row of armored cases. They were lined with rich red velvet that was in perfect condition. The first held tiaras, including one that looked identical to the tiara that had been the English royal family’s favorite for most of the twentieth century, known as the Grand Duchess Vladimir of Russia’s Tiara.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.

“You recognize it?” Mr. Rush’s face brightened. “The one you’re familiar with is Grand Duchess Vladmir’s, of course. This”—Mr. Rush lifted the tiara out of the case and held it up—“is the original. The Dowager Empress had it made in the 1870s—it became one of her favorites. It’s quite astonishing, isn’t it?” The fifteen interlaced diamond circles blazed in the strong light, as though they were on fire. Inside each circle was a robin’s egg–sized cabochon Kashmir sapphire—they hung suspended like giant, royal blue teardrops, quivering slightly, ready to fall. “Do you know the story?”

“No. I didn’t even know this piece existed. Do you mind telling us about it?”

Flattered, he continued. “The Dowager Empress was very attached to her niece, Miechen—Grand Duchess Vladimir—who was considered the leading hostess in St. Petersburg.”

I knew well about Miechen. A bright, jolly, politically astute, twenty-year-old German princess who married the forty-year-old Grand Duke Vladimir, Russia’s richest and most influential aristocrat. Little Miechen was a very savvy, brainy gal. She went right to work building her own power structure, and within no time at all, their home, the spectacular Vladimir Palace—today it houses part of the Hermitage Museum—on the banks of the Neva, became the alternative court. Miechen was able to pull this off for a couple of reasons: not only because of the power of her personality and financial wherewithal, but also because vague, vapid, overwrought, and not-terribly-bright Empress Alexandra was so totally wrapped up in her family and under the spell of her “counselor,” the rascal Rasputin, she had virtually no interest in anything that had to do with society or the official court—to the obvious detriment of the family, the monarchy, and all of the history of Russia, to put it mildly. “Anyone who wanted to accomplish anything,” Mr. Rush explained, “whether in the court, the military, or the government, knew that Miechen and her husband were the center of Imperial power, not the throne.”

It’s difficult to describe my feeling at seeing this piece face-to-face. It was so dazzling, it almost seemed fake, like a crown in a movie. “May I?” I asked, and held out my hands.

He placed the tiara in them. I held it up to the light and watched the reflections move through the thousands of facets. “Magnificent.”

“It’s like looking into the center of a lightning storm, isn’t it?”

I nodded and handed it back.

“As I was saying,” Mr. Rush continued his history, “the Dowager Empress adored Miechen. They had a great deal in common, including a passion for jewelry. Even though the Czarina was her daughter-in-law, the Dowager had no patience with her, thought she was a fool, and more than that, blamed her for the Czar’s weaknesses, for his refusal to accept reality and adapt to it. But we won’t go into that today. Too long a story.”

Owen gave him a tight grin. I know he was thinking, thank God, but it didn’t have any effect on our guest.

Mr. Rush sat on the edge of the table. “Family legend has it that the Dowager Empress insisted the Czarina hold a state dinner for some visiting dignitaries and include Messrs. Lenin and Trotsky. Alexandra refused outright. So, she convinced Miechen to do it. We all know now what a naïve, misguided, well-intended gesture that was: letting the revolutionaries see firsthand the sumptuousness of a state dinner while peasants were literally starving and freezing to death virtually at the palace gates—the occasion only gave the rabble-rousers more ammunition.”

“Quite so,” interjected Bertram, sympathetically. “Very unfortunate.”

“Quite,” agreed Mr. Rush. “At any rate, out of gratitude for Miechen’s making the effort, the Dowager Empress had a copy of her favorite tiara made for her, but she had oriental pearls suspended in the circles instead of sapphires. As you can imagine, a gift of this importance did nothing to improve family relations.”

“I’ll bet.” I was enthralled. Owen was trying to look polite. He had no choice—it looked like the crown prince, or archduke, or whatever this fellow’s official title was, was on a roll. We needed the business. He sat down and lit a cigarette.

“Forgive me, Mr. Rush,” Bertram said. “But I must excuse myself. I have a sale starting in half an hour, and I need to be on hand. But on behalf of Ballantine & Company, let me tell you how honored we are to have you here in our house. Here’s my direct line”—he handed him a card—“if you have any questions, or need any assistance of any sort, please call me straightaway. I’ll see you again shortly.” They shook hands warmly, and Bertram exited, leaving a look of envy of Owen’s face.

“Then when the trouble started in 1917 . . .” Mr. Rush also took a seat and helped himself to fresh coffee.

My God, I thought, are we going to go through the whole Revolution? We’ll be here for the rest of our lives.

“. . . Miechen and her household moved to Kislovodsk, and in 1919 escaped to Switzerland. She’d taken a case of jewels with her, but the bulk of her collection was in a safe sealed up behind a plaster wall in the Vladimir Palace. Do you know the story?”

“Well . . . ,” I began. I knew the story like I knew the back of my hand, and it was perfectly fascinating, but this man didn’t know when to stop. He obviously lived to tell these stories to people who didn’t know them, and the fact was, it was in our best business interests to draw him as close to us as possible, because if we didn’t, our competition would—they’d sit for a week without a break if they had to, listening to him go on. And on. And on. If it meant they were going to get this business. Well, so would we. But good grief, give it a rest. Cut to the chase.

Owen and I sat on the edges of our seats, enraptured. I don’t know what Owen was thinking, but I know what I was thinking, and it didn’t have to do with Grand Duchess Vladimir.

“It’s such an amusing tale.” Mr. Rush took a bite of a sticky bun. “Oh my, these are delicious.” He pulled a couple of dog biscuits out of his pocket, dabbed a little of the brown sugar syrup on them, and handed them to the terriers. “A young Englishman named Stopford who was attached to the English Embassy, probably what we call today a cultural attaché, no doubt an espionage specialist, was a protégé of Miechen’s—a polite way of saying he hung around her salon and gathered information—and stayed in touch with her after her escape. Once Miechen and her entourage were safely abroad, Stopford and one of her loyal retainers sneaked into the palace one night—by then of course the place had been completely ransacked, ‘trashed’ to use today’s vernacular, so one or two more scavengers didn’t draw any attention—and rescued the jewels, which he wrapped in newspapers and stuffed into two Gladstone bags, except for the tiara. This Stopford was a very clever fellow. He disguised himself as an old woman and hid the tiara in the lining of his bonnet, stuffed the pearls into cherries that were part of the hat’s decoration, and escaped to the West. Ingenious, isn’t it?”

“Amazing,” Owen said.

“He returned the jewels to the Grand Duchess. She died in 1920, somewhere in France, I can’t quite remember where, and two years later, her daughter, who was by then Princess Nicholas of Greece, offered the tiara to Queen Mary, who bought it for practically nothing. But the princess had no choice but to accept. She was desperate for money.” There was clearly some lingering bitterness and resentment there between the Russian and English royal cousins. “Since then, Miechen’s tiara—the copy of this”—Mr. Rush stood up and laid it reverently in the case—“has become the British State Tiara for major occasions. They really took the most terrible advantage of my family.” His eyes flashed at us with what could have been either humor or the start of another blood vendetta. “That’s water under the bridge. There are many extraordinary pieces in this collection, but to me, this tiara is the undisputed centerpiece. All the pieces have as much, sometimes more, history.”

“I wish we could hear about every single one of them right now,” Owen said. “But I’m afraid if we do, we’ll have to have cots brought in.”

“Good point.” Mr. Rush laughed. He and Owen looked as though they could be father and son.

“Let’s see what else you’ve got.”

The rest of the tiaras were antiquated and fussy, encrusted with jewels and heavy. Constructed of white gold and yellow gold, long before lightweight platinum came into use, each weighed between three and six pounds. Some had stones so big that if you dropped one on your head it could give you a brain concussion. Another case had necklaces—stomachers so detailed they looked like lace; and hundreds of pearls—one strand of ten-millimeter pearls was six feet long. There was a sapphire-and-diamond
devant de corsage
—a necklacelike affair that is draped across the corsage of an evening gown from side to side—that was so sensational, I would put it in the same category with my Queen’s Pet bracelet and the Dowager Empress’s tiara. Another case was strictly medals and royal orders, some jeweled, some enameled, some both, all with matching ribbons. One had brooches, many set with elaborate gems. And finally bracelets, earclips, and loose stones. They were all, as one would expect them to be, very, very Russian in style: ornate and complicated.

“What’s this?” Owen said when we reached the sixth case, which remained closed.

“Documents.”

The survey had taken more than two hours. We sat down. The conference room was silent. Owen snapped open a can of Diet Coke, leaned back in his chair, and studied Mr. Rush. “I’m not an expert, sir, but either this is going to set the world on its ear or it’s a hoax of monumental proportions.”

“This is no hoax.”

“I want to go very slowly. I first want every piece authenticated, and then I want to talk to David, David de Menuil is our attorney”— Owen explained to Mr. Rush—“who can guide us through what obviously is going to be a political minefield.”

Mr. Rush nodded. “I think we have no idea how complicated this could become.”

“Well, we know that both governments—Russian and British— will be involved, not to mention every nutcase on the planet who probably thinks he has a legitimate claim to this stuff. And we can be sure the Queen and her family will want to put in their two cents’ worth. Are your attorneys aware of this?”

“Naturally.”

“Good, because this is the sort of situation that will either end up a big plus, or turn into the shitstorm of the century.”

F  O  R  T  Y

There’re a couple of old sayings about public relations: If you’re in business, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, because with the right spin, any negative can be turned into a positive. And: Say whatever you want to about me, just spell my name right. So while Owen was talking international public relations nightmare, I knew he was thinking, no matter what happened, this was going to be a win-win situation. “We’re going to take this nice and easy.”

“I agree completely, Mr. Brace.”

“Kick, I want company security beefed up and guards on this jewelry twenty-four hours a day. Who else knows what we’ve got in here?”

“Only the four of us, so far,” I answered. “As far as I know.”

Owen looked to Mr. Rush. “My immediate family and counselors, of course,” he answered. “This wasn’t my decision alone.”

“I understand,” Owen said. “I’m not worried about your family spilling the beans. Are you sure there’s no one else?”

“Well, naturally, there are those who suspect the existence of the collection. There are always rumors that this faction or that have us under surveillance, and we receive occasional threats, but we don’t give them much credibility.”

“ ‘This faction or that,’ ” Owen repeated. “As in the Russian government? The KGB, or whatever it goes by now, for instance?”

Mr. Rush shrugged. “Yes. Or diehard extremists. You know, the usual fringe elements—Communist-Leninist-Marxist loyalists, monarchist fanatics, so forth.”

Owen looked at me, and I knew he was thinking, Here I am looking down a ninety-day gun barrel to save the company, about to launch my big furniture scheme, and now what do we have on our doorstep? Fringe elements. “All right. We’ll take it as it goes. Kick, would you ask Mr. Gardner to join us?”

“Yes, sir.”

Andrew Gardner was our director of jewelry. A plain, esthetic little man in his midforties, he was a consummate professional, trained from birth—as are all expert jewelers—never to have any facial expression, any reaction at all, to anything. I think you could have said, “Andrew, your wife and children have been kidnapped, and if you don’t have the ransom by three o’clock, they’ll be set on fire,” and he would say, “Fine.” And then he would take care of it, but he wouldn’t blink. He ran Ballantine’s three-man jewelry division the way a butcher would run his walk-in. The whole department was like a giant freezer.

He really knew his stuff, and coming from me, that’s a big compliment.

“Very impressive, Mr. Rush,” Andrew said as he walked the length of the table, then circled back around, examining various pieces as he went, his loupe screwed into his right eye. While Owen was giving the Airedales a wide berth, Andrew seemed unperturbed by their presence, and they by his. He picked up a necklace with shilling- sized rubies, each one encircled with two-carat diamonds. “Very nice.” He laid it back carefully in its velvet-lined box. The tiara scarcely got a nod. “Shall we be seated? And you can tell me a little about this collection. How did you come into possession of it?” His tone was flat and his manner flatter. He sounded like a pompous ass, and that was my fault. I hadn’t had a chance to brief him. Owen shot me a look.

“With pleasure. I am Archduke Dimitri, great-grandnephew of Czar Nicholas II, and the spokesman for the Imperial family. When my great-great-grandmother, Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, fled to the Crimea in 1917, Czar Nicholas asked her to take the bulk of the family jewels with her for safekeeping.”

“It’s always been my understanding that she and her son were estranged. I find it curious that he would ask her to do such a thing.”

“Well, that’s how it is with publicity,” Mr. Rush said generously. “Sometimes the wrong story gets out, and there’s no correcting it. In fact, she and the Czar were always very close. It was the Czarina from whom she was estranged. Believe me, sir, I have full and authentic provenance and proof of ownership for each one of these stones and pieces.”

“You are no doubt aware that many items in the British Royal Family’s crown jewels are Russian? Sold to the crown by who you claim was your great-great-grandmother.” His tone was haughty. “You’re asking us not only to believe there was more jewelry than what we know she brought? Which was substantial. But also that you are the Romanov heir-presumptive to the monarchy?”

“Uh, Andrew . . . ,” I started, but Dimitri Rush stood up. The dogs went on full alert and boy, oh boy, if there’d been any doubt that this man was a direct descendant of an Imperial family, it was dispelled by his bearing. I’ve never seen a back so straight or shoulders so square, or a neck so arched, or heard a tone so dismissive.

“Forgive me, Miss Keswick. Mr. Brace. I’ve been laboring under a delusion. I’d been led to believe that I could count on your assistance.”

“Whoa! Hold it.” Owen held up his hands. “You can count on our assistance. You have my word.”

“Mr. Rush,” I explained as quickly as I could, “Mr. Gardner hasn’t had the benefit of knowing about Ballantine & Company’s long-standing arrangement with your family, so he’s understandably skeptical.” I turned to face Andrew. “This is a day long anticipated at the company, Andrew. I’ve been expecting this collection for over thirty years, and the company’s been expecting it for eighty. Believe me, it’s legitimate.” I turned back to our guest. “Mr. Rush, we are so honored to have you here, and, believe me, the promises made to your great- great-grandmother,
the Dowager Empress
. . .” I shot a look at Andrew and thought, if you say one more word, you son of a bitch, I’ll kill you, “. . . by Sir Cramner are in force. Please, let’s proceed.”

Bright spots had bloomed in Mr. Rush’s cheeks. He was unassuaged. He was ready to walk. And Owen was ready to hyperventilate.

“Why didn’t you tell me in the first place?” Andrew said to me, his eyes as bloodless and flat as a snake’s, his tone accusatory.

“There wasn’t time.”

“I’m very embarrassed.” He crossed the room and offered his hand to Mr. Rush. “I hope you understand. I had no idea. We frequently have individuals come to us with stolen goods and outlandish stories of lost provenances. It’s my responsibility to assure Ballantine & Company, and therefore our customers, of provenance, authenticity, and rightful ownership, and sometimes it’s left to me to bring a dose of reality. I hope you understand. Please accept my most sincere apology.”

Thunderclouds still darkened Mr. Rush’s expression. He looked at Owen and then me. Our eyes locked.

“Please, Mr. Rush,” I said. “You have my word. Which is that of Sir Cramner.”

He reluctantly extended his hand to Andrew. “I accept.”

They shook, and after another couple of tense moments, the tension began to leach out of the room like a wave getting sucked back into the sea. I took a deep breath.

“So,” Andrew said—I couldn’t believe it, his neck was actually a little pink, he did have blood!—“tell me, sir, if we may proceed, do you have the documentation with you?”

“I do.” Mr. Rush unlocked the sixth case and removed a rectangular storage bag, the zippered, plastic kind blankets are stored in. It was packed with red leather portfolios and document boxes embossed in gold with the Romanov’s magnificent double-eagle coat of arms. Each portfolio held sheets and sheets of paper, some with large wax seals and ribbons. Others plain and flat. Some were rolled and tied with ribbons. On top was a file folder of typed sheets, which he offered to me. He looked straight at me, and I knew he was thinking: “I trust you to live up to your promises. I am putting the entire future of the Romanov family in your hands.” Great.

“This makes it easier to find your way through these old documents. As you will see, some are in Cyrillic hand and others in Roman, others in Arabic. There are a number of languages as well— Russian, German, Persian, English, French, Hindi, Mongolian.”

I passed the file to Andrew. I know I should have been thinking about what a big deal this was, but the truth is, at the moment, all I could think about was how much I wanted to tear Owen’s clothes off.