Stepan pointed to the jewels on the top. “This big diamond represents the Pole Star, the next largest is the moon, while the topaz is the sun and the smaller diamonds are stars. To open it, you hold the box so that the Pole Star is in the north, move the sun from east to west, as it would travel in the course of a day, then as the sun goes down, the moon rises.” He moved the jewels as he spoke. There was a distinct click and the box sprang open.

Val leaned forward. Inside there were two rose-gold wedding rings. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “That’s what was rattling.”

Stepan took out the rings and examined them under a magnifying glass. “They are both engraved with Russian letters,” he said. “They’re not very clear but one looks like an M and the other an A. Where did you come across the box?”

“My father left it to me,” she said. “He was Russian. But my mother’s initial was H, so it can’t have been her ring.”

“Do you think your father brought it with him from Russia?” The man leaned forward with friendly interest. Val warmed to him. He had an honest face and kind eyes.

“I’m not sure where he got it, but I know he was obsessed with the Romanovs. I wondered if it might have belonged to one of them? Could the rings have been Maria’s and Anastasia’s?”

Stepan raised an eyebrow and looked at the box again. “Many of their possessions were sold on the black market in the years after they disappeared, so it’s possible.”

“You say they disappeared,” Val challenged. “Don’t you believe they were executed?”

He shrugged. “I have read the reports of some of the men who claim to have been their executioners, but there are contradictions in the stories. I think no one will ever know for sure unless the bodies are found—and I suspect they never will be. The Sokolov report in the 1920s concluded that they had been dissolved in sulfuric acid.”

Val was surprised he was prepared to talk so openly. “I had been warned that the Romanovs were a taboo subject here,” she said. “I’m writing a thesis about them so I’m fascinated to learn all I can, but I didn’t like to ask our guide.”

“I would be happy to answer any of your questions,” Stepan said. “It is not such a taboo subject as it was, say, twenty years ago.”

“OK,” Val asked. “Do you believe any of the Romanovs escaped from Ekaterinburg?”

He looked startled for a moment but quickly regained his composure. “There have been many stories over the years but there is no evidence to back them up.”

“What do you think?”