The Seventh Secret Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    Kirvov had loved the Hermitage from the day of his arrival. He had loved the five buildings that comprised the museum—the original Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the Big Hermitage, the Hermitage Theater, and the New Hermitage—the first four of these lining the left bank of the Neva River. He had wished there were more funds to spruce up the main building, the Winter Palace that housed his offices—money to provide some fresh paint, some plastering, better lighting—but whatever money was available had been earmarked for new acquisitions. Not that there wasn't the best of everything on hand already. Ever since 1764, when Catherine the Great had authorized the first major purchase-225 canvases from the German merchant Johann Gotzkowsky, including a Franz Halsthe acquisitions had never ceased arriving. In 1772 Italian art had begun to flow in, Titian, Raphael, Tintoretto, followed by the French masters Watteau and Chardin. Then in 1865 a Leonardo da Vinci. After 1931, the Postimpressionists, filling the Hermitage in its upper halls with thirty-seven Matisses, thirty-six Picassos, fifteen Gauguins, eleven Cezannes, four Van Goghs, and countless other treasures.
    The first organizer of this flood of paint had been known as a "custodian" in 1797. By 1863, a curator was added, and soon after two expert assistants. Gradually there were catalogues to popularize the collection, and eventually sophisticated equipment like an X-ray machine to detect forgeries or authenticate masterpieces. In fact it was X rays that had proved that the Hermitage's Adoration of the Magi by Rembrandt, thought to be the copy of the original in Sweden, was the original itself.
    Now Nicholas Kirvov was the new curator and in control. He had used his first six months to arrange better placement for the masterpieces, and to undertake preparation of a new catalogue that would highlight the best of over eight thousand works of art in the Hermitage. A catalogue would accompany his first exhibit, and he wished he could find some way, some unusual approach, to popularize the exhibit further. There were more than three million people who came to wander through the Hermitage each year, but Kirvov wanted more, many more.
    His eye caught the wall clock, and he realized that his musings had taken up most of his spare time and that his caller should be here any minute. That instant there was a rap on the door, and his secretary opened it and said, "Mr. Giorgio Ricci is here, sir."
    "Show him in," said Kirvov, springing to his feet.
    His visitor came tentatively into the office, carrying an unwieldy package under one arm. He was a slight, unprepossessing young man, maybe in his thirties, with big Italian round eyes and an undershot jaw. He wore a pale blue sweater and faded blue jeans. Some gold showed in his teeth and he smiled. "Mr. Kirvov," he said. "I am Giorgio Ricci, of the Royal Viking Sky."
    Kirvov came forward quickly, his stocky five feet ten seeming to make him much bigger than his visitor, and warmly shook his hand. "I am delighted you could come to see me," said Kirvov, leading his guest to a chair beside the desk. "Do sit down. Be comfortable. Can I get you something to drink—Pepsi, vodka, coffee, anything?"
    "No, thanks. I don't want to take up too much of your time. And I don't have much myself."
    "Very well," said Kirvov, settling in his seat at the desk. "Then we shall get right down to business. Let me see your so-called Hitler painting."
    Ricci lifted the package to his lap. "They assured me at the gallery in West Berlin that it had been done by Hitler. Because it was not signed, they made it a bar-gain price. I could have been taken. I don't know. I hope you can tell me."
    "Maybe," said Kirvov. His curiosity was getting the better of him. "Perhaps you'd let me see for myself."
    Ricci had undone the brown paper wrapping and pulled free the picture. "I took it out of the frame," he said. "It's reinforced with these thin