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bequeathed from mother to eldest daughter ever since.”
    â€œHow much is it worth?”
    â€œAna gave me a copy of the last appraisal. Eighteen years ago it was valued at four million dollars.”
    Ty stopped short under a streetlamp. “In today’s dollars, that’s worth about what? Five and a half?”
    â€œFive point eight, according to my calculations. Giving the current market for high-end antiques, though, and assuming I can confirm provenance, I think it’s worth at least twenty million dollars, possibly much more.”
    â€œWho on earth would pay that kind of money?”
    â€œMany museums. People who are proud of their Russian heritage. Status seekers. Investors. Lots of folks.”
    We climbed the parking garage stairs to the second level and walked up the incline to my car. Ty opened my door, and after I got behind the wheel, he closed it. I waited for him to drive by, then backed out and exited after him. We drove to Ty’s house in separate cars, together.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    At ten of nine the next morning, Tuesday, as Cara and Gretchen were settling in for the day, Sasha, my chief antiques appraiser, said, “I just got off the phone with an account rep in Austria, Hans Micher. The Vienna Snow Globe company didn’t produce Victorian Christmas scenes.”
    I picked up Ana’s snow globe from Sasha’s desk and shook it lightly, then placed it on her blotter and watched as silvery speckles whirled to the bottom. The scene showed Christmas on a quiet late nineteenth-century London street. “Couldn’t it be a special order? Vienna Snow Globe is known for their custom work.”
    â€œMaybe, but if so, their account rep couldn’t find any record of it.”
    â€œThe company was founded in the late eighteen hundreds, right? I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some order forms have been lost.”
    She tucked her lank brown hair behind her ear, a sure sign she was feeling anxious.
    â€œSo what’s worrying you?” I asked.
    She turned over the globe revealing the Vienna Snow Globe mark, a lightbulb. “Maybe someone faked the company’s logo.”
    I considered how it might have worked. “So some guy in the early nineteen hundreds gets his girlfriend a cheap Christmas present and slyly applies the lightbulb logo to trick her into thinking it’s a pricey gift from a posh store. It’s possible, I suppose.”
    I picked up the globe again. It felt heavy, substantive, a good sign. I brought it to the guest table, where I used a loupe under the strong light to examine the scene closely. Small-scale row houses ranged along one side of a cobblestone street. Each house was decorated for Christmas in a different way. There were evergreen garlands, boughs of holly, red bows, and wreaths ornately embellished with pine cones and tiny glass birds. Gas streetlamps lined the sidewalk. Gold-flecked bulbs seemed to flicker when the light hit them in a certain way. Several rooms were visible through the itty-bitty windows. In one, a young girl held a ball of yarn for her cat to swat. In another, a couple placed presents under their Christmas tree. Overall, the construction appeared flawless, the level of detail remarkable. It didn’t look like a fake.
    â€œIt’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Gretchen asked.
    â€œVery,” I said. I shook it again, holding it at eye level so Gretchen could see. After a moment, I raised my eyes to Sasha’s. “We’re going to have to open it up.”
    â€œI know.”
    I set the globe down. “Let’s call Dr. Grayman and see if she’ll take a look at it.” Elizabeth Grayman was the curator of decorative arts at the New England Museum of Contemporary Art in Durham, and an expert on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European decorative artifacts. “Do you want to go, Sasha? Or would you rather work on the ice-skating snow globe?”
    â€œEither