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what’s up next.”
     
     
    You might say the evening’s mood had been dampened. We wandered among the guests, and when the official proceedings ended, attended several of the parties. Alex was certain Goldcress’s client was on the premises. That he’d have to be there somewhere. “No way he could resist this.”
    “But how do you expect to find him?” I asked.
    “He knows us, Chase. I’ve been hoping he’d give himself away, maybe show a little too much interest in us. Maybe allow himself to watch too closely while we talked with his agent.”
    “And did you see anybody?”
    “I saw a lot of people keeping an eye on us,” he said. “But primarily on
you
.” That was a reference to my cherry red evening best, which was maybe a bit more revealing than I was accustomed to allow.
    But if anyone was there, he stayed clear of us. At the end of the evening, we went back to our hotel empty-handed.
     
     
    The day we returned home, I slept late. When I walked into the office at midmorning, Jacob posted a list of the day’s callers. Among them was a name I didn’t recognize. “
Local woman
,” he said. “
Wants an appraisal
.”
    Where antiquities are concerned, serious collectors prefer to do things face-to-face, especially if they think they have a potentially valuable artifact. In fact, where that kind of merchandise is concerned, Alex refuses to do a remote appraisal. But the vast majority of the stuff they show us is of minimal value, and you don’t need to see it up close to realize it.
    We get a lot of people directly off the street. They tend to be folks who’ve picked up something at an estate sale, or it’s maybe an inheritance, and they’ve begun wondering if it’s worth more money than they’d been told. When they do, under the assumption there’s nothing to lose, they call us. I take a look, then offer my assessment. Diplomatically, of course. The truth is that I’m no expert in matters
antiqua
, but I know junk when I see it. If I’m not sure, I pass it to Alex.
    Ninety-nine percent of the calls off the street are pure refuse. That’s a conservative estimate. So when, a couple hours later, I returned the call and her image blinked on in the office, my first thought was to take a quick look at what she had and send her on her way.
    She was a tiny, blond woman, nervous, not particularly well dressed, unable to look me in the eye. She wore gold slacks that would have fit better on someone with narrower hips. A creased white blouse was open at the throat and would have revealed a lot of cleavage if she’d had any. She had a blinding red neckerchief and a smile that was at once aggressive and shy. She was seated on a worn Springfield sofa, the kind that you get free if you buy a couple of armchairs.
    Greetings were short without being abrupt. “
My name’s Amy Kolmer
,” she said. “
I have something here I’d like you to look at. I was wondering if it might be worth some money
.” She reached out of the picture and came back with a cup, which she held up to the light.
    It was a decorative piece, the sort of thing you might buy in a souvenir shop. It was gray. A green-and-white eagle was etched into its side. There was something antiquated about the style in which the eagle was drawn. It was in flight, wings spread, beak open in an attack posture. A bit overdramatic. It might have been popular in the last century. A small banner was unfurled beneath the eagle, and something was written on it. It was too small to make out clearly, but I could see it wasn’t the Standard alphabet.
    She turned the cup so I could see the back side. It featured a ringed globe, with inscriptions above and below. Same type of symbols.
    “What do you think?”
she asked.
    “What’s the language, Amy? Do you know?”
    “I’ve no idea.”
    “Do you know what it is?”
    She looked puzzled. “
It’s a cup
.”
    “I mean, what
kind
of cup? Where did it come from?”
    “My boyfriend gave it to