Hidden Riches

emerald. What Dora saw was energy and verve, as irresistible to her as a red-tag special.
    Dora smiled at the boy who was propping the painting against the wall. “You’ve got it upside down.”
    “Huh?” The stock boy turned and flushed. He was seventeen, and the sight of Dora smiling at him reduced him to a puddle of hormones. “Ah, no, ma’am.” His Adam’s apple bobbed frantically as he turned the canvas around to show Dora the hook at the back.
    “Mmm.” When she owned it—and she certainly would by the end of the afternoon—she would fix that.
    “This, ah, shipment just came in.”
    “I see.” She stepped closer. “Some interesting pieces,” she said, and picked up a statue of a sad-eyed basset hound curled up in a resting pose. It was heavier than she’d expected, and pursing her lips, she turned it over and over for a closer inspection. No craftsman’s mark or date, she mused. But still, the workmanship was excellent.
    “Frivolous enough for you?” Lea asked.
    “Just. Make a terrific doorstop.” After setting it down she reached for a tall figurine of a man and woman in antebellum dress caught in the swirl of a waltz. Dora’s hand closed over thick, gnarled fingers. “Sorry.” She glanced up at an elderly, bespeckled man who gave her a creaky bow.
    “Pretty, isn’t it?” he asked her. “My wife had one just like it. Got busted when the kids were wrestling in the parlor.” He grinned, showing teeth too white and straight to be God-given. He wore a red bow tie and smelled like a peppermint stick. Dora smiled back.
    “Do you collect?”
    “In a manner of speaking.” He set the figurine down and his old, shrewd eyes swept the display, pricing, cataloguing, dismissing. “I’m Tom Ashworth. Got a shop here in Front Royal.” He took a business card from his breast pocket and offered it to Dora. “Accumulated so much stuff over the years, it was open a shop or buy a bigger house.”
    “I know what you mean. I’m Dora Conroy.” She held out a hand and had it enveloped in a brief arthritic grip. “I have a shop in Philadelphia.”
    “Thought you were a pro.” Pleased, he winked. “Noticed you right off. Don’t believe I’ve seen you at one of Porter’s auctions before.”
    “No, I’ve never been able to make it. Actually, this trip was an impulse. I dragged my sister along. Lea, Tom Ashworth.”
    “Nice to meet you.”
    “My pleasure.” Ashworth patted Lea’s chilled hand. “Never does warm up in here this time of year. Guess Porter figures the bidding’ll heat things up some.”
    “I hope he’s right.” Lea’s toes felt frozen inside her suede boots. “Have you been in business long, Mr. Ashworth?”
    “Nigh onto forty years. The wife got us started, crocheting doilies and scarves and what-all and selling them. Added some trinkets and worked out of the garage.” He took a corncob pipe from his pocket and clamped it between his teeth. “Nineteen sixty-three we had more stock than we could handle and rented us a shop in town. Worked side by side till she passed on in the spring of eighty-six. Now I got me a grandson working with me. Got a lot of fancy ideas, but he’s a good boy.”
    “Family businesses are the best,” Dora said. “Lea’s just started working part-time at the shop.”
    “Lord knows why.” Lea dipped her chilly hands into her coat pockets. “I don’t know anything about antiques or collectibles.”
    “You just have to figure out what people want,” Ashworth told her, and flicked a thumbnail over a wooden match to light it. “And how much they’ll pay for it,” he added before he puffed the pipe into life.
    “Exactly.” Delighted with him, Dora hooked a hand through his arm. “It looks like we’re getting started. Why don’t we go find some seats?”
    Ashworth offered Lea his other arm and, feeling like the cock of the walk, escorted the women to chairs near the front row.
    Dora pulled out her notebook and prepared to play her favorite role.
    The bidding was low, but certainly energetic. Voices bounced off the high ceiling as the lots were announced. But it was the murmuring crowd that fired Dora’s blood. There were bargains to be had here, and she was determined to grab her share.
    She outbid a thin, waiflike woman with a pinched mouth for the cherrywood vanity, snapped up the lot that included the creamer/slipper for a song and competed briskly with Ashworth for a set of crystal saltcellars.
    “Got me,” he said when