“Blasphemous thought,” Perlmutter boomed. “Which reminds me, Dirk, you said your calling involved something more than just fin e dining with a dear friend . . .”

“That’s right, Julien. I’m on the hunt for a scarce mineral that made an appearance in the Arctic around 1849.”

“Sounds intriguing. What’s your interest?”

Pitt summarized the importance of ruthenium and the tale of the Inuit ore from the Miners Co-op.

“Adelaide Peninsula, you say? If my memory serves, that’s just below King William Island, dead center in the Northwest Passage,” Perlmutter said, stroking his thick gray beard. “And in 1849, the only explorers in that region would have been Franklin’s party.”

“Who was Franklin?” Loren asked.

“Sir John Franklin. British naval officer and renowned Arctic explorer. Fought at Trafalgar on the Bellerophon as a young lad, if I recall. Though a little past his prime at age fi fty-nine, he sailed with two stoutly built ships in an attempt to find and navigate the fabled Northwest Passage. He came within a hair of pulling it off, but his ships became trapped in the ice. The surviving men were forced to abandon the ships and attempt to reach a fur-trading camp hundreds of miles to the south. Franklin and all one hundred and thirty-four men of his expedition party ultimately died, making it by far the worst tragedy in Arctic exploration.”

Perlmutter excused himself to visit one of his reading rooms, returning with several old books and a crudely bound manuscript. Flipping through one of the books, he stopped at a page and read aloud.

“Here we are. Franklin sailed from the Thames in May of 1845 with two ships, the Erebus and the Terror. They were last seen entering Baffin Bay, off Greenland, later that summer. With provisions to last the crew three years, they were expected to winter at least one year in the ice before attempting a path to the Pacific, or else return to England with proof that a passage did not exist. Franklin and his crew instead perished in the Arctic, and his ships were never seen again.”

“Didn’t anyone go looking for them when they failed to appear after three years?” Loren asked.

“Oh my dear, did they! Concern grew by the end of 1847 when no word had been heard, and relief efforts commenced the next year. Literally dozens of relief expeditions were sent in search of Franklin, with vessels prodding both ends of the passage. Franklin’s wife, Lady Jane Franklin, famously financed numerous expeditions single-handedly to locate her husband. Remarkably, it wouldn’t be until 1854, nine years after they departed England, that the remains of some of the crewmen were found on King William Island, confirming the worst.”

“Did they leave any logbooks or records behind?” Pitt asked.