“This is to report that the Odessa Stat; freighter of ten thousand tons, carrying a cargo of coal from Caucasus, enroute from Odessa to Constantinople 1917, February, did not arrive at its destination and is presumed lost. Have confirmed such with G. Bozdag, Lloyd's agent, Constantinople. No report of ship at any Black Sea port. Vessel owned by Fauchet, Ltd., of Marseilles, France, which has put in a claim. Last survey, June 1916, showed ship in desperate need of repair. Please advise as to claim.”

The other papers included a three-way correspondence among the agent, the central office in London and the French owners. The French were insisting on full payment of the claim. Lloyd's resisted, citing the perilous condition of the ship, but eventually settled for a third, most of it the value of the cargo.

Perlmutter turned to a ceiling-to-floor bookcase and extracted a thick volume whose burgundy cloth cover was worn with use. He leafed through the registry of French shipping companies. Fauchet had gone out of business in 1922. Perlmutter grunted. Small wonder, the way they neglected their ships. He replaced the registry and picked up another document Bosworth had sent him. It was a copy of a book review from the London Times dating to the thirties.

The headline read: VETERAN SEA CAPTAIN REVEALS SECRETS OF THE BLACK SEA. He put the review aside and turned to the note from Bosworth.

“Dear Julian. Hope this material is of help. I found a reference to your mystery ship in a summary of archival material bequeathed to the library by the estate of Lord Dodson, who served for many years in the Foreign Office. It was a manuscript containing Dodson's memoirs, but it seems to have been withdrawn by the family. There was also mention of the Odessa Star in a book called Life on the Black Sea. We have a copy here and I can FedEx it to you if you wish.”

Perlmutter put the note down and went over to a shelf crammed to the gills with volumes of every size and description. He ran his pudgy fingers along a row of books and pulled out a small, slim volume with a leather cover handsomely embossed in gold leaf.

“Hah!” Perlmutter exclaimed in triumph. If he could have danced, he would have done a two-step; No longer worried about his temporary lapse of memory, he scribbled a note on a piece of paper and inserted it in the fax machine. “No need to send book. Have it in my collection. Thanks.” As the message flew across the Atlantic, Perlmutter settled into a comfortable chair with a tumbler of iced hibiscus tea, a plate of crackers and white truffle paste by his side, and began to read.