"Not a mere interest, gorgeous creature. Qin Shang is obsessed like all men down through the centuries who have searched for lost treasure. He won't die a happy man no matter how much wealth and power he's accumulated until he can replace every one of his art replicas with the genuine pieces. To own something no other man or woman on earth can own is the ultimate fulfillment to Qin Shang. I've known men like him. He'd trade thirty years of his life to find the shipwreck and its treasures."

"But how does one go about searching for a ship that vanished fifty years ago?" Julia asked. "Where do you begin to look?"

"You start," Pitt said casually, "by knocking on a door about six blocks up the street."

PITT STEERED THE BIG DUESENBERG OVER A NARROW DRIVE-way between two homes with brick walls entirely blanketed with climbing ivy. He stopped the car in front of a spacious carriage house that fronted an expansive courtyard that was now roofed over.

"Who lives here?" asked Julia.

"A very interesting character," Pitt replied. He motioned toward a large bronze knocker on the door cast in the shape of a sailing ship. "Give it a rap, if you can."

"If you can?" Her hand reached for the knocker hesitantly. "Is there a trick to it?"

"Not what you're thinking. Go ahead, try to lift it."

But before Julia could touch the knocker, the door was swept open, revealing a huge, roly-poly man dressed in burgundy paisley silk pajamas under a matching robe. Julia gasped and took a step backward, bumping into Pitt who was laughing.

"He never fails."

"Fails to do what?" demanded the fat man.

"Open the door before a visitor knocks."

"Oh, that." The big man waved airily. "A chime sounds whenever someone comes up the drive."

"St. Julien," said Pitt. "Forgive the late visit."

"Nonsense!" boomed the man, who weighed four hundred pounds if he weighed an ounce. "You're welcome any hour of the day or night. Who's the lovely little lady?"

"Julia Lee, may I present St. Julien Perlmutter, gourmet, collector of fine wines and possessor of the world's largest library on shipwrecks."

Perlmutter bowed as far as his bulk allowed and kissed Julia's hand.

"Always a pleasure to meet a friend of Dirk's." He stood back and swept out an arm, the silk sleeve flapping like a flag in a stiff breeze. "Don't stand out there in the night. Come in, come in. I was just about to open a bottle of forty-year-old Barros port. Please share it with me."

Julia stepped from the enclosed courtyard that once served to harness teams of horses to fancy carriages and gazed enraptured at the thousands of books that were massed over every square inch of open space inside the carriage house. Many were neatly spaced on endless shelves. Others were piled along walls, up stairs and on bateonies. In bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, they were even clustered in the kitchen and dining room. There was barely enough room for a person to walk through a hallway, they were so thickly stacked.