“A profoundly wise decision on your part. I suggest that you start with Rachael Dobbs.”

“Is Rachael related to the good captain?” Gamay asked.

“A great-great-great-granddaughter. She lives in New Bedford, and is the curator of the Dobbs Museum. I spoke to her when I was researching the subject.”

Paul said, “We could be there in a couple of hours.”

“Splendid. I’ll give her a call.”

Perlmutter consulted a Rolodex and dialed the number. He chatted amiably with someone, then hung up and said, “She’ll see you at three o’clock, but she had some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the logbook of the 1848 voyage was given to Caleb Nye. The bad news is that a fire destroyed Nye’s library.”

“I guess we won’t be traveling to New Bedford,” Paul said with a slow shake of his head.

“Why are you New Englanders such pessimists?” Gamay said.

“Because we’re realists,” he said. “Without the ship’s log, we don’t know where the Princess stopped after it left Pohnpei.”

“True,” she said. “But maybe we don’t need the log if we concentrate on Caleb Nye.”

“Of course,” Paul said with a snap of his fingers. “Caleb was an eyewitness to the voyage. He told hundreds of people about his experience. We might find something somewhere with the details of his trip.”

“It’s worth a talk with Ms. Dobbs,” Perlmutter said. “By the way, you never said why you were interested in the log.”

Paul said, “It’s a long story, St. Julien. We can tell you over dinner when we get back. Your choice. Our treat.”

The suggestion got Perlmutter off the subject of the logbook, which was what Paul intended.

“There’s a new French restaurant near the Watergate I’ve been meaning to try,” Perlmutter said. “But back to business.”

He brushed his fingers over a section of shelves and began pulling out books. Minutes later, the Trouts left the carriage house, their arms loaded down with volumes cherry-picked from Perlmutter’s whaling collection. The Trouts stacked them in the back of the Mini Cooper Clubman that they used as their in-town car.

On the short drive back to their town house, Paul said, “I hate to be a pessimist again, but Kurt and Joe have set themselves a formidable task. Finding the missing lab may be impossible. We could be doing something more substantial than chasing down a nineteenth-century whaler whose adventures may or may not have a bearing on the case.”

Gamay nodded.

“I understand that this trip may turn out to be a waste of valuable time,” she said, “but one fact is inescapable.”

“What’s that?”

“Caleb Nye is all we have.”

Unknown

NUMA 8 - Medusa

CHAPTER 32