Medusa

CHAPTER 31

ST. JULIEN PERLMUTTER CUSTOMARILY WORKED INTO THE wee hours and slept until long after the sun had risen. So when the telephone beside his king-size water bed gonged like a ship’s bell and awoke the renowned naval historian from a sound slumber, his usually sunny greeting had an edge to it.

His pudgy hand reached to the bedside table, snatched up the antique French telephone’s receiver, and stuck it to his ear. Still groggier than a punch-drunk prizefighter, he boomed, “St. Julien Perlmutter here. State your bloody damned business in a brief manner. And you better have a good excuse for calling at this ungodly hour!”

“Good morning, Julien,” said a soothing female voice. “Hope I didn’t wake you up.”

The ruddy features that were almost hidden under a thick gray beard underwent a miraculous Hyde-to-Jekyll transformation. The scowl disappeared, the sky blue eyes suddenly sparkled with good humor, and the pink lips under the small tulip nose widened in a warm smile.

“Good morning, my dear Gamay,” Perlmutter purred. “Of course you didn’t wake me up. I was in that delightful state between sleep and waking, dreaming of breakfast.”

Gamay chuckled softly. It was rare when the four-hundred-pound Perlmutter wasn’t thinking about food.

“I’m glad to hear that, Julien, because Paul and I would like to come over and see you. We’ll bring you a treat.”

Perlmutter smacked his lips at the prospect.

“I’ll get the coffee brewing,” he said. “You know where I live.”

He replaced the receiver in its cradle and swung his feet out of the bed, which was set into an alcove off a huge combination bedroom, living room, and study. Perlmutter made his home in an N Street carriage house behind two vine-encrusted homes only a few blocks from the Trouts’ town house. The floor-to-ceiling shelves that lined every wall sagged under the weight of thousands of books. More books were stacked on tables and chairs, piled on the floor in precariously leaning towers, and even covered the foot of his rippling water bed.

The first thing Perlmutter saw when he blinked his eyes open every morning was what many experts acknowledged to be the finest accumulation of historical ship literature ever assembled. Scholars around the globe were green with envy over his vast collection. Perlmutter constantly fended off museums that wanted him to donate it to their libraries.

Slipping a red-and-gold paisley robe over his purple silk pajamas, Perlmutter eased his small feet into soft leather slippers. He went to the kitchen to put on a pot of Papua New Guinea coffee. Then he washed his face and brushed his teeth. He poured an antique Limoges porcelain cup full of the deep, chocolaty coffee. The heady fragrance almost made him swoon.

One sip of the strong brew snapped him fully awake. He felt almost human by the time the doorbell rang. He opened the door, and his smile faded as his eyes went to the DUNKIN’ DONUTS emblazoned on the flat cardboard box in Paul’s hands. Perlmutter recoiled like a vampire being offered garlic, and would have fled into the house if Trout had not lifted the box’s lid.

“Just playing a little joke,” Paul said with an impish grin.

“We picked up these treats at the deli around the corner,” Gamay said. “Smoked Scottish salmon, blini and caviar, and fresh-baked croissants. Not the equal of your culinary skills, but we thought you might not want to cook so early in the morning.”

Perlmutter put one hand over his chest and with the other took the box, holding it as if he feared contamination, and led the way into the house.

“You had me going there for a minute,” he said, returning to his normal jovial mood. “You’ve obviously been hanging around too much with that young scalawag Austin. Where are Kurt and Joe these days? Last I knew, they were diving under the sea in the bathysphere replica.”

“They’re on their way to Micronesia on an assignment,” Gamay said.

“Micronesia?” he said. “That’s one place I’d like to visit. I hear they mark important occasions with feasts involving enormous amounts of food.”

Perlmutter escorted his guests into his kitchen, poured two more cupfuls of New Guinea coffee, and doled out the early brunch on three Limoges plates. They all sat around a polished wooden kitchen table, one of the few flat surfaces in the carriage house not piled high with books.

“Sorry for the early-morning call,” Paul began, “but there is some urgency to our search. We’re trying to track down the 1848 logbook of a New England whaling vessel named the Princess. We hoped you could tell us where to start.”

Perlmutter’s bushy brows bobbed up and down.

“Caleb Nye’s ship!” he exclaimed.

Gamay tossed her head back and laughed in surprise.

“You never cease to amaze, Julien,” she said. “We mention a whaling ship, one of hundreds, and you have the name of the captain on the tip of your tongue.”

“Only because the young man had an experience that was quite memorable in the annals of whaling. Caleb was not the captain. He was the ship’s green hand, the designation given the newest crew member. He claimed to have been swallowed by a sperm whale. The story enjoyed wide circulation in his day.”

“Is that even possible?” Paul asked.

Perlmutter nibbled thoughtfully on a croissant, then said, “That question has been debated going back to Jonah. Nye wasn’t the only one who claimed that a sperm whale had swallowed him. In 1891, some years after Nye’s adventure, a whaler named James Bartley, serving aboard the Star of the East off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, reportedly disappeared after a sperm whale overturned his whaleboat. When the crew was carving the whale up later for blubber, they found Bartley alive doubled up inside. His skin and hair were bleached white, supposedly from the mammal’s gastric juices. He went back to work after a few weeks of rest. Or so the story goes . . .”

“I detect a note of skepticism in your voice,” Paul said.

“With sound reason. Bartley’s story is one of those tales that never die, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Occasionally, a writer who’s resurrecting that old chestnut will contact me. I refer such inquiries to the findings of Edward B. Davis, who thoroughly investigated the story.”

“His conclusions?” Paul asked.

“Davis scoured every document he could find on Bartley’s story. There really was a ship named the Star of the East, but nothing to substantiate the report that Bartley had been checked out at a London hospital for damage to his skin from a whale’s gastric juices. Moreover, the wife of the ship’s captain said the story was made out of whole cloth. The Star was not a whaler, and the British did not go whaling off the Falklands at that time. Despite these disclaimers, stories about Bartley’s supposed ordeal have persisted through the years.”

Paul turned to Gamay.

“You’re the marine biologist in the family. Would it be possible for a sperm whale to swallow a man?”

“Sperm whales have been found with giant squids in their stomachs, so, physiologically, it might be possible.”

Perlmutter popped a forkful of salmon in his mouth, dabbed his lips, pronouncing the food fit for human consumption.

“Davis theorized that Bartley capitalized on his naturally pale complexion,” he said. “He used the name of a real ship, got some stories in the local press, and even may have persuaded a friend to pose as the captain. He eventually joined a circus, billing himself as ‘Jonah of the Twentieth Century.’ ”

Gamay frowned in thought.

“Fascinating,” she said, “but what does this have to do with Caleb Nye and the Princess?”

Perlmutter pushed his empty plate aside and rose from the table. He knew where every item in his extensive collection could be found. He opened a tall metal storage container, explaining that the box was moistureproof and temperature controlled to preserve his papers, and pulled out a poster two by three feet in size. It announced, in huge circus typeface, that CALEB NYE, A LIVING JONAH, would be giving an ILLUSTRATED PRESENTATION at the FIRST PARISH METHODIST CHURCH in WORCESTER, MASS. The engraving, colored by hand, showed a sperm whale attacking a whaleboat.

“My guess is, Bartley heard about Caleb’s show and decided to put one together himself,” he said. “After I received yet another query from a tabloid scrivener, I decided to go beyond the Davis research. That’s when I discovered that some fifty years before Bartley surfaced, Nye had been the star of a traveling show that featured him as a modern-day Jonah.”

Gamay said, “Was Caleb’s story simply an earlier version of the scam?”

Perlmutter tugged at his beard.

“I think not. In contrast to Bartley, Caleb Nye did serve aboard a whaling ship in the Pacific Ocean, and witnesses said he was swallowed by a whale. He produced affidavits from the master of the ship, Captain Horatio Dobbs, and fellow crew members saying that the story was true. I think Bartley used Nye’s story. Unfortunately, the skepticism over Bartley’s claim tainted Nye’s claim. You said that you were looking for the 1848 log of the Princess?”

“That’s right,” Paul said. “We’re hoping you can help us find it.”

“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.”