Julia studied the etched image of the ship on her glass as Perlmutter poured the aged port. “I thought the Andrea Doria rested on the bottom of the sea.”
“She still does,” said Perlmutter, twisting one end of the gray hair flowing from his lips. “Dirk here brought up a rack of wineglasses during a dive he made on the wreck five years ago and graciously gave them to me. Please tell what you think of the port.”
Julia was flattered that such a gourmet would want her opinion. She sipped the ruby contents of the glass and made an expression of delight. “It tastes wonderful.”
“Good, good.” He gave Pitt a look reserved for a derelict on a park bench. “You I won't ask, since your taste runs to the mundane.”
Pitt acted as if he was insulted. “You wouldn't know good port if you drowned in it. While I, on the other hand, was weaned on it.”
“I hate myself for ever letting you through the front door,” Perlmutter moaned.
Julia saw through the charade. “Do you two always go on like this?”
“Only when we meet,” Pitt said, laughing.
“What brings you here this time of night?” asked Perlmutter, winking at Julia. “It couldn't have been my witty conversation.”
“No,” Pitt agreed, “it was to see if you ever heard of a ship that left China sometime around nineteen forty-eight with a cargo of historical Chinese art and then vanished.”
Perlmutter held the port in front of his eyes and swirled it around in his glass. His eyes took on a reflective expression as his encyclopedic mind delved into his brain cells. “I seem to recall that the name of the ship was the Princess Dou Wan. She went missing with all hands somewhere off Central America. No trace of ship or crew was ever found.”
“Was there a record of her cargo?”
Perlmutter shook his head. “The word that she was carrying a rich cargo of antiquities came from unsubstantiated reports only. Vague rumors actually. No evidence ever came to light to suggest it was true.”
“How do you call it?” asked Pitt.
“Another mystery of the sea. There is very little I can tell you except the Princess Dou Wan was a passenger ship that had seen her day and was scheduled for the scrap yard. A pretty ship, in her prime she was known as the queen of the China Sea.”
“Then how did she end up lost off Central America?”
Perlmutter shrugged. “As I said, another mystery of the sea.”
Pitt shook his head vigorously. “I disagree. If there is an enigma, it is man-made. A ship simply doesn't vanish five thousand miles from where she is supposed to be.”
“Let me dig out the record on the Princess. I believe it's in a book stacked under the piano.” He lifted his bulk off a thankful chair and ambled out of the dining room. In less than two minutes, Pitt and Julia heard his voice roar out through the hall from another room. “Ah, here it is!”
“With all these books, he knows exactly where to find the one he's looking for?” she asked in amazement.
“He can tell you the title of every book in the house,” said Pitt with certainty, “its exact location and what number it lies from the top of its stack or from the right side of its shelf.”
Pitt had no sooner finished speaking than Perlmutter came into the room, his elbows brushing both frames of the doorway simultaneously. He held up a thick, leather-bound book. The title, lettered in gold, read, History of the Orient Shipping Lines. “This is the only official record I've ever come across on the Princess Dou Wan that gives details of her years afloat.” Perlmutter sat down at the table, opened the book and began reading aloud.
“She was laid down and launched in the same year, nineteen thirteen, by Harland and Wolff shipbuilders of Belfast for the Singapore Pacific Steamship Lines. Her original name was Lanai. Gross tonnage of just under eleven thousand tons, over-all length of four hundred and ninety-seven feet and a sixty-foot beam, she was rather a good-looking ship for her day.” He paused and held up the book to show a photograph of the ship sailing over a flat sea with a trailing wisp of smoke from her single smokestack. The photo was tinted and revealed the traditional black hull with white superstructure topped by a tall green funnel. “She could carry five hundred and ten passengers, fifty-five of them first class,” Perlmutter continued. “She was originally coal-fired but converted to oil-firing in nineteen twenty. Top speed of seventeen knots. Her maiden voyage took place in December of nineteen thirteen when she left Southampton for Singapore. Until nineteen thirty-one, most of her voyages were between Singapore and Honolulu.”
“It must have been a comfortable and relaxing experience sailing across the South Seas in those early days,” said Julia.
“Passengers were not nearly so harried and occupied eighty years ago,” Pitt agreed. He looked at Perlmutter. “When did the Lanai become the Princess Dou Wan?”
“She was sold to the Canton Lines out of Shanghai in nineteen thirty-one,” Perlmutter answered. “From then until the war, she carried passengers and cargo to ports around the South China Sea. During the war, she served as an Australian troop transport. In nineteen forty-two, while unloading troops and their equipment off New Guinea, she was attacked by Japanese aircraft and severely damaged, but she returned to Sidney under her own power for repair and a refit. Her war record is quite impressive. From nineteen forty to nineteen forty-five, she transported over eighty thousand men in and out of the war zone, dodging enemy aircraft, submarines and warships and suffering extensive damage inflicted during seven different attacks.”
“Five years of sailing through Japanese-infested waters,” said Pitt. “It's a wonder she wasn't sunk.”
“When the war ended, the Princess Dou Wan was returned to the Canton Lines and refitted as a passenger ship again. She then went into service between Hong Kong and Shanghai. Then in the late fall of nineteen forty-eight she was taken out of service and sent to the scrappers hi Singapore for breaking up.”
“Breaking up,” Pitt echoed. “You said she sank off Central America.”
“Her fate gets vague,” said Perlmutter, pulling several loose sheets of paper from the book. “I accumulated what information I could find and condensed it into a brief report. All that's known for certain is that she didn't make it to the scrappers. The final account came from a naval station radio operator at Valparaiso, Chile. According to the radio operator's records, a ship calling herself the Princess Dou Wan sent out a series of distress signals, saying she was taking on water and badly listing under a violent storm two hundred miles west. Repeated inquiries brought no answers. Then her radio went dead and she was never heard from again. A search turned up no sign of her.”
“Could there have been another Princess Dou Wan?” asked Julia.
Perlmutter shook his head negatively. “The International Ships Registry only lists one Princess Dou Wan between eighteen fifty and the present. The signal must have been sent as a red herring from another Chinese vessel.”
“Where did the rumor originate that Chinese antiquities were on board?” asked Pitt.
Perlmutter held out his hands, palms upward in a sign of unknowing. “A myth, a legend, the sea is full of them. The only sources I'm aware of were unreliable dockworkers and Nationalist Chinese soldiers who were in charge of loading the ship. They were later captured and interrogated by the Communists. One claimed a crate broke open while itXwas being lifted aboard, revealing a life-size bronze prancing horse.”
“How on earth did you find all this information?” said Julia, overwhelmed with Perlmutter's knowledge of maritime disasters.
He smiled. “From a fellow researcher in China. I have sources around the world that I rely on to send me books and information related to shipwrecks whenever they find it. They know that I pay top dollar for reports that contain new and uncovered ground. The story of the Princess Dou Wan came from an old friend who is China's top historian and researcher by the name of Zhu Kwan. We've corresponded and exchanged maritime information for many years. It was he who mentioned a legend surrounding the alleged treasure ship.”