“I’m pleased with Hepsa’s gift of her red hair, but I would have preferred less of a proboscis from the captain,” she said. “As you can see, he had plenty to go around.”
Rachael Dobbs gave the Trouts a tour of the mansion, introducing the family members in the portraits that covered every wall. The men wore wide-brimmed, Quaker-style hats, the women demure caps.
She pointed to a display case that held a battered top hat.
“That was the captain’s lucky chapeau. He wore it on every whaling expedition.”
They went out onto a broad deck overlooking a formal English garden bordered with rosebushes. She seated the Trouts at an umbrellaed table on the patio and brought out glasses of iced tea.
“Thank you for the tour,” Gamay said. “It’s a beautiful house.”
“The captain and his wife moved up here from Johnny Cake Hill. The whaling merchants wanted bigger homes and gardens that reflected their status in the community. Now, how may I help you? St. Julien said on the phone that you were interested in one of the captain’s logbooks.”
“We received a query from a virologist who asked us about an epidemic that struck the Pacific whaling fleet in 1848,” Gamay said. “We’re surveying logbooks from that time to see if we can find any mention of the event.”
Rachael raised an eyebrow.
“The 1848 voyage was the captain’s last whaling expedition,” she said. “He retired from the sea after that voyage.”
“Wasn’t that unusual?” Paul asked. “From what we’ve heard, your ancestor was an extremely successful whaler.”
“He was probably the best of his day. And you’re right about it being odd that he stopped going to sea at the peak of his career. He had brought in a full hold of sperm oil on his ship’s maiden voyage and could have had any command he wanted. He said he wanted to spend more time with Hepsa, whom he had married before he left on that final expedition.”
“I don’t blame him for wanting to stay home,” Paul said. “Your ancestor was a beautiful woman.”
Rachael blushed at the indirect compliment.
“Thank you. The captain went to work for the Rotch family. They invented the vertical-integration model still used by multinational corporations and applied it to the whaling industry.” She paused in thought, then said, “According to the Dobbs family lore, something happened on that last voyage that changed his views.”
“The face in the captain’s portrait didn’t belong to a man who would scare easily,” Paul said.
“No disagreement, Mr. Trout. The captain had been a harpooner before he worked his way up. Anyone who stands in a frail wooden boat and antagonizes a seventy-foot-long sperm whale is not fainthearted.”
Gamay leaned forward.
“Could the Caleb Nye incident have had anything to do with the captain’s decision?” she asked.
Rachael shook her head.
“Caleb’s experience would have been a wonderful story for the captain to tell other ship captains when they got together,” she said.
“I believe you told St. Julien that the logbook for the 1848 voyage was destroyed,” Gamay said.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Rachael said with a sigh. “Caleb’s whaling library went up in flames when his house burned to the ground. He must have been heartbroken at losing his beloved library. There’s now housing for the elderly on the site of the old Nye mansion in Fairhaven.”
“Isn’t it curious that the captain would have given his log to a former crewman?” Gamay said.
“Not really. The captain would have known about Caleb’s book collection. Also, there was a peculiar bond between the two men. It was said that the captain felt personally responsible for the young man’s unfortunate condition. He wrote an affidavit saying that the Jonah story was true. It was read at the traveling show and helped make Caleb a rich man.”
“Did Caleb ever write a book about his adventure?”
“Not that I know of. He made the lecture circuit for years under the guidance of a P. T. Barnum type, a promoter named Strater, and they sold pamphlets at the shows, so maybe that was more lucrative than a book would have been. There must have been a great deal written about Caleb. You could dig into old newspaper files, for a start.”
Rachael excused herself to answer the doorbell and came back a moment later.
“The electrician is here. We could talk later, if you don’t mind waiting.”
“We’re on a tight schedule,” Gamay said. “Do you have any suggestions on how we might find out more about Caleb Nye?”
“You could start in our basement. We have a section of the diorama Nye used in his presentations. He gave it to a library, but they ran out of room and shipped it over here. We didn’t have room for it, either. Perhaps I can show it to you when I’m not so busy.
“In the meantime, there is the New Bedford Whaling Museum. And the various local historical societies. But since you’re short on time, there is one other avenue, although I hesitate to suggest it.”
“We’re grasping at straws,” Paul said. “Give it a try.”
“Well, then,” she said with a shrug, “you might want to talk to Harvey Brimmer. He deals in antique documents from a shop near the Seamen’s Bethel on Johnny Cake Hill. He unearths some amazing old documents from time to time.”
“Why do you hesitate to recommend Mr. Brimmer?” Paul asked.
“Harvey has a reputation for collecting upfront fees, then not locating the documents he was hired to find. There have been rumors of forgeries and dealing in stolen documents, but either the rumors are false or he’s too slick to get caught. I believe the latter.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Paul said. “We’ll watch ourselves if we talk to Mr. Brimmer.”
“Please don’t tell Harvey I mentioned him. He would take that as a license to use the Dobbs name in an advertisement.”
The Trouts gave Rachael a sizable contribution to put in the museum’s donation box. On the way out, she stopped in front of a print that showed a huge textile mill complex.
“That’s the Dobbs mill. The captain became even wealthier when he invested in the textile business. He was apparently robust and would have lived a long life if he hadn’t been killed when a loom fell on him. Good luck with your research,” she said in parting, then scurried off to meet with the electrician.
“Wasn’t Brimmer the guy Song Lee contacted when she was looking for the logbook?” Paul asked.
“I’m sure that was his name,” Gamay said. “Maybe we’ll have more success than she did.”
After leaving the Dobbs mansion, the Trouts drove toward the waterfront. The former heart of the world’s whaling industry had dwindled through the centuries to several blocks of historic buildings. Connected by cobblestone streets, the old banks and ship’s chandleries that had serviced the sperm-oil industry now overlooked the fishing fleet and processing buildings that lined the Acushnet River.
Brimmer’s shop was on the ground floor of a three-story clap-board building. The peeling red paint revealed the gray primer underneath, and the black wooden sign over the door was so faded it was almost impossible to make out H. BRIMMER ANTIQUE BOOKS, MAPS, AND DOCUMENTS.
The Trouts stepped into the shop and adjusted their eyes to the dim light. Several filing cabinets lined walls that were covered with paintings showing various aspects of the whaling trade. At the center of the room were a large wooden table and a couple of green-shaded banker’s lamps. Dozens of maps of all sizes covered the top of the table.
A door at the back of the shop opened in response to the jingling of the bell hanging on the front door, and a thinly built man stepped out. He stared at the Trouts from behind thick glasses.
These visitors didn’t fit the mold of the scholarly collectors or occasional tourists who were his usual patrons. At six foot eight, Paul was taller than most men, and Gamay had a magnetic presence more striking than beautiful.
“Good afternoon,” the man said with a smile. “I’m Harvey Brimmer. May I be of some assistance?”