Night Probe!

Le Mat paused to point at an ice floe nearly an acre in size. "We had an unseasonably cold winter this year. The river is still frozen solid a hundred and fifty miles upstream."

Pitt kept silent, slowly sipping the tea.

"The six- thousand-ton Storstad," Le Mat continued, "laden with eleven thousand tons of coal, cut into the Empress amidships, slicing a gaping wound twenty-four feet high and fifteen feet wide. Within fourteen minutes the Empress fell to the bed of the St. Lawrence, taking over a thousand souls with her."

"Strange how quickly the ship vanished into the past," Pitt said pensively.

"Yes, you ask anyone from the States or Europe about the Empress and they'll tell you they never heard of her. It's almost a crime the way the ship was forgotten."

"You haven't forgotten her."

"Nor has Quebec Province," said Le Mat, pointing toward the east. "Just behind Pointe au POre, "Father's Point in English, lie eighty-eight unidentified victims of the tragedy in a little cemetery still maintained by the Canadian Pacific Railroad." A look of great sorrow came on Le Mat's face. He spoke of the terrible mathematics of the dead as though the sinking had happened yesterday. "The Salvation Army remembers. Out of a hundred and seventy-one who were going to London for a convention, only twenty-six survived. They hold a memorial service for their dead at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto on the a

"I'm told you've made the Empress a life's work."

"I have a deep passion for the Empress. It's like a great love that overwhelms some men in seeing the painting of a woman who died long before they were born."

"I lean more on flesh than fantasy," said Pitt.

"Sometimes fantasy is more rewarding," Le Mat replied, a dreamlike expression on his face. Suddenly he came alert and spun the wheel to avert an ice floe that loomed in the path of the boat. "Between June and September, when the weather warms, I dive on the wreck twenty, maybe thirty times."

"What is the condition of the Empress?"

"A fair amount of disintegration. Though not as bad as you might think after seventy-five years of submersion. I think it's because the fresh water from the river dilutes the salinity from the eastern sea. The hull lies on its starboard side at a list of forty-five degrees. Some of the overhead bulkheads have fallen in on the upper superstructure, but the rest of the ship is pretty much intact.

"Its depth?"

"About a hundred and sixty-five feet. A bit deep for diving on compressed air, but I manage it." Le Mat closed the throttles and shut down the engines, allowing the boat to drift in the current. Then he turned and faced Pitt. "Tell me, Mr. Pitt, what is your interest in the Empress? Why did you seek me out?"

"I'm searching for information on a passenger by the name of Harvey Shields, who was lost with the ship. I was told that no one knows more about the Empress than Jules Le Mat."

Le Mat considered Pitt's reply for some time, then said: "Yes, I recall a Harvey Shields was one of the victims. There is no mention of him during the sinking by survivors. I must assume he was one of nearly seven hundred who still lie entombed within the rotting hulk."

"Perhaps he was found but never identified, like those buried in Father's Point cemetery."

Le Mat shook his head. "Mostly third-class passengers. Shields was a British diplomat, an important man. His body would have been recognized."

Pitt set aside the teacup. "Then my search ends here."

"No, Mr. Pitt," said Le Mat, "not here." Pitt looked at him, saying nothing. "Down there," Le Mat went on, nodding toward the deck. "The Empress of Ireland lies beneath us." He pointed out a cabin window. "There floats her marker."

Fifty feet off the port side of the boat an orange buoy rose and fell gently on the icy river, its line stretching through the dark waters to the silent wreck below.

Pitt swung his rented minicar off the state thruway and entered a narrow paved road adjoining the Hudson River shortly after sunset. He passed a stone marker designating a Revolutionary War site and was tempted to stop and stretch his legs, but decided to press on to his destination before it became dark. The scenic river was beautiful in the fading light, the fields that dipped to the water's edge glistened under a late winter snowfall.

He stopped for gas at a small station below the town of Coxsackie. The attendant, an elderly man in faded coveralls, stayed inside the office, his feet propped on a metal stool in front of a wood burning stove. Pitt filled the tank and entered. The attendant peered around him at the pump. "Looks like twenty dollars even," he said.

Pitt handed him the cash. "How much further to Wacketshire?"

His eyes squinted in suspicion as they studied Pitt like probes. "Wacketshire? It ain't been called that in years. Fact of the matter is, the town don't exist no more."

"A ghost town in upstate New York? I'd have thought the southwest desert a more likely place."

"No joke, mister. When the railroad line was torn up back in '49, Wacketshire gave up and died. Most of the buildings were burned down by vandals. Nobody lives there anymore except some fella who makes statues."

"Is anything left of the old track bed?" Pitt asked.

"Most of it's gone," said the old man, his expression turning wistful. "Damned shame, too." Then he shrugged. "At least we didn't have to see them smelly diesels come through here. The last train over the old line was pulled by steam."

"Perhaps steam will return someday."

"I'll never live to see it." The attendant looked at Pitt with growing respect. "How come you're interested in a deserted railroad?"

"I'm a train nut," Pitt lied without hesitation. He seemed to be getting quite good at it lately. "My special interest is the classic trains. At the moment I'm researching the Manhattan Limited of the New York Quebec Northern system."

"That's the one that fell through the Deauville Bridge. Killed a hundred people, you know."

"Yes," Pitt said evenly, "I know."

The old man turned and gazed out the window. "The Manhattan Limited is special," he said. "You can always tell when it comes down the line. It has a sound all its own."

Pitt wasn't sure he heard right. The attendant was speaking in the present tense. "You must be talking about a different train."

"No, sir. I've watched the old Manhattan Limited come hootin' and clankin' down the track, whistle a-blowin', headlight a-glowin', just like it did the night it went in the river."

The old- timer spoke of seeing the phantom train as nonchalantly as if he were describing the weather.

It was dusk when Pitt stopped his car at a small turnout in the road. A cold wind was rolling in from the north, and he zipped an old leather driving jacket to his neck and turned up the collar. He slipped a knit ski cap over his head and stepped out of the car, locking the doors.

The colors in the western sky were altering from orange to a blue-purple as he trudged across a frozen field toward the river, his boots crunching on a four-inch layer of snow. He realized that he had forgotten his gloves, but rather than return to the car and lose minutes of the ebbing daylight, he jammed his hands deeper in his pockets.

After a quarter of a mile he reached a belt of hickory trees and low shrubs. He picked his way around the frozen branches, which sprouted strange growths of ice crystals, and came to a high embankment. The slopes were steep and he had to use his hands to claw his way up the wind-glazed slippery surface to the top.