CHAPTER VI
Teresa Fernandez, the trim, immaculate stewardess, on her way to a passenger’s room with a breakfast tray glanced into the dining-saloon. Richard Cary’s chair was vacant. He had not yet come down. Usually he was punctual. It had been a pleasure to see him sitting there, so big and clean and wholesome, always good-humored, with a smile for every one. Teresa was disappointed at missing this first morning glimpse of him. It had not happened before.
She visited several staterooms and was blithe to the ladies who were too indolent to bestir themselves. Then the chief steward detained her with a list of the ship’s laundry which required checking up. This meant an inspection of the shelves in the linen room. As soon as she was free, the stewardess hastened to the nook beside the stairway and the wicker chair, on the chance of intercepting Richard Cary.
Bad luck this time! He must have come and gone. His chair was empty. She went to the foot of the stairs and beckoned her friend, the second steward. Mr. Cary had not been down, he told her, nor had he ordered breakfast sent to his room. A hearty man who had never missed a meal before! Perhaps he felt under the weather. The climate of Cartagena was trying for a stranger, and Mr. Cary had worked all day in the sun. The amiable young second steward decided to find out for himself.
Teresa hovered near a doorway of the promenade deck. She was anxious for Richard Cary’s health, but it would not do to show it. She had been careless already, perhaps, in inviting gossip. It was unwise for a woman compelled to live in a ship. Busy-bodies were eager to carry tales to the captain’s ears. The code of behavior was rigid and she had always avoided any appearance of fondness for a shipmate. She had treated them all alike and her record was clear of the breath of scandal.
When the second steward returned from his errand to the officers’ quarters, his face told her that something was wrong. She was afraid to hear news of an illness. Her heart pounded. The words flew to her lips:
“Is it the fever? Has the doctor been up to see him?”
The second steward shook his head mysteriously. He motioned Teresa into the library where they could be alone. With an effort she masked her agitation. She could be a clever actress. Richard Cary was merely another friend of hers.
“Vamoosed! Flown away!” exclaimed the second steward. “Mr. Cary is not in the ship. His bed wasn’t slept in last night, Miss Fernandez. He was supposed to go on watch at midnight. Now what do you think of that?”
“He is not in the ship?” she echoed, trying to keep her voice hushed. “Who told you so?”
“The third officer. A nice kid. He’s all fussed up about it. Mr. Cary is a regular tin god to him. You know what the rest of ’em are saying. Mr. Cary hit the beach last night and got soused. His first trip down this way, and the Cartagena rum slipped one over on him. He’ll turn up with a head on him before the ship sails. It will sure put him in wrong with the old man.”
“Who dares say these wicked things?” blazed Teresa. “Mr. Cary is not a common sailor bum. Thank you very much, Frank. If you find out any more, please come and tell me. It is very strange.”
The second steward was inclined to linger and discuss it, but Teresa’s manner dismissed him. She had no intention of betraying her emotions. This made it difficult to press her inquiries, to attempt to discover the facts in the case. Her head was throbbing. She felt tired. In order to be alone a few minutes she went to her room and bolted the door.
She had returned to the ship with Richard Cary before ten o’clock. He had said good-night at the gangway. A little later she had sent the deck steward to his room with the briar pipe. He had returned his thanks.
With a gesture of disgust she flung aside the theory that he might have sneaked ashore later for a quiet spree in Cartagena, wine and women, like so many of the men she had sailed with. Concerning the masculine sex she had few illusions left. Respectable shipmasters, passengers of pious repute at home, sporting young officers whose blood was hot, she had seen them yield to the lures of foreign ports.
Ah, thank God, Richard Cary was not that kind. In her eyes he was the perfect knight without fear and without reproach. It was now she realized how much she loved him, a love untarnished by the jealousies and suspicions that were native to her. Mere passion would have made her tremble with dreadful doubts that Don Ricardo had amused himself with her as a pastime and then had roved ashore to slake his desires with wanton girls.
Teresa wept a little, oppressed by the mystery of it, consumed by an anxiety that scorched her. Superstitious, she wished she had not let him touch the galleon’s bell in thepatioof Señor Ramon Bazán. Perhaps the bell was accursed, bringing misfortune as well as foretelling it. Then she courageously fought down her quaking trepidation and wild fancies. Richard Cary was strong and unconquerable, a man to defy evil or disaster.
He was not in the ship. He had been absent most of the night. He had not slept in his room. Either he had gone ashore on some lawful business of his own, as an afterthought, or he had fallen overboard. Ridiculous, this! Teresa permitted herself a whimsical smile. It dimpled the corners of her mouth.Valgame Dios, he would have made a splash to awaken the whole harbor and make the ship rock at her moorings. Ha, ha, it would have made a tidal wave on the beach and floated the fishing boats into the streets.
Teresa Fernandez bathed her eyes, powdered her nose, smoothed her hair, and then emerged from her room. The ship was to sail at noon. Passengers from Cartagena were beginning to come on board—a rich Colombian family for the A suite, the mother very stout and overdressed, dapper father of a dusky complexion, a wailing baby, children of various sizes, a frightened nurse, innumerable parcels and bags. The stewardess was demanded to talk Spanish to them and bring order out of this domestic chaos.
As soon as possible, she ran on deck. Her eager vision searched the bridge, the cargo hatches, the wharf. The boyish third officer was at the gangway. She tried to speak casually.
“I heard Mr. Cary was missing. Has he come back yet?”
“Not a sign of him, Miss Fernandez. Darned if I know what to make of it. He was as steady as a clock. Reliable was his middle name. A quartermaster saw him leave the ship last night, about ten o’clock. The last he saw of Mr. Cary in the moonlight, he was walking into town. He didn’t feel sleepy, I guess, and went out for a stroll. And then he fell off the earth.”
“It is very, very queer, is it not?” sighed Teresa. “ ’Most twelve hours away from the ship! Has the captain tried to find him? Has he sent anybody into Cartagena? Has he ’phoned to the police?”
“Not that I know of,” answered the third officer. He hesitated and looked to right and left before going on to say: “It’s my notion that Captain Sterry won’t look for him, from something I heard him spill to the first mate. There is some hard feeling between them, Miss Fernandez. I can’t give you the dope on it, but the skipper doesn’t seem a mite broken-hearted over leaving Mr. Cary behind. He hasn’t lifted a finger to find him, as far as I can make out. It’s a rotten situation, believe me.”
“And you tell me the captain don’t care what has happened to Mr. Cary?” breathed Teresa, aghast at this disclosure. “He will stand the second mate’s watch on the run back to New York? I have been at sea as much as you, young man, and I give you my word this is too queer for me.”
To desert the ship herself, to use her own intelligent energy in the quest of the missing man, this was Teresa’s natural impulse. She knew Cartagena, on the surface intimately, beneath the surface by hearsay. It would be foolish, perhaps, to do such a thing until the very last moment. She would wait before making up her mind, wait until the whistle blew to cast off from the wharf.
Her superior officer, the chief steward, had seldom found fault with Miss Fernandez, but now he noticed her frequent tours on deck and the interruptions in her routine of duty. He was a fat Swiss who perspired copiously and eternally prowled through the kitchens, the pantries, the corridors in search of delinquencies. A pudgy finger beckoned the stewardess, and a hoarse voice barked:
“Miss Fernandez, I haf got to call you down. You vill lose your job mit me if you don’t mind it better. Vat is all dis rubberin’ and beatin’ it upstairs and down again? Here is dot woman in number seventeen ringin’ like hell and tellin’ her cabin steward she can’t get you.”
“That woman in seventeen ought to be poisoned, Mr. Schwartz,” sniffed Teresa. “All she does is eat, eat. I know what she wants now, orange juice and biscuit and a little fruit. My gracious, for breakfast I took that woman a cereal, a melon, bacon and eggs, fish, fried potatoes, and a stack of toast. She is suffering with a nervous breakdown and must be careful of herself, she tells me. You let her ring is my advice, Mr. Schwartz.”
The chief steward mopped his dripping jowls and sulkily retorted: “Dot woman pays big money for the cruise, a room mit bath, Miss Fernandez. Go chase yourself on the job, and no more runnin’ all over the ship like a crazy girl. Vas you smugglin’ or somethings? You mind your step. I can get plenty of goot stewardesses in New York for theTarragona.”
Teresa’s white teeth closed over her lower lip. She detested this puffy swine who was in a position to bully her. He saw the temper flare in her black eyes and awaited the explosion. To his surprise she held herself in check. Her voice was almost indifferent as she replied:
“Yes, Mr. Schwartz. I will do as you say. I am feeling nervous this morning, not very well. I need to go on deck to get the air. But you will not have to scold me again.”
The stewardess hurried away. Mr. Schwartz gazed after her and sopped his bulging neck. The moods of Miss Fernandez were beyond him. Competent as she was, he would have preferred a Swiss or German woman. These Spanish girls were flighty. You couldn’t keep up mit ’em.
A few minutes later Teresa whisked into the passage leading to the room of Mr. McClement, the sagacious chief engineer. Here was a world secluded from the passenger quarters, a grimy, hard-working world in which moved scantily clad men with towels thrown over their shoulders. Teresa was safe from the espionage of the apoplectic chief steward. She rapped on a door which was opened by Mr. McClement, whose lean, freckled countenance was white with lather. He waved a razor in a gesture of cordial invitation.
Teresa entered. He removed a disorderly heap of books and clothing from a chair and offered no apologies.
“Just came out of the shower and was shifting into fresh duds,” he explained. “Been taking one of those condemned winches to pieces. The misbegotten machines go wrong every voyage. What can you expect, though, with these nigger donkeymen we pick up from port to port? I wanted to take a turn ashore, but couldn’t get off sooner. It is Dick Cary, of course. Where the deuce is he? Any theories to offer, Miss Fernandez?”
“Nothing at all, Mr. McClement. Not one thing at all,” she said, no longer trying to hide what she felt. “You are his best friend in the ship and—and he is a friend of mine, too. You know. You are so wise that it is no use fooling you.”
“I shouldn’t say that the large and ingenuous Cary had baffled my perceptions,” was the dry comment. “When I last saw him he was wearing his heart on his sleeve. God made him that way. The bigger they are the harder they fall.”
“And you honestly think he fell for me?” cried Teresa, with her most enchanting smile. It was like a flash of sunshine in a rifted cloud.
“His symptoms convinced me, Miss Fernandez. Humph! This pleases you, I see, but it gets us nowhere. Well, he didn’t go ashore to pull the town to pieces. I know him better than that. The captain makes that excuse for leaving him adrift.”
“You believe in Mr. Cary, just as I do? Ah, I could kiss you for that. I have heard those horrid lies on deck—”
“Pardon me, while I remove this lather, and perhaps you can find a dry spot,” he interrupted. “A kiss from you would be a noteworthy event in the somber chronicle of existence.”
“For shame, Mr. McClement. How can you joke with me?”
“Very well, then. In all seriousness, I am as uneasy about Cary as you are. I still take it for granted that he will turn up with some perfectly good alibi. This feeling is, I presume, because he is such a husky, two-fisted beggar with a level head on his shoulders. No greenhorn, either—accustomed to knocking about strange ports at all hours. But, confound him, he hasn’t turned up. You can’t get away from that, can you? And I don’t know where to look if I go buzzing around Cartagena for the hour or two before the ship sails. I did call up the central police office soon after breakfast. My Spanish is bad and a congenital idiot was on the other end of the line. I got nothing at all.”
“These police of Cartagena,” sighed Teresa. “They are a bunch of nuts.”
“Rather well put,” agreed McClement, who was no stranger to the Spanish Main.
“Is there anybody that hates Mr. Cary?” she asked, expressing the fear that had been lurking in her troubled soul. “I am foolish, maybe, but I cannot make myself forget that Colonel Fajardo. I dreamed about him last night, a terrible dream. I woke up crying. Do you believe in dreams, Mr. McClement?”
“In this instance I don’t really have to,” said he, rather glad to have her broach this sinister topic. He had been reluctant to alarm her.
“Then you know something about this Colonel Fajardo that is not a dream?” exclaimed Teresa. “It has to do with Mr. Cary?”
“Possibly. You are a sensible young woman, in spots, Miss Fernandez. And I can’t imagine your kicking your heels in hysterics. Besides, my room is too cluttered up for that sort of thing. I warned Cary yesterday afternoon to keep a weather eye lifted for this saturnineComandanteof the Port. He was drinking hard and the liquor seemed to make him wicked instead of drunk. You know what I mean? I got the impression that he had a provocation. You threw him over, I believe. I was looking on, last voyage and this. The emotions of Colonel Fajardo were quite obvious.”
“I should say so,” exclaimed Teresa. “The whole ship knew he was daffy about me. And he is now jealous of Mr. Cary? He has plenty of reason to be so. I am proud to say it toyou, Mr. McClement, that Richard Cary is much more to me than my life. You are his friend and I can tell you.”
“Mutual, I should say,” was the comment. “You bowled him clean off his pins. The splendor of youth and romance! I am envious. It seems a frightful pity to upset you, my dear girl, but I do suspect this Fajardo blackguard. Cary laughed at me. Piffle, melodrama, and all that.”
“Yes, Mr. McClement, he would laugh. But I saw how that Colonel Fajardo looked at me when I told him I would not marry him. I swear to you, I crossed myself and said my prayers. And I saw him looking at Mr. Cary. Ah, now you understand why I had awful dreams last night.”
“Hum-m, and he saw you go ashore with Cary in the evening, Miss Fernandez. I noticed him stalking about and muttering to himself. He left the ship soon after that.”
“Ah, I believe it was a dream to warn me,” murmured Teresa, “but it was too late to save Mr. Cary.”
“Oh, I won’t say it is as bad as all that. I’ll toddle ashore right away and have a look around. Ten to one Dick Cary will come galloping aboard just before the whistle blows, as fresh as paint and with some extraordinary yarn or other.”
“You wish to jolly poor Teresa Fernandez,” said she. “Are you sure the captain will not help to find him?”
“Rather! Cary was unlucky enough to puncture his self-esteem, a most painful wound. It was the plump flapper with the bobbed hair—Captain Sterry was on the bridge with her—Cary snickered. And there you are. One of those momentous trifles. Life is like that.”
“I know,” said Teresa. “Captain Sterry is mushy sometimes. I have seen it with some other young girls. I know men pretty well. That was enough to queer Mr. Cary, all right. Well, Mr. McClement, I must go back to my job. You will tell me, if you find out anything?”
“Like a shot. Cary is not going to loseyouif he can help it. Remember that. You can gamble on him to break out of almost any kind of a jam he gets into. I hope to God you and I are a pair of false alarms.”
Teresa had no more to say. The chief engineer was inserting the buttons in the cuffs of a fresh shirt. She walked slowly along the passage, scarcely seeing where she went. Richard Cary was dead. She said the words to herself. They hammered in her brain, over and over again, like the strokes of the galleon’s bell. No other reason accounted for his disappearance.
The air in the passage reeked with steam and oil. It was also intensely hot. She felt faint. Steadying herself, she opened a door to the lower deck. She leaned on the railing and stared at the blue harbor and the dazzling sea beyond. A slight breeze fanned her cheek. The vitality returned to her lithe and slender body. This was no time to be weak, to play the coward. She had never flinched from life. It was something to be a Fernandez of Cartagena. They had never whimpered when they held the losing cards.
Mr. Schwartz, the corpulent chief steward, prowling in search of whom he might annoy, discovered her at the railing. He began to growl, noticed her pallor, and changed his tune to say:
“You haf a sick feeling, Miss Fernandez? You look like you vas all in. Why didn’t you told me so? You go lay down. Let ’em holler. I vill be the sweet leetle stewardess for an hour or so.”
“I am not sick, Mr. Schwartz,” she gratefully assured him. “Dizzy, a little bit. I will go sit in my wicker chair till somebody rings.”
He grunted, slapped her on the shoulder with a sticky paw, and lumbered off to find victims more deserving of his wrath. Before sitting down to rest, Teresa wearily climbed to the promenade deck.
She was in time to see Colonel Fajardo ascend the gangway steps. His demeanor was haughty and dignified. The lines in his harsh face seemed to be graven a little deeper, its expression more predatory than usual. He was puffy under the eyes. A nervous twitching affected his upper lip. It was the morning after. Whiskey and cognac had not been good even for a man of blood and iron, a man with a copper lining.
It was unusual for him to come to the wharf so late on sailing day. He made some suave explanation to Captain Sterry who happened to meet him on deck. Teresa Fernandez stood watching them. She was tensely observant. Would she be able to read the soul of Colonel Fajardo? She must try. It was a throw of the dice. He was striding toward the smoking-room when she accosted him in Spanish:
“Pardon, Colonel Fajardo. You omit to say good-morning to me. Am I no longer the lovely flower of Cartagena?”
“Car-r-amba!I am as blind as an owl, not to see the adorable Teresa,” he jauntily responded. “You were shy, my little one. Not so much like the rose to-day. White like the lily, but no less beautiful.”
“A tongue as ready as his sword,” smiled Teresa. “What a devil with the women! Have you heard? The second officer of the ship cannot be found. It is sensational. In our peaceful, sleepy Cartagena of all places, where there are no wicked people to molest a sailor ashore!”
“Very true, señorita,” he gravely returned. “I am amazed. Captain Sterry mentioned the matter just now—the big second mate with the yellow hair. Not so easy to mislay him, by the Apostles. A dear friend of yours, too! It is distressing, and I sympathize with all my soul. Alas, I am in darkness, with no information for you. And the ship sails in two hours. It will be an unhappy voyage—for the friends of the deserter, Second Officer Cary.”
“Not a deserter, Colonel Fajardo,” she protested, very careful of her words and icily restrained. “You are, of course, acquainted with the chief of the municipal police. He is your brother-in-law? If a ship’s officer was in trouble, it would be reported to you asComandanteof the Port?”
“Doubtless I should hear of it, my lovely one,” he gravely assured her. “This man you speak of may have fled from Cartagena by night. Possibly he had planned to escape into hiding in order to avoid the consequences of some crime committed elsewhere. Has this occurred to you?”
“No, I am a stupid woman,” said Teresa. “A thousand thanks, Colonel Fajardo.”
“Permit me to kiss your hand, Señorita Fernandez. It is my condolence, my feeling of pity for you, to lose such a friend as the valiant, the enormous, the sentimental Señor Cary. Would that I might lighten your sorrow.”
She snatched her hand away and regarded him with a steadfast and penetrating scrutiny. His voice had held a note of flagrant mockery. Her ear was quick to detect it. His gloating smile also betrayed him. Yes, she was looking into his soul. It was like the gift of second sight. What she saw there made her shiver. Unwittingly he had made confession. Teresa Fernandez knew. His guilt had ceased to be a torturing surmise.
She let him pass into the smoking-room. Then she went down to her own stateroom. As she entered it, the faint sound of the ship’s bell on the bridge came thin and metallic.Ting, ting—ting, ting!Four bells! Ten o’clock! Two hours until sailing time. It was useless to wait and hope for Richard Cary to return at the last moment. Teresa was now convinced of this.
For some time she sat lost in thought. To a knock on the door she paid no heed. She was quite calm. The only sign of nervousness was the pit-pat-pat of one little white shoe on the rug. She rose and looked in the mirror. What she saw was unlike the bonny Teresa Fernandez with the red lips, the warm tint in the olive cheek, the eyes that had shone with the joy of living only yesterday. All expression seemed to have been ironed from her face. It was blank and very solemn.
She lifted a rosary from the nail where it hung at the head of her bed. She fingered the beads. Her lips moved. Then she placed the rosary around her neck, underneath the plain white shirt-waist of her stewardess’s garb. There was no indecision, no struggle.
Presently she opened a drawer at the bottom of the closet and held up a wooden box. In it was an automatic pistol, so small that she could almost hide it in her hand. It had been advisable to have the little pistol with her when ashore at night in seaports where the streets led through the haunts of rough men.
She slipped it into the pocket of the white apron. She would deal out justice, if needs be, and willingly pay the price as became a woman who had loved and lost, who was a Fernandez of Cartagena.
CHAPTER VII
These last hours before the sailing of theTarragonamade the indolent wharf bestir itself against its inclination. It was a pity to disturb the tranquil noontide when all Cartagena closed the shutters and went to sleep. In its baking, quivering streets the proverbial pin would have dropped with a loud report. However, for every departing passenger many friends exerted themselves to go down to the steamer, even though the voyage might be no farther away than Santa Marta or Porto Colombia. The promenade deck was like the stage of an opera, tears, embraces, perfervid dialogue, animated choruses surrounding the actors.
The railroad whose tracks ran out upon the wharf shared this intense excitement. Belated freight cars filled with hides and sacks of coffee came rolling down in frantic haste. It was always that way, a general air of surprise, almost of consternation, that the steamer actually proposed to sail on time instead ofmañana. Why, she was mad enough to leave passengers, influential people of Colombia, and heaps of coffee and hides, even if they were only a few hours late. It was discourteous, to say the least.
Amid this confusion and noise, Colonel Fajardo moved like an imperious dictator. He was unmistakably theComandanteof the Port. Thievish idlers fled from the gaunt figure in the uniform of white with the medals and gold stripes. A scowl and a curse, and the traffic untangled itself to let a porter pass with a trunk on his back or an American tourist buying a green parakeet and the beaded bags woven by the Indian women.
Teresa Fernandez desired another interview with Colonel Fajardo. It was imperative. To make a scene on board the ship, however, was repugnant to her sense of decorum, of her fidelity to the Company’s service. This difficulty perplexed her. She was jealous of the ship’s good name. She was a deep-water sailor with a sailor’s loyalties and affections for the ships she served in.
Her eyes followed the movements of Colonel Fajardo who found much to do on the wharf. She had certain questions to ask him. Liar that he was, the odds were all against his answering anything truly, but the chance would be offered him. Justice demanded it. Intently she watched him as he stalked to and fro. She was singularly unmoved by impatience. What was destined to happen would happen.
No longer did her gaze, questing and wistful, turn landward in the hope of seeing Richard Cary come back to theTarragona. There was no such thing as hope.
The cargo sheds extended almost the length of the wharf. Between them and the ship were the railroad tracks and the entrance from the custom-house gate. On the farther side of the cargo sheds was a narrow strip of wharf where smaller vessels could tie up, mostly Colombian sailing craft that traded with the villages on the lagoon or made short trips coastwise. Just now the graceful masts of one schooner lifted above the roofs of the sheds.
It did not escape Teresa’s notice when Colonel Fajardo passed around the outer end of the cargo sheds to the narrow strip of wharf behind them. He was screened from the sight of the ship; also from the laborers at the freight cars and the hoisting tackle. He had betaken himself into a certain seclusion which offered Teresa the opportunity she craved.
Unheeded she tripped down to the wharf. It was usual for her to pass to and fro on farewell errands, perhaps to purchase curios for the ladies who were unable to bargain in Spanish. And there were always friends, residents of Cartagena, with whom she enjoyed exchanging greetings. The sailing hour was likely to be a gala time for Señorita Teresa Fernandez. She was the most popular stewardess of the steamers in this service.
Slipping aside, she followed Colonel Fajardo around the outer end of the long cargo shed. He had been on the deck of the Colombian schooner alongside and was just stepping back to the string-piece of the wharf. Evidently he had found no one in the schooner. Whatever the purpose of his visit may have been, it was banished from his mind by the sight of Teresa Fernandez. He appeared startled.
Walking a little way along the edge of the wharf, he was abreast of the schooner’s stern when Teresa confronted him. He halted there, lifted his cap with an elaborate flourish, and signified that he could not be detained. Teresa put a hand in the pocket of her apron. She kept it there while she said:
“Please do not move, Colonel Fajardo. It will be unfortunate for your health. I am so glad that you came to this quiet spot where we are not interrupted. I could not sail without giving myself the pleasure of saying adieu. The other side of the wharf is so crowded, so conspicuous.”
He was not deceived into surmising that this desirable woman had repented of her coldness. It was no coquetry. Her voice had a biting edge. Her face was even whiter than when he had met her on deck. Uneasily he glanced behind him and then over her shoulder. They were alone and unobserved. The Colombian schooner, her crew ashore, rocked gently at its mooring lines. Beyond it was a wide stretch of azure harbor upon which nothing moved except a far distant canoe as tiny as a water bug. Between this strip of wharf and the shore was a high wooden barrier with a closed gate. It was a curious isolation, with so much life and motion on the other side of the cargo sheds, only a few yards away.
Colonel Fajardo bared his teeth in a forced smile as he said:
“As I remember, señorita, you were not so anxious for the pleasure of my company yesterday. I am, indeed, flattered to have you seek me out for an adieu, but I must return to my duties. TheTarragonawill soon blow her whistle. Have you anything of importance to say before you sail?”
Teresa removed her hand from the pocket of the white apron. Her hand almost covered the little automatic pistol. The colonel caught a glimpse of it, this object of blued steel with a round orifice no bigger than a pill. He was still standing close to the edge of the wharf. Astonished, he almost lost his balance. Recovering himself, he snatched at Teresa’s hand. She eluded him with a quick backward step.
The pistol was aimed straight at the belt of Colonel Fajardo. He stood rigid, his posture that of a man mysteriously bereft of volition. Carefully Teresa lowered her hand until the pistol nestled in the pocket of her apron, concealed from view, but the short barrel bulged the white fabric. It was still pointed at the middle of Colonel Fajardo. Instinctively he flattened his stomach until it was like a board. He had a shrinking feeling in that region, like that of a man who has fasted many days.
Thus they stood facing each other in a tableau as still as a picture. When Teresa Fernandez, spoke, it was not loudly, but her voice vibrated like a bell.
“Place your hands on your hips, outside your coat, Colonel Fajardo. And be careful to keep them so. Your own pistol is in a holster inside your coat. I have noticed it there. It will be unwise for you to try to get it.”
Her captive’s gaze was wild and roving. He dared not cry out. This hell-begotten woman carried death in a touch of her finger. Lunacy afflicted her. It was a predicament for such a man as himself, a situation incredibly fantastic. His gaze returned to her face, and also to that little bulge in the pocket of her apron. It gave him the effect of being cross-eyed. The nervous twitching of his upper lip was like a grimace. He was grotesque.
Teresa Fernandez had no time to waste. She asked, peremptorily: “Where is the second officer of theTarragona? What misfortune occurred to Señor Cary in Cartagena last night? The truth, Colonel Fajardo, or, as God beholds me, I shall have to kill you.”
He could not make himself believe that the game was up. He had twisted out of many a tight corner. It was impossible for him to conceive of being beaten by a woman. He would endeavor to cajole this one, to play for time. Her nerves would presently break under the strain. He was watching her like a cat. Let her waver for an instant and he would pounce. He answered her questions in the earnest tones of a man who lived on intimate terms with truth.
“By the holy spirit of my dead mother, señorita, your words are like the blank wall of the shed yonder. They mean nothing. You have deluded yourself. Some malicious person in the ship must have led your mind astray. I have made enemies. Why not? It is evidence of my integrity and courage. What is this big second officer of theTarragonato me? I have not even spoken to the man. He is a stranger.”
Teresa’s hand moved slightly in the pocket of her apron. The little bulge indicated that the orifice of the pistol was pointed somewhat higher than the colonel’s belt. He perceived this. His two hands rested upon his hips, outside the coat. They seemed to have been glued there. His leathery cheek blanched to a dirty hue. He swallowed with an effort. The cords stood out on his neck.
Solemnly Teresa Fernandez framed her accusation in words: “You have killed Señor Ricardo Cary. You yourself, Colonel Fajardo, or more likely by the hands of others. If you are ready to confess it, I will permit the Government of Cartagena to decree the punishment. It will be left to the law and the courts. Do you confess?”
“Confess to what, my little one?” he blurted, with a touch of the old bravado. “Careful! You are in a strange frenzy, and that pistol may explode before you know it.”
“I will know it,” said Teresa, “and you will know it, Colonel Fajardo. I am familiar with the little pistol. For the last time, are you a guilty or an innocent man?”
“As innocent as the Holy Ghost—” he protested, but his voice stuck in his throat, for he read death in the girl’s unflinching glance. Desperately he attempted to snatch at the holster on his hip, with one swift motion to take her by surprise and slay her where she stood. It was instinctive, like the leap of a trapped wolf.
Teresa read his sinister purpose. If he was swift, she was the swifter. She raised her hand from the pocket of her apron. It paused for a small fraction of a second and almost touched a bit of red ribbon attached to a medal on the left breast of Colonel Fajardo’s handsome white coat. He stammered thickly:
“Ah, wait—wretched slut of a woman—Jesus, have mercy—oh, oh, my heart—may you roast in hell—”
The report of Teresa’s pistol had been no louder than the crack of a whip. One report, no more. When a bullet had drilled clean through a man’s heart, it was unnecessary to fire again.
Colonel Fajardo’s hands flew from his hips. They were beating the air. His mouth was slack, like that of an idiot. He blinked as if immensely bewildered. His chin fell forward. His body swayed tipsily. Teresa stood waiting, her left hand clasped to her bosom. It was the end. She had seen death come by violence to men on shipboard.
The unforeseen occurred when Colonel Fajardo, swaying and sagging, tottered backward and disappeared. He had been standing close to the edge of the wharf. His fingers clawed the empty air as he plunged downward, barely clearing the overhanging stern of the Colombian schooner.
Teresa laid hold of a piling and stared down at a patch of frothy water. Small waves ran away from it in widening circles. They lapped against the schooner’s rudder. Nothing else was visible. Presently, however, a huge black fin, triangular, sheared the surface like a blade. Another like it glistened and vanished. There was the sheen of white bellies as the greedy sharks of Cartagena harbor swirled downward into the green water.
Teresa Fernandez averted her eyes. The body of Colonel Fajardo would never be seen again. He was obliterated. She let the pistol fall through a crack between the planks of the wharf. Then she walked to the side of the cargo shed and leaned against a timber. She had pictured herself as almost instantly discovered and seized, the body of Colonel Fajardo lying upon the wharf. For this she had prepared herself. She had been willing to pay the price.
Now she realized that her deed was undiscovered. The isolation was unbroken. The harsh commotion of the ship’s winches, the rattle of the freight cars as the switching engine bumped them about, the yells of the Colombian stevedores, had made the whip-like report of the pistol inaudible. And the whole thing had been so quickly done. Perhaps two or three minutes she had stood there and talked with Colonel Fajardo.
A revulsion of feeling shook the soul of Teresa Fernandez. Why should she suffer bitter shame and die in expiation of a righteous act? It was no crime in her sight. She had administered justice because otherwise it would have been forever thwarted. And, in the last resort, had she not fired the little pistol in self-defense? These thoughts raced through her brain during the moments while she leaned against the timber of the cargo shed.
She mustered strength. Her knees ceased trembling. A hint of color returned to her olive cheek. Her lips were not so bloodless. Head erect, she walked along the narrow strip of wharf, but not to pass around the outer end of the shed. Instead of this, she sought the shoreward exit through the high wooden barrier. The gate was fastened, she found, but another way of escape led through an empty room in which baggage was sometimes stored for examination. She passed through this room and emerged on the railroad tracks.
Between two freight cars she made her way and so to the custom-house gate and the main entrance from the open square beyond. In a shady spot squatted an Indian woman with beaded bags displayed on her lap. Another drowsed beside a pile of grass baskets. Teresa paused to buy two beaded bags and a basket.
Just then a carriage dashed into the open square. A portly Colombian gentleman and his wife called out cordial salutations to Señorita Fernandez. A small boy fairly wriggled with joy as he flew out of the carriage to fling both arms around the waist of the stewardess of theTarragona.
She welcomed them gayly. They had made the southward voyage with her several months earlier,en routeto their home in Bogotá. Teresa walked back to the ship with them, the small boy clinging to her hand and piping excitedly in Spanish. Would she show him again how to play those wonderful games of cards? He had forgotten some of them. And the story of the jaguar that sat on the roof of the peon’s hut and clawed a hole through the thatch and tumbled right in?
Yes, Teresa would tell him all the tales she could remember. There would be plenty of time during the voyage to New York. In this manner the stewardess returned to the ship, beaded bags and grass basket on one arm, the happy urchin from Bogotá clinging to the other. The youthful third officer was at the gangway. He halted her to say:
“Nothing doing. Not a sign of Mr. Cary. The chief engineer drove into town. He may dig up a clue, but I doubt it.”
“Mr. McClement is a sharp one,” said she, “but the time is too short.”
“Sure! It seems as if that chesty gink, Colonel Fajardo, might have helped. He ought to be wise to what goes on in Cartagena.”
“Ah, yes, it would seem so,” said Teresa as she stepped on board the ship. She found the staterooms of the family from Bogotá and saw that nothing was lacking for their comfort. Then she proceeded to her own room, but not for long. She washed her hands, scrubbing them with particular care. In a way, it was a symbol. Then she put on a fresh apron. The one she had worn on the wharf was wrinkled. The pocket showed a small stain of oil where the little pistol had nestled.
A few minutes later she met the chief steward in the corridor. He detained her to rumble:
“You haf tooken my advice, Miss Fernandez, and laid off a leetle while? Now go chase yourself on the job.”
“All right, Mr. Schwartz. I will make myself pleasant to that cranky woman in seventeen.”
Teresa went and knocked at the stateroom door. A querulous voice said, “Come in.” The woman curled up on the divan, under the electric fan, was not much older than Teresa, but she looked faded and unlovely. Rouge and lip-stick simulated a vanished bloom. An empty cocktail glass was at her elbow. An ash tray reeked with dead cigarettes.
“For God’s sake, Miss Fernandez, is the ship ever going to leave this beastly hole?” she complained. “I’m dying with the heat and bored sick. Rub some of that bay rum on my head. It feels as if the top would fly off.”
“Yes, madam. It will be cooler soon, when we get out of the harbor. Cartagena is always hot in the middle of the day.”
“Hot? You said something. And stupid! I didn’t mind the cruise until we tied up to this dump. A fool doctor shoved me off on a sea voyage, and my husband couldn’t leave his business. It was wished on me, all right.”
“Cartagena is very beautiful, so many people think,” ventured Teresa.
“Huh, they must be dead ones. Nothing has happened here in three hundred years. I’ll bet you couldn’t wake it up with a ton of dynamite. How did you ever stand living here? You seem to have some pep. Got it in little old New York, I’ll bet.”
“Perhaps, madam. New York is a live one.”
“Right-o. That’s where you get action. No Rip Van Winkle stuff. You can always start something. These Colombians? Dead on their feet—asleep at the switch.”
“I am a Colombian, madam,” smiled Teresa, an absent look in her eyes. “Yes, nothing ever happens in Cartagena. It is stupid and asleep. Nobody could start anything at all.”
Deftly the stewardess ministered to the aching head of the woman in seventeen, soothing her with a murmurous, agreeable flow of talk. The steamer blew three long, strident blasts. Teresa excused herself and hastened on deck. TheTarragonawas moving slowly away from the wharf. Presently she swung to traverse the wide lagoon and so reach the open sea through the narrow fairway of the Boca Chica.
The swell of the Caribbean was cradling the steamer when Teresa Fernandez found time to rest in the wicker chair beside the staircase. She gazed into the dining-saloon. At a small table in a corner sat a wireless operator and the assistant purser. Between them was an empty chair. Teresa sighed and closed her eyes. She would move her wicker chair to another place. She did not wish to see the second officer’s empty chair.
Late in the afternoon she met the chief engineer on deck. In spotless white clothes he strolled with hands clasped behind him, alone as usual, a lean, abstracted figure. He paused to stand at the rail beside the stewardess.
At first they found nothing to say. They were staring at the roseate, misty city of Cartagena. It seemed to rise from the sea and float like a mirage. The surf flashed white against the wall of enduring masonry that marched around this ancient stronghold of theconquistadores. Teresa Fernandez said in a low voice:
“Do you understand what Mr. Cary meant when he talked about the Cartagena of ages and ages ago, as if he had really been there? He is dead, I know, but it seems to me that he must be alive, that he will always be alive in Cartagena.”
“It was a romantic obsession of his, Miss Fernandez. By the way, did you say anything to Colonel Fajardo? I fancied you might have given him the third degree, after the session in my room. I found out nothing when I drove into town. It was a gesture, as you might say. I had to be doing something.”
“I asked him very straight, Mr. McClement,” replied Teresa, her eyes meeting his. “He swore he had nothing to tell me.”
“Humph! Then I’m afraid we can never find out.”
McClement resumed his stroll. More than once he glanced at Teresa still lingering at the rail and looking at distant Cartagena, now a vanishing vision. The chief engineer shook his head. The expression of his intelligent and reflective face was inscrutable. To himself he muttered: