IN THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY
Only to Mr. McClement, chief engineer of the _Tarragona_, had Teresa
Fernandez made known her intention of leaving the ship at the end of the
voyage. Never again did she wish to see the walls of Cartagena and the
white moonlight in the plazas, or to hear the wind in the cocoanut palms
and the bells in the church towers. The thoughtful McClement did not try
to dissuade her. Convinced as she was that Richard Cary had been
wickedly done to death, it was not a decision to be argued. Her plans
were uncertain, she said. If she were fitted to earn a living ashore,
she would not go to sea again. The sea made her sad.
She had a last talk with McClement the night before the ship was due at
New York. It was a farewell, he suspected. Teresa had resolved to break
all ties with the _Tarragona_ and her shipmates.
“Will you let me look you up in New York?” he asked. “We might have
dinner together, or something like that. If I can cheer you up a bit—”
“Thank you very much, Mr. McClement. I will let you know where to find
me if I need you. On your next trip to Cartagena you may hear
something—of how—of how it happened, but you will never find Mr.
Cary.”
“I can’t be so cock-sure of that, Miss Fernandez. As I have insisted
right along, a man like Dick Cary doesn’t vanish without a trace.
Colonel Fajardo is the blighter for me to keep an eye on. He will be
looking for you on the ship, won’t he? Hot after you again, I fancy. He
may give himself away. He will be badly upset when he finds you have
stayed in New York.”
“Do you truly expect to see Colonel Fajardo waiting on the wharf in
Cartagena, Mr. McClement?” demanded Teresa. Her face was solemn, her
dark eyes very large, her hands clasped. She was urged against her will
to discover what this loyal friend might hold secluded in the secret
places of his understanding. Sometimes he frightened her, he seemed so
wise and penetrating and yet vouchsafed so little. To her tense question
he replied, laying a hand on hers:
“No more of that, my dear girl. You must be up early when the ship docks
to-morrow morning, so it’s time for you to say your prayers and go to
bed.”
“Ah, yes, I always say my prayers,” she breathed in low tones. “And will
you remember to say a prayer for the soul of poor Teresa who found her
lover and lost him so soon?”
“God may be a trifle surprised at hearing from a perfect stranger,” he
answered, with his cynical twinkle, “but I am always at your service,
Miss Fernandez.”
“It will comfort me,” said she, “to know you believe I am still good—in
spite of—no matter what—no matter what—oh, Mr. McClement, I am such a
very, very unhappy woman.”
She sobbed the words. For the first time her proud and righteous
composure had broken. It was the realization that in all the world there
was no one else than this man who could comprehend her, in whom, if
needs be, she could unreservedly confide. He was a link, as faithful as
forged iron, between the brief joy of which she had been bereft and the
dark perspective of the future.
McClement made no comment. He knew when silence was golden. Teresa
quickly regained her poise. The display of emotion had been like the
swirl of an eddy on the surface of a deep, swift stream.
“To have a second mate left on the beach means so little in a great
fleet of ships like the Fruit Company’s,” said she. “The captain will
report him absent from duty, and it is soon forgotten. Mr. Cary was a
new man in the service—a stranger—they scratch him off the list. And
you have packed his clothes in the two bags, Mr. McClement? And all the
little things that belonged to him?”
“Yes. I found his home address—a letter from his mother. I kept it for
you. Shall I send the stuff to her, or what? How about waiting another
trip?”
“Wait for what?” Teresa exclaimed. “Mr. Cary is dead, I tell you.
Colonel Fajardo killed him. How else can it be—think, Mr. McClement,
two days the _Tarragona_ was at Porto Colombia, and two days at Santa
Marta loading bananas—a whole week on the coast before we sailed for
Kingston. And the Company’s radio stations at those ports! I have told
you this over and over again. Can you imagine Mr. Cary alive and not
sending a radio to me—to the captain—to explain why he was missing? It
is impossible. A whole week on the coast and then to Kingston.”
“I grant you all that,” replied McClement. “It has knocked the props
pretty well from under me. What about Dick Cary’s mother? There’s the
rub.”
“His things ought to be sent to her, I suppose,” said Teresa. “What else
can we do? And who will write to her? You or I? Maybe the port captain
who hired him will send her a letter. I don’t know about that. But Mr.
Cary is nothing but a second mate that jumped his ship.”
“Writing his mother! Humph!” grunted McClement. “What the deuce is there
to tell her but to sit tight and hope for news? My word, but it _is_ a
rotten situation for her, isn’t it?”
“I am the one to write a letter to her,” said Teresa. “And I will tell
her why. It is because I loved him, and was ready to die for him.”
Troubled sleep and wakeful hours were Teresa’s portion during this last
night in the ship which had long been her home. The blind instinct of
flight had driven her to break these familiar bonds. Abhorrent was the
thought of returning to the long wharf at Cartagena with the ugly cargo
sheds and the tapering masts of a Colombian schooner lifting beyond
them. There was the fear that somehow she might betray herself, that out
of the very air accusation might be directed against her.
She felt neither guilt nor remorse, but she was too young to die. And it
would be hideously unjust if she should be taken and put to death for
what she had done. Not by chance had she been delivered from punishment.
The miraculous decree of fate had sheltered and absolved her.
She wondered if the evil spirit of Colonel Fajardo haunted the narrow
strip of wharf beyond the cargo shed, waiting, waiting for the ship to
bring Teresa Fernandez back to Cartagena. The unholy vision could not be
thrust aside—the gaunt figure and the harsh, cruel face bleached with
sudden terror—the whip-like crack of the little pistol—the strangled
scream of “Jesus, have mercy”—the splash just astern of the schooner
and the patch of frothy water with the widening circles. . .
Unpleasant and distressing, such a crimson page of remembrance as this,
but not to be regretted or moaned over. Such was Teresa’s inflexible
verdict. Raging more than once, grinding her small white teeth, she had
been sorry that Colonel Fajardo had only one death to die. The Holy
Office of the Inquisition would have known how to make it more
lingering.
These thoughts would leave her alone, she hoped, as soon as she should
have seen the last of the ship which had been so intimately associated
with him.
There was something more troublesome, and she could see no way to meet
it. Write a letter to the mother of Richard Cary? What in the name of
God could she, Teresa, say to his mother by way of explanation? What
could she tell the mother of a noble son? That he was dead? How? Where?
Why? Where was the proof? Who had buried him and where was his grave? He
was dead. This was all Teresa knew as she had read it in the hard eyes
of Colonel Fajardo, in his twitching smile, gloating, gratified, unable
to dissemble his own secret. But a mother of a son—and such a son—here
was a wall of difficulty that loomed to the sky!
While the passengers were landing next morning, very impatient to run
the gantlet of the customs inspectors and hurl themselves into taxicabs,
Miss Fernandez was the efficient, light-footed stewardess with a blithe
word and a quick readiness to aid the ladies and amuse the children. She
turned aside from her duty only to accost Mr. McClement and say:
“Leave Mr. Cary’s things with the baggage-master of the wharf, to be
sent for. This is my advice. They must not go to his home in New
Hampshire till I write the letter. It is going to be a very hard letter
to write. Good-bye, dear friend, good-bye.”
At her leisure she packed her trunk and shook hands with her good
comrades, the purser, the doctor, the second steward, and the wireless
operators, who expressed themselves as broken-hearted to a man. She was
saucy to Mr. Schwartz, the bullying chief steward, and boxed his ears
when he would have chucked her under the chin in token of an amicable
parting.
From the ship she went to the office of the port steward and demanded
her wages, also a first-class recommendation. These were promptly handed
over. No longer a stewardess in trim uniform, with white cap and apron,
Miss Fernandez reappeared in a small hotel below Madison Square where
she would be unlikely to encounter passengers and officers with whom she
had sailed.
Her savings banks books were a substantial anchor to windward. She had
done well for herself at sea. There was little faith in Uncle Ramon
Bazán’s promises of leaving her his property. He had too many bats in
his aged _cabeza_. Meanwhile she had dreaded being cast on a lee shore
of adversity and having to ask his help. There would be a string to it,
as she said, that she would have to go and live in his Cartagena house,
with the detestable brown monkey and the squawking green parrot and an
uncle who had a worse temper than either.
There were friends in New York, but she did not care to see them. They
were mostly South Americans or seafaring people. Her intention was to
rest a while and then to look for another position as stewardess on some
route removed from the Caribbean, perhaps the Spanish line to Cadiz or a
Lamport & Holt boat to Buenos Aires.
Prudent with her money as she was, she permitted herself the pleasure of
buying some new clothes, preferring to dress in black. The results were
admirable. She had excellent taste. A simple elegance distinguished her.
It was partly an inheritance. There was a certain exotic charm about
her, the eyes, the hair, the coloring of her race.
She was not so vivacious, alas, as when Richard Cary had wooed her in
the tropics. At times she was like a nun, in moods pensive and wistful.
Day after day she postponed writing the letter to the widowed mother of
the tall, ruddy son who had been so carelessly confident that nothing
could harm him. The longer the delay the more impossible it became to
put pen to paper. At last she ceased to deceive herself in the matter.
That letter would never be written by Teresa Fernandez.
The dilemma held her like a vise. Every passing day was a merciless turn
of the screw. Inevitably she was compelled to try to put herself in the
mother’s place. Therefore she came to perceive, more and more clearly,
that her flight from Cartagena had been futile. She had fled from the
deed she had done, but there were consequences which she could neither
flee nor evade.
In putting herself in the mother’s place, Teresa had to deny that
Richard Cary was dead. What mother would accept such a message as
anything more than flimsy conjecture, as meaning anything at all? A
mother’s impulse would be to fly to Cartagena herself or to send some
one. She would have to _know_ before the tenacious illusions of hope
could finally be extinguished.
For Teresa Fernandez to allow herself to hope was to destroy the whole
fabric of her justification. Even the faintest whisper of hope and she
was no longer absolved. She had killed Colonel Fajardo because he had
deserved to die, because otherwise he would have gone unpunished. He was
guilty. Of this she had been as certain as that the tides flowed and the
sun set.
But this certainty could never convince Richard Cary’s mother. And in
her heart of hearts did it entirely convince Teresa Fernandez? During
the voyage northward to New York she had been visited by visions of
hope. They had come not in her waking hours, however, but when she was
asleep and dreaming. Then had Richard Cary appeared to her, masterful
and tender, his deep voice vowing that he loved her, aye, for much
longer than a little while. She had felt his kisses warm on her lips and
his arms holding her close.
Cruel, empty dreams she had called them, but now they took substance and
seemed to be calling her. For Richard Cary’s mother and for her own
sake, she discerned that she must go back to Cartagena. It had been
necessary for her to leave the ship and seclude herself amid different
scenes where she might be solitary and detached. Now she was thinking
clearly, recovered from that impulse of flight and concealment that had
driven her away. It was ordained that she should go back to Cartagena in
order to try to bring to light the hidden circumstances. She could do
nothing else than attempt it. By sea or land she could find no peace or
sanctuary.
A fortnight in New York sufficed to rid this conclusion of its fears and
hesitations. It was the sequel, logical and unescapable, of the verdict
which she had privately inflicted upon the wicked Colonel Fajardo.
Winter had gone. It was in the month of April when Teresa made this
voyage to the southward. The tourist travel had slackened. There were
few tired business men and restless wives and daughters. Teresa was
fortunate enough to be given a stateroom to herself. She was also alone
at a small table in the dining-saloon. It would have made her happier to
have been helping the stewardess, who was a heavy, middle-aged woman
with twinges of rheumatism.
There were novels to read, long hours in a deck-chair, and the chat of
casual acquaintances. The men tried to flirt with her and found it
wasted time. The voyage was something to be endured in quietude, with
all the patience she could summon. Her courage was equal to the
undertaking.
Apart and silent she stood, with an air of grave serenity, when the ship
passed in through the Boca Chica and slowly followed the channel of the
broad lagoon. The Colombian customs officials would come aboard and
summon the passengers for Cartagena into the saloon to check them on the
list and examine their passports. This was what Teresa was inwardly
dreading. If suspicion had followed her departure, she would learn it
now.
A new _Comandante_ of the Port entered the saloon. He was a
white-haired, kindly man wearing spectacles. Importantly he scrutinized
the purser’s papers and ticked off the names with a pencil. Teresa sat
watching him. He had not come to her name. One little white shoe tapped
the floor with a quick pit-pat. Otherwise she appeared calm. He held the
pencil in air and exclaimed: “Señorita Teresa Fernandez.”
Glancing over his spectacles, he perceived her sitting there. In tones
of surprise he repeated the name. She flinched and held her breath.
Rising from his chair, the _Comandante_ crossed over to her and put out
his hand. It was a friendly gesture. With a sigh she took the hand he
offered. Her fingers were as cold as ice.
“It is an agreeable surprise, my dear young lady,” said he, “to find you
among the passengers, bound homeward to Cartagena. I welcome the lovely
niece of my friend Señor Ramon Bazán.”
Teresa murmured words vaguely polite. The _Comandante_ returned to his
papers. He was fussily preoccupied. Presently Teresa slipped away to her
room, there to remain until the other passengers had disembarked. She
wished to have no reunions on the wharf with friends who had come to see
the steamer arrive.
The barrier had been safely passed. She was free to enter the city as a
woman innocent of suspicion so far as the officials were concerned. No
information had been lodged against her, or the _Comandante_ and his
harbor police would have summarily detained her.
In the heat of the day she hired one of the carriages at the gate and
was driven to the residence of her uncle. She would tell him what her
errand was, to search for tidings of Richard Cary’s fate. With a will to
help her, Uncle Ramon might be able to burrow beneath the surface of
things. In years gone by he had pulled strings in the complex politics
of the city, and was still respected in certain quarters for the things
he knew and didn’t tell. Crochety as he was, she thought he was really
fond of her when she refrained from teasing. And he had expressed an
unusual liking for the big second mate of the _Tarragona_.
Teresa rang the bell of the ancient house with the rose-tinted walls and
the jutting gallery. Expectantly she waited for the Indian lad to come
pattering through the hall, or the shuffling slippers of Uncle Ramon
himself. Again she pulled the brass knob. She could hear the echoing
jingle of the bell. It awakened no response in the silent house.
Possibly they were asleep, her uncle, the _muchacho_, the fat black
woman in the kitchen. It was early, however, for the siesta. Uncle Ramon
should now be eating the midday breakfast in a shady corner of the
_patio_.
This was a situation awkward and unforeseen. She had taken it implicitly
for granted that her funny old uncle would be found in his house because
he had always been there. To her he was a lifelong habit and fixture,
growing no older or more infirm.
While Teresa stood on the pavement, the carriage waiting with her trunk,
the neighbor who lived next door came strolling home under an enormous
green umbrella. He was a courtly, bland gentleman with grayish side
whiskers who was manager of a bank and had large commercial interests in
the interior of the country. Teresa had known this affluent Alonzo de
Mello ever since he had been wont to carry her across the plaza upon his
shoulder and toss her squealing into a clump of plumed pampas grass. He
was her uncle’s financial adviser and loyal friend, ignoring his twists
of temper.
Teresa walked along the pavement to meet him. His green umbrella was a
familiar sight. Now it was like a beacon in troubled waters. At sight of
her, Alonzo de Mello swept off his hat with the graceful homage of an
_hidalgo_. He was a gentleman of the old school. Very much surprised he
was to see Teresa. Kissing her on the cheek, as was his privilege, he
sonorously exclaimed:
“Old Ramon told me you had failed to come south in the _Tarragona_ last
voyage, my child! Come into my house and have breakfast. The family will
thank me a thousand times for bringing you.”
“And as many thanks to you, dear Señor de Mello,” replied Teresa,
grasping his arm as they walked with the umbrella over them, “but I must
find out how to get into my uncle’s house. I came to make him a visit
and the house is locked as tight as a jail. Where is he? What do you
know? Is anything wrong?”
“The house is closed. He has gone away,” answered the banker, with an
oddly perplexed manner. “Ah, you have your trunk in the carriage,
Teresa? Then stay with us. I beseech it of you as a favor.”
“I knew you would say just that, Señor de Mello, but if you don’t mind I
shall stay in my uncle’s house if there is any way to get into it. He
must be coming back soon. Where has he gone? What has become of his two
servants?”
“You are a girl not to be cajoled if her mind is made up,” smiled the
affectionate neighbor. “Wait, if you please, while I get the key. Uncle
Ramon left it with me. Let the driver carry in your trunk, if you
insist. Then you can run in and out as you please and have your meals
with us. Your uncle’s servants have been sent away, you ought to know,
until he returns to the city.”
Señor de Mello was obviously fencing with the story of Uncle Ramon’s
curious departure, as if it might require considerable explanation.
Teresa was mystified, but she asked no more questions until the banker
came back with the heavy iron key. At his heels galloped a little brown
monkey squeaking its annoyance at something or other. Teresa eyed it
with dislike. She knew that monkey of old. It was not to be mistaken for
any other wretched monkey in Colombia. It pulled at her skirt with tiny
black paws and would have frisked to her shoulder, but she thrust it
away with her foot.
“Little imp of the pit! You are no friend of mine. It is beyond me how
my uncle could bear to part with you.”
The monkey grinned at her, showing every tooth in its head, and it was a
most malevolent grin. Tail looped over its back, it scampered into the
house ahead of them, casting back proud and hateful glances. This house
belonged to it. These two persons were intruders. Into the silent
_patio_ scampered the monkey and went hand over hand up the trellis from
which it swayed in a contemptuous manner.
Teresa was not interested in the antics of little brown monkeys. She
went into the library. It was clean and orderly. The other rooms had
been left in the same condition by the faithful servants.
“Yes, I think I will stay here, Señor de Mello. It will amuse me to keep
house, after living so much in ships. Just now I am tired. I have not
been feeling as strong as usual. Will you excuse me from calling on your
family till later in the afternoon? I had breakfast on the ship.”
“As you say, Teresa. You have everything here for your comfort. You will
dine with us to-night, of course. And now where has your uncle gone? Let
us sit down? Your uncle is self-willed and like a mule to handle, as you
know. And an old man must not be crossed too much. In the inscrutable
wisdom of God, our Ramon Bazán took it into his head to become a
shipowner and engage in the west coast trade. A bolt from a clear sky, I
assure you, when he came to me to turn his securities into cash and
finance the affair. He insisted on buying the old _Valkyrie_ some time
ago, very secretly, before he announced what he proposed to do with her.
“You remember the small German tramp steamer, Teresa, that was idle so
long in the harbor. Then suddenly he told me he had decided to make
repairs and go to Buenaventura for a cargo. It took much more money than
he could afford to invest in such a scheme, but I could not refuse to
get the funds together for him. My advice amounted to nothing.
Objections drove him quite frantic. He had the bit between his teeth.
Restless, craving change and excitement before death snatched him, he
hit upon this foolish enterprise.”
“He did not tell you everything,” wisely observed Teresa. “I have not
the slightest idea of what was in his ridiculous mind, but he expected
to bring back more dollars than he spent. Uncle Ramon was never an idiot
when it came to his precious money.”
“I called him an idiot,” said Señor Alonzo de Mello, “and he grinned
precisely like that monkey on the trellis. So away he sailed and that
was the last seen of him.”
“What did he do for a crew?” asked Teresa, the deep-water mariner. “And
where did he find a captain?”
“He picked up a man called Captain Bradley Duff, and Cartagena was very
well pleased to get rid of him. All the vices of the famous Anglo-Saxon
race and none of its virtues were visible to the eye. An unsanctified
swine of a wind-bag, down at the heel, who had been annoying this coast
for some time.”
“Captain Bradley Duff?” said the disgusted Teresa. “He was kicked off
the wharf when I was in the _Tarragona_. He came on board and tried to
borrow money from the officers and passengers. Then he got drunk in the
smoking-room. And this is the man that my uncle took as captain in his
old steamer? You were too soft with Uncle Ramon, my dear sir. He is in
his second childhood. You should have locked him in a room and given him
some toys to play with. Has anything been heard of this _Valkyrie_?”
“Yes, she passed through the Canal. I interested myself to find that
out, but she is not yet reported as arriving at Buenaventura. I feel
some anxiety, for soon she will be overdue.”
“There will be gray hairs in my head if I sit here in his house until he
comes back,” cried Teresa, in a sudden gust of anger. “He has gone the
good God knows where. May He protect the silliest voyage that a ship
ever made! Yes, Señor de Mello, I think I had better stay alone for a
while this afternoon and reflect on what I am to do.”
As the good Señor de Mello bowed himself out, it escaped his notice that
the little brown monkey was still roosting on the trellis. Teresa, also,
was unobservant. She had discovered that the galleon bell had been
removed from its framework of Spanish oak. This was more food for
speculation. It was fairly easy to fathom, however, for one who knew
Señor Ramon Bazán and the history of the sonorous bell of _Nuestra
Señora del Rosario_. It had been his notion to take the bell along in
his steamer by way of precaution. Quite sensible of him, thought Teresa,
but to be regretted because with the bell still in the _patio_ she might
have been told if any catastrophe was about to put an end to her erratic
old kinsman.
While Teresa was pondering this odd discovery, the monkey descended to
the floor and bethought himself of some urgent business of his own. With
a furtive glance at Teresa, who paid no attention, he scuttled into a
corner where two green tubs had formerly stood. The cocoanut palms had
been carried into the house of Señor de Mello that they might not perish
of thirst. The monkey was exceedingly indignant, as his language
conveyed, at finding his favorite depositary of loot disturbed.
There was the wide crack in the masonry, however, where he had hidden
the fragments into which he had torn the letter purloined from the
library desk. Into this crevice he now inserted a paw and found what he
so anxiously sought.
It was a briar pipe with an amber bit, the choicest treasure acquired
during a long career of zealous burglary. The huge guest of Papa Bazán
had forgotten the pipe that night when he had gone away in the dark. A
prize beyond compare for the covetous monkey who had found it in the
library next morning and had fled to hide it in the safest, surest place
he knew!
Then he had been violently snatched away and kept as a captive in the
house of Señor de Mello, and there had been no chance to retrieve the
briar pipe. He had been sitting at the top of the trellis wondering what
made him feel so sorrowful and uneasy. At last he had remembered. It was
the pipe, tucked away in the crack of the wall behind the green tubs.
In a happier frame of mind the monkey wandered across the _patio_, the
pipe held firmly between his teeth, a finger in the bowl. He had the air
of one for whom solace waited if only he could find a match and a pinch
of tobacco.
Teresa caught sight of this absurdly gratified monkey with the pipe in
its mouth. She gasped and sprang to her feet. Like a flash she dived to
catch the horrid beast, but he flew from under her hands and raced for
the nearest room. Teresa was after him. She picked up an empty flower
pot and hurled it. The aim was wild, but the crash was startling. The
monkey’s nervous system was so shaken that he dropped the pipe and
vanished beneath a bed.
The panting Teresa swooped for the pipe. She was laughing hysterically.
She could not believe her eyes. She fondled the pipe, turning it over
and over in her hands. It was the pipe which once before she had rescued
from the pest of a monkey, when she had brought Richard Cary from the
ship for an evening call on her uncle.
This briar pipe was unmistakable. There were the initials neatly carved
on the side of the smoke-blackened bowl—_R. C._
She put a hand to her head. Richard Cary had taken the pipe back to the
ship that night. She was certain of this because she had insisted upon
cleaning it before he smoked it again. She had forced a jet of steam
through it in the pantry, and then had sent it to his room by a cabin
steward. Ricardo had returned his thanks. This had been her last word
from him.
Later in the evening, about ten o’clock, he had gone ashore. A
quartermaster had seen him walk off the wharf and through the
custom-house gate. Betwixt that time and the present, then, he had been
in the house of Uncle Ramon Bazán. The pipe was evidence unquestionable,
or so it appeared to her confused sense. But if Richard Cary had been in
her uncle’s house since leaving the ship that last time, why had he sent
no word to explain his absence? Why had her uncle kept silent?
Both joy and anguish overwhelmed her. The room went suddenly dark before
her eyes. Never before had she fainted.