TERESA, HER PILGRIMAGE
Across the Isthmus to Panama! It had been a golden road for the
ancestors of Teresa Fernandez to follow to the South Sea. It seemed a
propitious road for her to follow in quest of Richard Cary. Early awake
next morning, she felt less unhappy. It was not so much like groping in
a blind alley. Those scraps of paper that had eddied in the breeze? She
found a few more of them, but they told her nothing. She accepted it as
a decree, perhaps of punishment. Not knowing whether Richard Cary loved
her, in fear that he had died, she must set forth on her pilgrimage.
The good Señor de Mello would think it strange of her to go as
unceremoniously as she had come. Anxiety for her uncle’s safety, the
desire to persuade him to quit his senseless wanderings, the fact that
he was in the company of such an unsavory mariner as Captain Bradley
Duff—this would have to serve as her pretext. What other people thought
of her was, after all, of no consequence.
In the harbor she had noticed an English steamer waiting for a berth at
the wharf. It was the coastwise boat that picked up cargo and passengers
here and there, and went on to Colon. Teresa was out of the house before
the offices and shops were open. Over her rolls and coffee in an untidy
little café, she scanned a newspaper for the shipping items. The English
boat was expected to sail some time during the afternoon. It seemed best
to go on board as soon as possible. After some delay she found the agent
and secured a stateroom.
Then she went to the bank. Señor de Mello was just arriving with his
green umbrella. In his private office she explained her sudden decision
as well as she could, and showed him a letter of credit. She wished to
draw some money, a considerable amount for a woman to carry with her.
Some emergency might arise before she could present herself at another
bank.
Alonzo de Mello stared at the letter of credit. It was for two thousand
dollars, many times as much as the niece of Ramon Bazán had required
when intending to visit him in Cartagena. It was, in fact, every dollar
of Teresa’s savings, her precious anchor to windward. The banker looked
up to say, in his bland, paternal manner:
“I am not one to pry, Teresa, but there is something in this that I fail
to understand. Why this large letter of credit? Did you expect to travel
farther than Cartagena? For transferring your funds a draft would have
been proper. Ramon’s wretched voyage frets you, but you anticipated
nothing like this. We are very fond of you, as you know, and—”
“Then you will have to trust in me, dear Señor de Mello,” pleaded
Teresa. “You have known me all your life. I have tried to do what seemed
right.”
“No question of that,” he assured her. “You will write me from Panama?
And permit me to give you a letter to my agent commending you as though
you were my own daughter.”
Teresa’s eyes filled with tears. She had little more to say. When she
walked out of the bank she was still feeling the stress of emotion. A
dapper young man in the uniform of a lieutenant of police stepped up to
accost her. Apparently he had been waiting at the entrance. She
trembled. Her lips parted. She was falling, falling into some black
abyss. Her courage lifted her out of it. She did not faint. What was the
lieutenant saying?
“To meet the Señorita Fernandez makes the day radiant. May I have a few
words with you? It is a matter that has been waiting some time.”
“As you will,” she murmured, forcing a smile. “It tires me to stand.
Shall we sit in the reception room of the bank? At this early hour it is
seldom in use.”
The lieutenant bowed. He was a gallant fellow with an eye for a pretty
woman. He sympathized with the señorita. She was, indeed, feeling
indisposed. A glance at the closed door behind which Señor de Mello sat
at his desk, and Teresa inquired:
“Your errand is what?”
“It is that eccentric old uncle of yours,” answered the lieutenant of
police.
“_Ah_, and what of him?” said Teresa. The hand of fear released its
strangling clutch.
As through a mist she gazed at the lieutenant, who replied: “I take the
liberty of informing you, as his niece, señorita. It may be of interest
now that you have found him gone. I had the felicity of seeing you drive
to his house yesterday.”
“And you wish to tell me something about his voyage?”
“Yes. On the night he embarked in that wretched steamer of his, I was
leaving a party of friends. It was quite late. A carriage came tearing
along like the devil. Too fast, I thought. So I stepped out and halted
it. Your uncle sat beside that Indian boy of his who was driving. The
carriage was filled to the top with bags and valises and blankets. A
reproof was all I intended. And it seemed worth looking into, this
driving so fast late at night. I recognized your uncle and was about to
say something pleasant, but he seemed immensely startled. He nearly
tumbled from the seat, like a man stricken with illness. The boy caught
hold of him and they went on through the gate. His steamer sailed the
next morning, so I suppose it was nothing serious. His health interests
you, I have no doubt, Señorita Fernandez. I said to myself that old
Ramon Bazán should have stayed in his comfortable house if he was as
feeble as that. Have you heard from him?”
“Not yet,” replied Teresa. “It is wonderfully kind of you. What else
could be expected of an officer so polite and attractive? Yes, my uncle
must have been ill. It was his heart. He is taken like that when excited
or frightened.”
“He has my prayers,” exclaimed the lieutenant. “It must be lonely for
you. I am at your feet. Any service in the world—”
He bowed himself out, having made an impression, so he flattered
himself. It had been a clever excuse to win the favor of a girl who had
inspired his passionate ardor. Teresa lingered in the reception room of
the bank trying to read the riddle of a doddering uncle who had been
driving at furious speed to board his ship late in the night. Why had he
almost died with one of his heart attacks when an affable lieutenant of
police had merely halted the carriage to question the driver? Uncle
Ramon must have been mortally afraid of being detected in some secretive
stratagem.
“That lieutenant is a handsome doll with a wooden head!” mused Teresa.
“Why didn’t he poke inside the carriage? He might have found something
under all that baggage. My trip to Panama looks wiser than ever. I shall
never rest until I find out why my uncle was almost scared to death.”
Haste was not urgent, so Teresa walked several blocks at a leisurely
gait in search of a carriage. She stopped to look into the dusty window
of a pawnshop. It occurred to her that her pilgrimage might lead her
into unpleasant places. In the sailors’ haunts of tropical ports a woman
ran certain risks. She could not think of carrying another little
automatic pistol in her pocket. The very sight of one in the pawnshop
window made her shudder.
Idly standing there, she caught sight of another weapon that strongly
attracted her fancy. It was an antique dagger, resembling the
_miséricorde_ of the age of chivalry, such as knights in armor had worn
attached to the belt by a chain. On the tarnished handle of this relic a
crest was still discernible. The blade had rusted thin, but the double
edge could easily be ground sharp. It was a small weapon, only a few
inches long, contrived for a thrust between the joints of a corselet or
neck-piece at close quarters.
In the rubbish of a pawnshop in a side street, this dagger had escaped
the search of collectors. It had come from some ancient house of
Cartagena, a weapon that might have clinked on the steel-clad thigh of a
_conquistador_. Teresa bought it for a _peso_. The pawnbroker rummaged
until he found a sheath of embossed leather into which the dagger could
be slipped. A ribbon could be sewn to the sheath, a ribbon long enough
to pass around the neck. Then the dagger could be worn inside a woman’s
dress. _Miséricorde!_ The sad heart of Teresa and a dagger next it!
Returning to the house, she decided to leave her new clothes there. This
cost her a pang, but it might be a rough road and a long one. A battered
little sole-leather trunk, unearthed in Uncle Ramon’s storeroom, would
serve her needs. In her handbag was Richard Cary’s briar pipe.
Two days after this, a trim young woman, very simply dressed in white,
found shelter in an old stone hotel near the plaza of Panama. Her
fastidious taste would have preferred the large American hotel on the
Ancon hill in the Canal Zone, but this was too far removed from the
crossroads of merchant mariners in drudging cargo boats. She was
familiar with the noisy streets of Panama through which flowed a mixture
of races from all the Seven Seas.
The afternoon was growing late when Teresa began her quest. It led her
first to the bank in which Señor de Mello’s agent had his office. He was
a native of the city and in close touch with west coast shipping. To
Teresa’s dismay he informed her that Ramon Bazán’s steamer _Valkyrie_
had not been heard from since leaving the Balboa docks. It had not
arrived at Buenaventura, only three hundred miles down the coast. The
weather had been unusually fair, with no heavy winds. Already a week had
elapsed.
The steamer carried no wireless, but had she been disabled some other
vessel would have reported her by this time. They were coming in every
day. In such good weather and near the coast, the _Valkyrie_ could not
have foundered without trace. Her boats would have taken care of the
crew. Furthermore, cable messages of inquiry, sent at the request of
Señor Alonzo de Mello, disclosed that no steamer by this name was
expected at Buenaventura. The shipping firms and export agents in that
port had made no charter arrangements nor had there been any
correspondence about cargo. Steamers of the regular services were taking
care of all the freight offered at this season of the year.
“Then my old uncle never sailed for Buenaventura? And he had no
intention of going there?” commented Teresa.
“He must have changed his plans,” suavely observed the agent.
“He is very capricious, señor. Did you happen to meet him while his ship
was coaling at Balboa?”
“Yes, Señorita Fernandez. He came into the office to draw funds to pay
the Canal tolls, having arranged a credit for that purpose. He had
little to say and seemed quite feeble.”
“He would seem that way, at parting from so much money. Did he bring his
captain with him?”
“No. I don’t know who commanded the steamer. I am extremely sorry, but I
have to take a train to Colon late this afternoon to be gone until
to-morrow. After that, I shall be delighted to go with you to Balboa.
The records will tell you who the captain was, and there may be other
details. I am acquainted with the officials and it will expedite your
affairs. A young lady may feel a certain awkwardness—”
Teresa was cordially grateful. The situation had taken on aspects more
complex and inexplicable than ever. As a seafarer herself, she accepted
the theory that the _Valkyrie_ had met with no disaster while bound down
the coast to Buenaventura. The vessel had steered some unknown course of
her own to another destination. From the beginning her tortuous uncle
had schemed and lied to mask his real purpose, whatever that might be.
No mere hallucination could have lured him into the Pacific. It had not
occurred to him that any one might try to follow him.
At Balboa, Teresa might be able to discover whether Richard Cary had
been in the ship. This was of transcendent moment to her. But even were
it true, her penitential pilgrimage was no more than begun. It was
necessary to meet him face to face. Her own soul was at stake. What had
happened to Ricardo that night in Cartagena, when he had been missing
from his ship? What of the guilt of the dead Colonel Fajardo?
Teresa walked the floor of her room in the Panama hotel. What she said
to herself was like this:
“Supposing Ricardo is commanding this Flying Dutchman of a ship. Where
has he gone? No records in the Canal office can tell me that. A
wonderful comfort, if it is the will of God to let me know Ricardo is
alive and strong. But what of me? Ah, what of poor me? There must be
some way of finding out, here in Panama, but how can I go into the
places where this Bradley Duff and the sailors may have babbled with the
liquor in them? Do I look like one of the wretched girls in these dirty
cabarets?
“It is hard to keep a secret in a ship after she has left her own port.
Something seems to whisper it—a look, a word, a feeling. Perhaps my
Uncle Ramon muttered in his sleep, as he often does at home. He is too
old to play such a hand as this for very long. Look what it did to him
when he was frightened by that lieutenant of police! And if he loses his
temper he may say too much. If those Colombian sailors got it into their
heads that the voyage was to be longer than to Buenaventura, it would be
like some of them to desert such an unseaworthy vessel in Panama. One
thing I do know. I can never sit here and wait with folded hands for the
_Valkyrie_ to come back to the Canal. It might be weeks and months or
not at all.”
To be a roving woman where sailors resorted in this and perhaps other
ports of the Spanish Main was both hampering and repugnant. It made a
difficult task unendurable. Unwelcome attentions, insults, nameless
perils might be her lot. Not that Teresa flinched or hesitated, but it
was possible to make the path easier. The most hopeful clue was Captain
Bradley Duff. He was almost certain to have had disreputable friends in
Panama. Birds of his feather flocked together, and they were always
thirsty. Likely enough there had been money in his pocket to make him
popular. He would be the boisterous good fellow, greedily sociable,
anxious to parade the fact that he was no longer on the beach. And what
he knew he would be apt to confide to this companion and that.
Yes, it was a handicap to be a good woman, reflected Teresa, and she did
not propose to be a bad one. There was another way. It appealed to her
as feasible. Some daring would be required to carry it off, but she was
not one to lack faith in herself. At the masquerade ball in Cartagena,
two years ago, she had played the part of a _caballero_ so well that the
girls had boldly flirted with her. Her hair had been hidden by a huge
sombrero adorned with silver braid.
Her hair was her crown and her glory. If she decided to play the part in
Panama, it would have to be sacrificed. But what mattered a woman’s
vanity now, or her desire to be thought beautiful, if she had lost her
lover and knew not where to find him?
Teresa went shopping in Panama. It was rather amusing. A boy trudged
behind her with a large, shiny new suitcase in which the various
purchases were stowed. He followed her to a side-entrance of the hotel
and so to her room.
Having dismissed him and locked the door, Teresa sat and looked at
herself in the glass. _Adios_ to the girl who had been so proud of
Ricardo’s admiration! She let down her black hair. It flowed over her
lovely shoulders. Snip, snip, the wicked new shears severed the tresses.
Her hand was unsteady. It was a dreadful thing to do. Even the sight of
bobbed hair made her feel like swearing. This was much worse.
A ragged job it was when she gloomily surveyed the result. Carefully,
tenderly, she gathered up her tresses and wrapped them in a silk scarf.
She could not bear to throw them away. Presently she was slipping a belt
through the loops of linen trousers. She scowled at the canvas shoes.
The clumsy pattern disguised a narrow foot and an arching instep. The
soft white shirt with a rolling collar was open at the throat. A loose
coat of gray Palm Beach cloth completed the costume. The brim of her own
Panama hat was bent down in front with a touch of jauntiness.
Teresa surveyed herself with a critical scrutiny. Her girlish bust and
slender hips were unobtrusive. What she saw in the glass was a supple
youth as straight as a lance, a youth with an oval face and dark eyes
too somber for his years. At a glance he resembled a hundred others who
strolled in the plazas or sat at the café tables of any Spanish-American
city. His name was Rubio Sanchez, so he was informed, as the farewell
message of Señorita Teresa Fernandez before she made her exit from the
stage.
The young Colombian, Rubio Sanchez, busied himself in the room a little
while longer. Then he sauntered down to the lobby in which men loafed
and smoked and talked of many things. It was near the dinner hour.
Behind the desk the night clerk was on duty. He had been denied the
pleasure of welcoming Señorita Fernandez in the afternoon. The slim,
debonair youth from Cartagena sauntered over to say to him in a voice of
a pleasant contralto quality:
“The lady, my sister, wishes to leave her trunk in storage. I will pay
her bill. Here is the key. Have your porter bring down the suitcase. I
will look after it for her. She has been sent for in haste. An uncle old
and sick needs her.”
The clerk was an obliging person. He expressed his regrets and arranged
matters promptly. Young Rubio Sanchez and his large, shiny suitcase
presently departed in a one-horse hack which was instructed to proceed
until told to stop. The passenger sat indolently, a cigarette between
his lips.
What made him alert was the blazing electric sign of “The Broadway
Front” which seemed to be a pretentious lodging-house with a saloon,
restaurant, and dance-hall on the ground front. It was the most
flamboyant place of good-cheer along the street. It loomed like a beacon
to draw the wandering footsteps of sailormen weary of the sea. Captain
Bradley Duff and his shipmates of the _Valkyrie_ never could have passed
it by.
Rubio Sanchez, a blasé young man who knew his way about, halted the hack
and swung his shiny suitcase to the pavement. Here were rooms to rent.
The building was new. It looked neither dingy nor dirty. It would do for
the night, or until fortune beckoned elsewhere.
He spied a barber shop next door. It occurred to him as advisable to
finish what the shears had so awkwardly begun. The barber eyed him
critically, with a smirk of amusement. Never had he beheld such a ragged
hair-cut. Rubio Sanchez curtly told him to make it smooth, leaving
enough to part. The barber laughed and asked in Spanish:
“Was it chewed by the mice, señor? You had been letting it grow very
long.”
“Not as long as your clacking tongue,” was the crisp retort. “Shall I
cut it for you?”
The barber goggled at the slender youth in the chair, but held his
peace. It was not good to jest too far with one whose voice was so cool
and hard.