THE MAN WHO LIED
These last hours before the sailing of the Tarragona made 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 of mañana. 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 the Comandante of 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 the Tarragona. 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. The Tarragona will 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 the Tarragona? 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 the Tarragona to 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 the Tarragona.
She welcomed them gayly. They had made the southward voyage with her several months earlier, en route to 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. The Tarragona was 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 the conquistadores. 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:
“But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.”