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.”