Prosperity had attended his tropical exile, but dollars could not altogether solace a homesick heart. Mrs. Mary Tobin was even more unreconciled, but she was never one to complain. Seldom questioning Jerry about his own affairs, she lived her life apart from them. When she had first known him he was a serious-minded, athletic young policeman on a Sixth Avenue beat and she was the daughter of a desk sergeant of the precinct station. In that neighborhood were her friends, her church, and her lifelong associations. In middle age she had been pulled up by the roots, and it was hard adjusting herself to this remote, exotic environment.
Blown by the winds of chance, Teresa Fernandez had been borne in to her. Mary Tobin’s loneliness and unspoken discontent were banished. This dark-eyed, handsome girl from Cartagena, bright and sad by turn, who seemed to confide so much and yet paused on the brink of revelation, was a figure of fascinating romance. She flamed against Mary Tobin’s quiet background.
Jerry was tight-lipped by habit. Teresa felt grateful for his reticence. Finding her in trouble, he had befriended her. Nothing was said about an impetuous antique dagger which had literally stayed the hand of an intruder called Sheeney George. With a delicacy that did him credit, Jerry inferred that it wasn’t the kind of thing a lady liked to have told on herself.
It was distressing enough, as Mary Tobin viewed it, that Teresa had felt compelled to cut off her lovely hair and go wandering about as a young man. That Jerry proposed to find some way of sending her to Cocos Island did not seem quixotic. Mary Tobin was eager to aid and abet. This relieved Jerry’s mind. The situation might have been awkward.
“Of course you will be helping her to get to her lover, Jerry,” said sweet-voiced, motherly Mary Tobin. “And how can you manage it? ’Tis worth the money whatever it costs.”
“I have found a gasoline yacht that’s fit for to live in,” he replied. “All I want now is the right skipper, and I have sent word to Captain Ed Truscoe that had a Canal towboat and quit her last week. He’s a buddy of mine. You know him, Mary.”
“A fine man, Jerry, but will we want to let Teresa go alone? I was thinking I might ask myself along, but I’d be seasick every minute and—”
“And you’d be in the way after she meets up with this walloper of a sweetheart of hers. The old crab of an uncle will be chaperon enough and more too. They’ll want to wring his neck.”
“But does it seem right to send her off by herself, even with Captain Ed Truscoe?” persisted Mary. “An older woman ought to be kind of looking after her.”
Jerry permitted himself a grin as he gruffly exclaimed: “Miss Fernandez can look after herself, take it from me. Don’t let that worry you. So it’s all right to blow her to the trip, is it? It will set me back some berries. She wants to put her own money in it, but I said nothing doing. This is Jerry Tobin’s joy-ride. Drop in and see us when you come back, said I, and show us your prize exhibit. We’ll tell you whether he is worth it. If he isn’t the goods, I will have to go get you another one.”