Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master (7 page)

Twenty-two minutes later, the front door of the sprawling
mansion opened and a footman tripped his way down the steps in his effort to
precede his employer to the door of the limousine. The door was opened for the
distracted young man, now nattily re-attired and looking very little the worse
for wear for his supposed evening of debauchery the night before. August
Fenwick slipped in the door, still reading the banner story of the morning
Chronicle
.

“Mornin’ Boss,” his driver said cheerfully as if she hadn’t
seen him in their secret lair a short time ago. He seemed surprised by the
greeting, and Kit started the engine hurriedly to encourage the footman to
close the door before her Boss dropped the ball altogether. Something must have
rattled his cage for him to lose the thread of the whole ‘secret identity’
routine, even for an instant.

A moment later they were on their way down the lane, his
composure now returned.

“Everything okay?” she asked, expecting an answer in the
negative.

“Martin Davies was killed last night,” he said, indicating
his paper in apparent disbelief.

“The millionaire?” Kit was surprised. “Was it murder?”

“No, an accident by the look of things. There was a fire… it
doesn’t really say how it started… wait…” He read silently for a moment. “It
says the fire seems to have spilled out from a fireplace and spread. Martin was
apparently asleep in a chair nearby.”

“I’m sorry, Boss. You were friends, weren’t you?” she asked.

“I’ve known Martin Davies all my life,” he said as if it
were the same thing.

“You weren’t–?”

“It’s been quite awhile since there was anyone who knew
anything that I would consider important about my life,” he said, frowning.

“Present company excepted,” she said, too softly for him to
hear.

They rode for a moment in silence.

“I can’t help but wonder if this is as simple as it
appears,” he said at last.

“We are kind of in the middle of something right now,” she
said gently. “And investigatin’ as Gad-About and Trusty Driver ain’t nearly as
easy.”

He shook his head. “Someone went to a great deal of trouble
to try and kill the Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel. I still think we should
let them think they’ve succeeded until we have something to go on.”

“Yes, Boss,” she nodded. “That bein’ the case–”

“That being the case, you wonder if we should really
moonlight on another crime?”

“If it’s a crime, it’s a crime,” she shrugged. “I’m game for
anything. But it’ll still be waiting when I’ve mopped up the floor with whoever
tried to drop a building on me, won’t it?”

He smiled a little, in spite of himself. “I’m sorry, Kit. I
made a lot of choices. I don’t regret many of them. But an unpleasant
side-effect of the life I chose is that I live an elaborate lie, hiding my true
self from people who think they know me. Martin Davies was one of those people
I’ve lied to. He thought he knew me well. He’d have told you we were old
friends. I owe him something.”

Kit nodded a little as she drove. She understood, perhaps
more than anyone else ever could. “Right then,” she said, turning the car. “We
stop at the Club Macaw. Maybe something shakes loose.”

He smiled and looked affectionately at the back of her head
until an instant before she looked in the rear-view mirror and saw him staring
out the side window.

Twenty minutes later, the powerful engine of the limousine
fell silent before a fashionable gentleman’s club in the heart of the city. Kit
Baxter stepped from the front seat and gave the advancing doorman a glare that
froze him in his tracks. She stepped quickly around the length of the car and
opened the rear door herself.

Ryan, the doorman, noted the tall, very well-dressed man who
stepped forth from the back seat. At the Club Macaw, such sights were
commonplace, as all the members were wealthy, powerful men of industry and
influence. But most of them were soft, and some downright foolish. There was
something about August Fenwick that always struck Ryan as unique. The cold
focus of his eyes, the determined set to his jaw. Even the way he moved past
his chauffeur without so much as a glance back at her. Kit Baxter was not the
sort of girl most men could help from staring at. He’d been caught more than
once himself. Her employer’s reaction, or rather the lack of one, was strange.

“Too strange to be
believed,”
the doorman thought, suppressing the smirk that came with that
notion before Fenwick could see it.

“Good morning, sir,” he said, tugging the brim of his cap as
he opened the main door of the club. Fenwick nodded and turned back to his
driver.

“I won’t be more than a few minutes, Kit,” he said tersely.
“There’s business to attend to yet.”

“Yes, Boss,” the pretty redhead said with a smile, as though
she’d just been given candy. Ryan tried not to shake his head in disgust. Some
guys had all the luck.

Fenwick brushed past Ryan and into the foyer of the club.
The thick carpets padded his footsteps as he crossed the open space and into
the club’s reading room, where he could hear a number of voices. Normally, the
room might have held three or four men at this time of day, perusing the papers
in a leisurely fashion. But today there were nearly twenty, and the room buzzed
with the sort of energy that was normally discouraged in the strongest possible
terms. News of Martin Davies’ death had obviously reached the club.

He was greeted by the other members, even consoled by
several, which only served to sting the mystery man’s conscience still more.
There seemed to be little in their conversation to suggest foul play. Davies
had been in good health, his business interests were strong, his personal life
was above reproach. After ten minutes of conversation, Fenwick was about to
make his apologies and depart, when they were joined by young Randall Allyn,
who had not heard the news.

“I say,” Allyn had exclaimed when he was told, “not old
Martin. Surely not.”

“It is true,” he was told, as others nodded gravely. “Most
of the home was destroyed in the fire as well.”

Randall Allyn went as white as a sheet. He was barely
twenty-one and had likely never known a serious moment in his life. He looked
as though he might faint.

“Good heavens,” he exclaimed. “To think, I saw him just the
other night. It was here, too. He introduced me to that Shah fellow.”

August Fenwick’s ears pricked up. It was an unusual sort of
name to hear in the confines of the very Anglo-Saxon Club Macaw. He waited a
moment for someone else to ask the question, but the general nodding of heads
told him that he was the only one in the dark.

“Shah?” he said, trying to appear barely interested.

Winston Holt leaned in quietly. “You’ve been quite scarce
lately, old man,” he said. “Ajay Shah has been quite the sensation.”

“Ajay Shah?” Fenwick could not prevent the raising of his
eyebrow, but otherwise maintained his composure.

“A most extraordinary gentleman from the Orient,” Holt said
to a chorus of nods. “A charming young fellow. He has made quite an impression
in a short time.”

August Fenwick felt an uncomfortable movement that he could
not see. At first he thought it might just be the hairs on his neck standing on
end, but a casual glance revealed a well-dressed man sliding uncomfortably from
the conversation. Without looking too directly, Fenwick could see that it was
Wallace Blake, looking profoundly as if he desired to be anywhere else.

The discussion of the remarkable Mister Shah did not last
long, but before it was over, Wallace Blake had backed away from the group and
out of the reading room altogether. Only one pair of eyes saw him go.

A few minutes later, August Fenwick made his apologies and
left the room himself. He retrieved his hat and coat from the steward and
stepped through the door at full stride, not waiting for Ryan to summon his
car.

He opened the door himself and closed it quickly. From the
front seat he could hear the startled sound of a newspaper folding hurriedly.

“That was fast,” she said, starting the car. “Nothing to
report?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” he said seriously.

“What would you say?” she said with her brows knit.
Sometimes it seemed to take him awhile to drop the mask of the aloof
billionaire.

“The death of Martin Davies appears to be nothing more than
a tragic accident,” he said with apparent finality. “Except–”

“Oh yes?”

“Except I happen to know that there was considerable wealth
in that house. The fire would cover the loss perfectly. It seems too
convenient.”

“But not impossible?” she asked.

“No,” he admitted. “But there’s something else going on
here. Martin was playing host the other day to a visitor named Ajay Shah. He
seems to have made quite an impression.”

“Ajay Shah?” Kit said, her nose wrinkled. “What kind of name
is that?”

“A very optimistic one,” the Red Panda said, his eyes
burning with intensity. “It means ‘Unconquerable King’ in Nepalese.”

“Nice,” she said. “What do we do?”

“We’ve got an appointment at the Don Jail,” he said. “And I
think you’re right. We don’t have time to mess about without the costumes.”

“I’ll make time,” she said quietly.

“What’s that?”

“I said… never mind what I said.” She hoped he could not see
her turning bright crimson. “What do we do about this Shah character?”

“I couldn’t say for certain. Let’s put an agent on him.”

“Let’s put two, for luck,” Kit said. “Jack Peters at the
Chronicle
can check to make sure he’s
legit, and Gregor Sampson can find out if he ain’t. That way you and me can
focus on the anti-social little twerp that tried to blow us sky-high.”

The Red Panda smiled grimly. “It’s a good plan. Let’s move.”

The mighty engine roared at her command. “Music to my ears,”
she said.

Wallace Blake threw open the door of his study and stormed
in like a man unaware of his surroundings. He paced from one side of the room
to the other and stopped briefly to stare at the telephone on the side table.

“The police,”
he
thought.
“I should… I should…”

He sat down hard in a chair near the fireplace and took his
head in his hands. What could he possibly tell the police? That he had reason
to suspect the death of Martin Davies was no accident? The only support he had
for that notion was the fact that Davies had been quite chummy with a certain
mysterious traveler from the Orient ever since he and Ajay Shah had met in
Blake’s own home.

He had no proof of Shah’s involvement. No motive for the
crime, beyond Davies’ wealth. But he had felt a sickness in his soul, growing
since the day that a message had come from Joshua Cain, inviting him to make
some easy money by vouching for the charming Mister Shah. Introducing him to
his society friends at dinner. He had done favors for Cain before, of course.
He did not know how the master fixer of crime had learned of the state of
Blake’s finances, but there were certain little services Blake had been able to
provide, and in so doing, had found the money needed to keep up appearances, if
only barely.

From time to time he had vouched for certain persons,
certain business ventures, the sort of credibility that could only be lent by
an upstanding citizen who was known to possess a large family fortune. He had
helped Cain open doors in the past, but never before had the door led directly
to men and women that he knew. Never before had he made his friends and peers
vulnerable. Wallace Blake had feared the worst of Ajay Shah. Or rather, what he
thought the worst might be, namely that Shah was some sort of confidence man.
But this latest matter… if the sick feeling about his heart were correct… if
Martin Davies was murdered…

“Murder…”

The word pushed every other thought from Wallace Blake’s
mind. It hung in the air and seemed to spread throughout the room like a
pervading gloom, darkening the corners of the study as Blake took his head in
his hands once more.

The newspapers said that Martin Davies had fallen asleep in
a chair by the fire and not awakened when the fire spread. It seemed possible.
But Blake knew Davies well enough to know that the younger man was restless,
that he slept little and far from soundly when he did. The idea that he could
sleep through such calamity in a chair until it was too late… it seemed absurd
to Blake.

He pulled his hands the length of his face and found himself
staring again at the telephone. The gloom that seemed to blanket the corners a
moment ago now seemed thicker around the walls, making the telephone the only
point which he could see clearly. Wallace Blake did not wonder at this. The
only picture in his mind was that telephone in his hand as he did the right
thing at last.

But what right thing? Even if he confessed what little he
knew, his own part in betraying the interests of his peers, what good would it
do? Would the police even investigate the mysterious Ajay Shah? And what if he
were wrong? He would have publicly admitted his secret shame – the loss
of his family fortune – and for what?

Again Wallace Blake despaired. His whole being seemed to
tremble at the thought of his humiliation. But then again he thought of Martin
Davies, pictured Davies welcoming Ajay Shah at Blake’s urging. He steeled
himself. He must do what was right.

Wallace Blake took his head from his hands and straightened
upright in his chair. He would do his duty, he would call the police. Blake
looked about and blinked hard, twice.

He could no longer see the telephone.

It had been only four feet directly in front of him, but it
was now obscured by pitch darkness. The entire study… all of it, now lost in
the same pervading gloom that had spread from the corners. Oozed forth like a
living thing until all was lost in blackness. Wallace Blake felt his chest
tighten. This couldn’t be right – it was the middle of the day! Blake
turned towards where the windows should have been allowing the daylight to
stream into the room and suddenly he gasped in amazement. Standing there, the
sole object visible to his eyes, was the tall form of Ajay Shah, as if
illuminated by some inner light.

“Hello, Blake.” A smile crept across Shah’s thin lips.

“You!” Wallace Blake cried, rising to his feet gingerly.
“How did you get in here?”

“It hardly seems to matter, Blake. But since you asked, I
didn’t.”

“…I don’t understand,” Blake sputtered at last.

“I am not in your study, or in your home at all. I am in
your mind,” Shah smiled. “And so are you.”

“Make sense, man!” Blake bellowed.

“Shout all you wish, Mister Blake,” Shah continued, moving
closer. “No one will hear you, because you are not speaking. Not really.”

Somehow, Wallace Blake knew that this stranger spoke the
truth – that he was disconnected from the real world… from his own body…
He felt himself gasping for air that would not come. Ajay Shah smiled still
broader.

At last Wallace Blake managed to gasp, “Why have you brought
me here?”

“It is you that brought me here, Wallace. From the time of
your quite charming dinner party, my mind has been in yours.”

Wallace Blake said nothing. In horror, he realized that in
his heart he knew it to be true.

Ajay Shah continued, “Joshua Cain was certain you were
desperate enough to keep discreet. I knew differently. But we mustn’t judge
Mister Cain too harshly. After all, he cannot see into your thoughts, know
almost your very soul, or pull you apart like a child pulls the wings off
flies.”

Blake cried out in anguish and fell to his knees, feeling a
stabbing pain like knives of fire drilling through his temples. After a moment
that felt like an eternity, the anguish subsided and left him sputtering,
gasping for breath. As his vision cleared, he looked around and saw his
situation for what it was. He was on his knees in the middle of a vast,
seemingly endless expanse of darkness, before a cruel master of an unknown
power. His hands trembled and he struggled not to weep.

Shah smiled. “You were useful, Wallace Blake. I will not say
that my game would have been impossible without you, but much more difficult it
might have been. You opened doors, and provided me with a borrowed mantle of
respectability, with which I may freely walk among the sons of your city’s
richest men. It would please me to grant you mercy for this. But it cannot be.”

“You–!” Blake sputtered. “You common thief! Murderer!
You killed young Martin Davies!”

“I do not suppose it would console you to know that I plan
to kill a great many more yet?” Ajay Shah caressed Blake’s cheek with the back
of his hand, as though he might turn the gentle gesture into a slap at any
moment. He held his victim’s gaze for a moment, hard, and then turned away.
“No,” he said. “I did not suppose that it would. But you are more right than
wrong, Blake. I am a murderer. And a thief, although I think you will agree I
am anything but common. And you knew as much when you welcomed me into your
home. When you offered me young Davies and the rest of your brother princes of
the Earth.”

“I did not!” cried Wallace Blake in torment. “I knew nothing
of the kind!”

“Then you are a fool, or willfully blind, which is far
worse. In any event, you are a coward, and apt to do anything. I cannot have
you speak to the police just yet, Wallace. My work has not yet begun.”

“Then you intend to keep this up? To keep killing and
pillaging?” Blake’s fists were twisted into balls of rage, but he did nothing
but tremble on his knees.

“For a time,” Shah confessed. “Apart from being simple and
profitable, I enjoy it. But that is but one move in my long game. I am looking
for someone, Wallace Blake. The one man who might have the power to stop me. It
is possible that I have already killed him. But I hope not.” Shah smiled again
as he receded into the shadows. He appeared gaunt to Wallace Blake’s eyes,
almost skeletal, as if he were death himself.

“What will you do?” Blake screamed at the emptiness. “Will
you kill me as well?”

“No, Blake.” Shah’s voice echoed as he faded into
nothingness. “But
you
will. My mind
is in yours. I know how often you have thought of suicide since you lost your
fortune. I know where you keep the rope that you have often fashioned into a
noose in order to end your shame. Never had the nerve, did you, Blake?”

Wallace Blake shook where he knelt like a man with a palsy.
Like a man at war with himself. The voice echoed around the void one last time.

“Today, Blake, you will find the courage after all.”

And then there was only darkness.