by Gregg Taylor
“Mister Sterling and Mister Thompson found that impossible to accept,” Weston said.
“They did,” Fenwick agreed.
“It is, of course,” Weston continued, “entirely proper that when a household is running smoothly, the Master never need consider the sheer volume of grown men and women living under his roof. But even among a professional staff, personal… complications can arise. Complications which can reflect poorly upon the household, and very poorly indeed upon the head of the staff.”
Fenwick’s tone became quite flat. “I suppose they can,” he said.
“And therein lies my objection to the behaviour of Mister Thompson and Mister Sterling,” Weston said.
Fenwick started slightly – this was an unexpected change of gears. “How so?” he asked.
“In voicing their objections concerning Miss Baxter, sir, they were protecting themselves,” Weston said simply. “If they had legitimate cause for concern, they should have been protecting the girl.”
Fenwick stared at the older man in mild wonder and said nothing.
“Miss Baxter was not raised in service, was she?” Weston asked. “I understand she drove a taxicab previously. She supports her mother, does she not?”
“She does,” Fenwick said quietly.
“I believe,” Weston said, “and I have no great proof of this, but I believe that when you dismissed Thompson and Sterling, who wished to be rid of the girl, you were protecting her from them. Which sounds quite right to me.”
Fenwick said nothing, less by choice than by simple astonishment.
“While we are speaking frankly, Mister Fenwick, I will ask you a question that I will, should I serve as your man, never repeat.” Weston met Fenwick’s gaze and held it. “Has there ever been anything improper between yourself and Miss Baxter?”
“There has not,” Fenwick said evenly.
“Nothing to which the girl’s mother would object?”
Fenwick was fairly certain that Mrs. Baxter would object quite strenuously to most of her daughter’s activities as the Flying Squirrel, but he also knew this was not what Weston was asking.
“Nothing,” he said simply.
Weston nodded. “Very good, sir,” he said. “Were I in your service, I would not let my position prevent me from protecting her should I feel it was necessary to do so. I would be quite prepared to accept the consequences were it so, and do not feel it likely that we should ever have need to speak of this again.”
The two men regarded one another in silence for a moment, until a cheerful, whistling tune could be heard coming up the hall. The tune rolled into the room like a beam of sunshine and with it came Kit Baxter, immaculately dressed in her grey chauffeur’s uniform, her long red hair tucked into her cap in a slightly haphazard and entirely appealing fashion.
“Morning, Boss!” she sang before her eyes quite adjusted to the bright light pouring in through the windows and spotted the second man present.
August Fenwick turned his head to acknowledge her. “Miss Baxter,” he said simply, “this is Mister Weston. The new Butler.”
She smiled brightly at the introduction, and if the wattage of her grin faded slightly at the final sentence, she tried not to show it. “Oh, hello,” she said.
“Good morning, Miss,” Weston said with a courteous nod, betraying no surprise at all at the suddenness of his new position. There was a small, slightly awkward pause.
“Um… your mail was on the little table in the hall,” she said. “I reckoned somebody ought to bring it to you.” She stepped into the room and held out the sheaf of letters. She paused a moment, as if uncertain who to hand them to, until Weston calmly indicated the Master with a very slight nod.
“Quite right, Miss,” Weston said as Fenwick began to flip idly through the mail. “That will not happen again, sir,” he said.
“I have no doubt, Weston, I have no-” Fenwick began, before his attention was caught by a small postcard which sat unimpressively in the middle of the pile of correspondence. Kit could see the sudden transformation, the lazy playboy routine dropping just for an instant replaced by a sudden flash in the eyes of the Red Panda, but she said nothing.
It was Fenwick who broke the silence. “In fact, I am quite certain that you would like to begin your duties right away, Weston,” he said, rising and casting away his robe. “And I know that I have appointments to keep. Is the car ready, Kit?” he asked, already past her and halfway out of the room.
“Always,” she said, with an awkward wave at Weston before trotting quickly along behind her Boss toward the great staircase leading down to the front doors. She caught up with him just as the footman who might have been Roger or David raced to bring Fenwick his day-coat, hat and stick and as such she was obliged to hold her tongue until they were out the door.
“You wanna let me in on the big news?” she asked quietly, and without looking directly at him. She stepped in front of him and opened the rear passenger door of the great, black car, and he pressed a slightly battered penny postcard into her hand as he climbed in.
The card bore far more postage than one might have expected, suggesting that the seemingly unimportant message had been sent with all possible speed. The picture on the front was of the Imperial Hotel in Cairo, though the postmark did not suggest it had been mailed from the hotel itself. Kit closed the door and began to walk toward the driver’s side, playing the part of trusty chauffeur for any who might be watching as she flipped the card over. On the back was a simple message in a flowing hand. Nothing that would have seemed remarkable, but it stopped her in her tracks.
“Wish you were here,” it read. “M.F.”
Four
Kit Baxter squirmed slightly in her seat and tried to let the noise of the engines drown out the infernal giggling of the maids, which was not entirely successful. The Fenwick household was on the final leg in a long series of charter flights to Cairo, but the thrill of the first air-trip seemed to have not run out for several of the girls. Kit Baxter knew what actual thrills were, and was simply stiff and bored from the long flights. Toronto to St. Johns, St. Johns to London, London back to Madrid for some reason which Kit could not imagine, and then finally on towards Egypt and their missing friend, Maxwell Falconi.
It had all happened so quickly. A short drive to a pneumatic tube to take them to their underground lair. A long-distance call to the Imperial Hotel in Cairo which confirmed that Falconi had been a guest, but that he had disappeared without a trace more than a week ago. The next thing she had known, he was packing his goodies for Egypt.
“I’m coming with you,” she had insisted.
“You’re really not,” he had countered, maddeningly casual about the whole thing as he stuffed the crime-fighting gear of the Red Panda into the false bottoms of several large suitcases. “Maxwell Falconi was my mentor, one of my teachers when I was preparing to begin my work. If he’s in trouble, I have to go after him.”
“He’s my friend too,” Kit had protested, “and he may be old, but he’s plenty tough. If he’s yelling for help from halfway around the world it means two things: one, this is important and two, whatever’s got him in a fix is tougher’n he is. So save some room in them secret compartments for Squirrel Suits, Mister.”
“Kit,” the Red Panda had protested, “this isn’t an overnight jaunt that we can cover with a letter to your mother. This is a trip to Egypt.”
“Thank you for the geography lesson.” She had stomped her foot in impatience. “I’m coming with you. I’m your partner, I’m supposed to have your back and you’d never let me go off on my own like this, whatever people might say.”
That had made him stop his packing anyway. He had paused a moment to gather his thoughts.
“If you try to hypnotise me,” she had warned him, “I’ll give you such a pinch.”
He shook his head. “Never have, never will,” he promised. “But Weston isn’t wrong, and neither were Sterling and Thompson, in their own way. People who see us togeth
er, they know there’s something between us.”
Kit’s heart did an inadvertent jump into her throat at this, which she had ignored as best she could, as he was clearly talking about something else.
“And it isn’t just because I’m a man and you’re a woman,” he had continued. She had said nothing at this, but had perhaps raised an eyebrow in surprise that he had actually noticed this point. “People aren’t just leaping to idle speculation based on nothing. There are other lady drivers around town, you know.”
“Yeah, I’m a real trend-setter,” she had deadpanned.
“People see us together and see something between us that they don’t understand,” he had continued, choosing his words carefully, but doing it quickly. “They leap to what must seem like the most obvious conclusion, and never guess that the truth is much more… interesting than they imagine.”
Kit had paused just an instant. She actually thought the obvious conclusion to which he referred sounded plenty interesting. Indeed, in spite of her best efforts, she spent a great deal of her spare time thinking about exactly that, but this didn’t seem like the moment to say so.
“If it helps you,” she had said, “I care more about keeping you alive than I do about my reputation.”
“And I’m not entirely certain that I do,” he had blurted out crossly, and without really thinking.
Kit had smiled like she had been given flowers and candy, and as always when she did, it was like the sun coming out. “Yes, Boss,” she had purred. “You protect me, I protect you. That’s what we do.”
“Yes it is,” he had said, knowing that his case was lost.
“That’s why I’m coming with you,” she had said quietly.
“But Kit,” his protest was clearly on its last legs, “there is more to think of than just… there is the matter of… I am considering the impact all the attention would have on our secret identities, you know. This could compromise us entirely.”
Ah, the secret identities. It was usually his trump card, and it was a good one. Unless you knew that it was coming.
“Yes, Boss,” she had agreed. “And whatever they might have done when they were younger, idle young billionaires do not simply throw a satchel over their shoulder and slink off to see the world.”
He had blinked at her twice. And that was that. Another call to the Imperial to reserve the entire top floor for an indefinite stay. Several more to arrange the long series of charter flights she was currently enjoying. One final one to notify Weston that he was being thrown in the deep end to establish a comically oversized retinue of staff for the expedition, and voila – the Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel were off to Egypt.
Except the trip had been long and dull. They were off together, all right, but he was up front and she was in the back with the giggling maids and the footmen who looked upon the whole thing as a jolly holiday with the giggling maids and who-knew-what-else. Kit had no friends on the household staff, and even if she had, she had work to do. She had spent the long flight pouring over every atlas and road map of Cairo and Egypt she had been able to get her hands on. She might never know her way around the way she knew Toronto, but by golly, she wasn’t going to have to get out at a Sphinx and ask for directions either.
An hour out of Madrid, Weston appeared in the aisle beside her.
“May I sit down?” he asked.
Kit folded up her notebook, stuck her pencil in her teeth and began clearing the seat beside her of books.
“I must say, Miss Baxter, you are very serious about your work,” Weston said. “I wish it was an attitude some others seemed to share.” He hadn’t said that loud enough for it to be intended as a message to anyone else, but she supposed it couldn’t hurt to play nice.
“Due respect, Mister Weston-” she began.
“Weston, will be fine, Miss,” he said with a pleasant smile.
“Weston, right.” She smiled back and tried not to show that she had not really had the best of relationships with butlers, and didn’t really expect that to change. “With all due respect, Weston, those giggle-birds are still going to know how to make a bed when we get to Cairo. It may not make a lot of sense to bring your entire staff on holiday with you-”
“Many people of the Master’s position do,” Weston said simply, “if it makes them feel more comfortable. It is a holiday for him, but not for us.”
“Right,” Kit nodded. “And I’m no good to him if I don’t know where I’m goin’.”
Weston smiled and nodded. “He was asking for you,” he said quietly.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Something about the car that he wishes you to hire upon our arrival,” Weston said, before leaning in toward her slightly and speaking much more quietly. “He is quite restless. I expect he is bored of being by himself.”
Kit blinked in surprise. “You’re up there with him,” she said.
Weston nodded. “He does not really know me,” he said with a smile and a nod toward the curtain that separated the plane. Kit stood and walked up the aisle. She heard the change in tone of the whispers behind her as she did so and did her best to ignore it. She moved past the curtain and saw him there, surrounded by books of his own. Everything on Egyptian legend and mysticism he could lay his hands on at short notice. They had all been opened, cast aside as useless and later retrieved when they were found to be no less useless than anything else. One of the planet’s most powerful sorcerers was up to something in Egypt, and got in over his head. Nothing they could find in a pile of books was going to properly prepare them for whatever lay ahead.
They were both straining at the leash – a mystery awaited them to which they had not a single clue and which they could not even discuss, not with the entire staff straining to hear from the other side of the curtain. He passed her a note with some instructions that made her smile, and they spent ten minutes engaged in an entirely pretend conversation about cars, mostly for the benefit of the listeners, and because neither one of them wanted her to go back to her seat just yet.
Kit made her way back down the aisle to her books. Soon they would land in Cairo and their work could begin. In the meantime, she had one tiny scrap of fact that she kept in tight to keep from grinning like a maniac.
He had missed her too.
Five
August Fenwick paced restlessly in his vast, airy room atop the Imperial Hotel. The instructions he had passed to Kit on the plane had been based on the presumption that within an hour of checking in to the hotel he would be alone in the room he intended to take, the suite on the South-West corner of the building. But the time was getting close, and Weston seemed determined to unpack every item in Fenwick’s cases himself, right down to the false bottoms, of which Fenwick was now very glad. Were it not for the possibility of a customs inspection, he might not have used them at all, and Weston would now be wondering in which drawer his new master would like his throwing stars and combat boomerangs.
Fenwick stepped out onto the landing and felt the hot, dry air hit him as if he had been struck in the chest. The sun was high in the sky and seemed impossibly close. Below, the wide streets and avenues of the city’s downtown were teeming with life. Cairo. It had been years since he had been here, but it was just as he remembered, at least this part of it was. A thoroughly modern city, bustling with activity that somehow still seemed to belong to another world. He wouldn’t have to step very far away from the newer sections of the city, with all of its British influence, to find that other world. Ancient and fascinating at times, backward and crushingly poor in places. At night this city seethed with the danger inherent in the darkness as much as any other did. But now there was a new hunter in the night, and one who would not quit until his search was ended.
He recalled his days of training with Maxwell Falconi. The Stranger was retired then, as were most of the members of his old team, the Society of Gentleman Adventurers, but the younger man would not take no for an answer. In the end, Falconi had agreed to teach him what
he knew about crime-fighting and investigation, but not the mystic arts. Those were not disciplines for the dilettante, nor secrets to be trusted to some young fool in a mask just because he had figured out your real name. Fenwick smiled at the recollection. His time with Falconi had not been long, and it had come near the end of his long quest for the skills he would need in his fight for justice. Max had always said that there was little he could teach Fenwick that he did not already seem to know. And when the subject of Magic did come up, Fenwick’s scientific mind was always trying to break it down into verifiable, repeatable principles. He wasn’t far off, both men knew. Magic and science were not the mutually exclusive ideas that many imagined, but after a lifetime of study of the ancient ways, Falconi was not terribly interested in redefining anything. They had argued often, clashed a good deal, and struck a lifelong friendship in the process.
Fenwick heard voices in the room behind him and opened the door to step back into his suite. One of the younger men of his household was speaking to Weston and the conversation seemed slightly urgent, but it trailed off immediately when the Master entered the room.
Weston placed a reassuring hand on the young servant’s arm and looked at Fenwick. “I do beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “the staff seems to require my attention for a time.”
“Of course,” Fenwick nodded.
“I shan’t be more than a few minutes,” he said.
“No, Weston,” Fenwick shook his head. “I won’t be needing a thing before dinnertime, and you still haven’t so much as unpacked your own case. I will call you if I need you.”
Weston nodded. “Of course, sir,” he said and the two servants left, trying not to appear to be in a hurry. Fenwick wondered what sort of a flap the staff had managed to work themselves into already, and if bringing the whole lot of them along on this trip was not perhaps a high price to pay to have the Flying Squirrel by his side.
Behind him, the door to the veranda opened slowly and silently, and a small, dark hand settled upon the door frame. It was followed quickly by a shadowy form that somehow managed to obscure itself, even within the bright daylight of the spacious room. The door opened still more, and the shape began to take the first, silent footstep towards the wealthy young man’s back, when he suddenly whipped around at astonishing speed and settled into a martial arts stance.
