Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master

by Gregg Taylor

  “Should you be here?” he said casually.

  “I’m right as rain and I don’t need you to tell me different.” She smiled, “I had a full night’s sleep for the first time in I don’t know how long.”

  “You shouldn’t rush back into action.” He stood, trying not to grimace as he creaked to his full height. “You took a nasty knock.”

  She drew herself up to her own, considerably less full height and bristled slightly. “When I’m not here, you don’t even have the sense to take your mask off, much less go to bed.”

  He smiled, rejecting every quip that sprang to his mind. “I had a little night-table reading,” he said over the rim of his cup.

  “I gathered,” she said, picking up the file Constable Parker had given him early that morning. “Not exactly War and Peace…,” she mused, her lips pursed.

  “I had to make the rounds first. We were out of commission for two days.”

  “Did we miss anything?”

  “Nothing definite. Hard to say. No word on any of the loot from the Empire Bank job going through any of the usual fences. Some rumbles about a connection that might have run them out of town. I’ve put Gregor Sampson on it – with his underworld connections as Miles Grant, he should pass unnoticed.”

  “Any more idea of just what was taken?”

  “No more than you could get in the morning Chronicle.”

  She batted her eyelashes. “I get the paper with Li’l Abner.”

  He nodded. “That’s tough but fair. The list is on the side table over there. Every item that the customers who kept those boxes have reported stolen.”

  She glanced at it and gave a low whistle. “Not too shabby.”

  “Yes. There’s one major problem with that list, of course,” he said, splashing some water on his face.

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, at least some of it is complete fiction. The Berringers, for example, reported a loss of nearly a hundred thousand dollars in untraceable assets. They’ve been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy for months now. Perhaps more.”

  “An insurance scam?” She seemed to be looking for a link.

  “Very likely. But a crime of opportunity at best. Jed Berringer is hardly a master criminal. I can’t imagine he’ll even get away with this, but I know we don’t have time to care. In any event, it makes trying to trace the items on that list a bit of a mug’s game.”

  “What about this?” she said, holding the file aloft slightly. “This come from our Boy in Blue?”

  “Parker? Yes. It makes for interesting reading.”

  “It certainly kept you riveted.”

  “Just read the file. I’m going to change.”

  “Yes, Boss,” she said, watching him go. She sat for a moment, trying not to think of reasons to stand outside the door of his changing room and talk to him as he dressed. It was a bad habit, and she knew it must be bad because of the giddy thrill it gave her. Besides, she had to focus. She furrowed her brow and buried herself in Parker’s file.

  Five minutes later he was back, disguised as ne’er-do-well August Fenwick, looking properly disheveled in rumpled evening dress, his bow tie hanging loose about his neck. She tried not to smile as she shook her head at him.

  “I don’t know why you do that,” she said, biting her lip.

  “It’s for the benefit of the staff,” he said seriously. “When I don’t come home they think the worst of me already. Much easier to reinforce their expectations.”

  “And I had to write a hundred notes to my mother for every contingency.”

  “That’s different,” he said gravely, and she knew it would be pointless to argue with him. “What did you learn?”

  “I don’t suppose this is a mistake?” she asked hopefully.

  “It isn’t,” he replied.

  “Okay,” she sighed, “but it doesn’t make a lot of sense. There were eight guards left in the Empire Bank when the vault was breached. The cops questioned all eight separately, and they all told the same story.”

  “Not that unusual when you say it like that,” he raised an eyebrow.

  “But they all told the exact same story. Each of them claims to have been in the corridor to the east of the vault on their regular rounds. They heard a cry from one of the other guards and ran to the atrium, where they saw no one. They made their way back downstairs and each and every one of them claims to have been the one that discovered the open vault door, with no one else around.”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “Should we go?”

  She stood and followed him across the hall. “But Boss, this doesn’t make any sense at all. Why would they each tell the same story?”

  “The police certainly don’t seem bothered by the sheer stupidity of it. They’re holding all eight of the guards and trying to build a case for conspiracy.” He opened the door that lead into the launch bay for their pneumatic tubes.

  They strode across the room, Kit still shaking her head as she followed behind.

  “But if eight guys were trying to get their stories straight–”

  “–why wouldn’t they invent eight different versions of the same story?” he said with a grin. “Eight different roles within the same felonious little pageant?”

  “Well, yeah… or failing that, how about absolutely any other plan you could possibly think of? How about that? How about anything even slightly less moronic or suspicious than eight totally identical stories?” She stopped short and crossed her arms. She was almost sure he knew something that he wasn’t telling her.

  It took him a second to realize she had stopped walking. When he did, he came back to her at once, standing a little closer than he usually did, and not nearly as close as she wished he would.

  “It’s a bad lie, isn’t it?” he said gently.

  “The worst,” she nodded.

  “Makes no sense at all?” he asked.

  “None. Less than none.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Then I suppose they must be telling the truth,” he smiled.

  “But- but that makes even less sense!” she protested.

  “Less than less than none?” He was toying with her now. She narrowed her eyes and said nothing. She hoped he didn’t realize it was because she was biting the inside of her cheeks to keep from kissing him.

  “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said, walking up the steps towards the tube marked Mansion, oblivious.

  “You’re not just going to… appear in the library, are you?” she called.

  He paused. “It’s a good point. I’ll take the Coach House tube and walk up the lane as if a taxi dropped me off.”

  “Classy,” she smirked, stepping into the tube marked Garage. “I’ll have the car out front in ten minutes,” she said.

  He assumed the slightly woozy manner of a wealthy young cad who had been out all night. “Splendid,” he said. “I’ll be down in twenty.”

  Fourteen

  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.

  Fifteen

  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.