by Gregg Taylor
She blinked at him again. Sometimes she was so wrapped up in the business of being the Flying Squirrel that the people around her became mere obstacles. Things to steer one’s life around. She had to stop that, especially if she was to keep more of Kit Baxter in her than the Red Panda had kept of August Fenwick.
“Weston,” she said, “is it just possible that you’ve had a tough time lately?”
He smiled. “I don’t know if you enjoy the theatre, Miss Baxter,” he began, “but I have always been partial to a good farce, myself. Lots of running about, lots of doors slamming. I enjoy a good laugh. But I must say that they are less amusing when you are actually living one. Particularly when your role seems to be that generally reserved for the vicar or the policeman. They never seem to enjoy themselves.”
“That bad, huh?” Kit grinned.
“I think I can comfortably say that your mildly unsupervised trip to Alexandria would not be on a list of the ten most potentially scandalous goings-on of this mercifully brief holiday,” Weston said, seriously. “And I say this to you in a degree of confidence, but these are facts that everyone knows and no one will likely ever mention again. Except that David and Elsie are getting married, you really ought to congratulate them at some point.”
“David and Elsie?” Kit was mentally trying to sort out which one Elsie was. “I didn’t even know they were… oh… I think I see.”
“Yes,” Weston said. “It was most sudden. To be perfectly honest, I’m quite astonished that you didn’t return to find half the household staff in some sort of mass-wedding ceremony, like one of those cults. But for the precise timing of a few slammed doors, it might very well have been as unavoidable as it was for David and Elsie. That would have put me in solid with the Master, I’m certain.”
Kit was astonished. She had never thought about any of the other butlers as a man with a job, and one as worried about keeping it as anyone might be in tough times.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Baxter, I do not mean to burden you with lurid details,” Weston said, his moustache drawing to attention as his upper lip re-stiffed.
“No, it’s fine,” Kit said, sorry that her silence had been interpreted as an offended one.
“The point of all of this is just this,” Weston began. “I am considerably older than you, and therefore I hope I may be allowed to observe in a somewhat clinical fashion that you are a very beautiful girl.”
“It’s a bit stuffy,” she said, her face growing hot, “but I’ll allow it. If only because it is not the sort of thing that is observed very often.”
He frowned at this. “I beg your pardon, Miss Baxter, but I promise you that the observation is made more than daily. I would expect that it has been made to one degree or another by virtually every man that you have met for most of your life.”
She laughed a little and knew that she was bright red. “Weston, please, I don’t do praise very well.”
Weston smiled. “No, you don’t. And that is a small part of what makes me so entirely certain of the sort of person that you are, and that you do not need quite as much minding as this pack of silly geese. But the fact is that you present something of a problem to someone in my position.”
Her smile faded at this.
“I do not know precisely how to say this without risking offense, which is not my intent,” Weston began. “If a young lady who is in my charge is… if her reputation is suddenly much more than simply called into question, then I have failed her. Even if she was, like Elsie, going to considerable lengths to thwart my attempts to protect her interests. Now in this case, the young man has done the proper thing and all is well, but…”
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
“I never really got the feeling that the other butlers were trying to protect me,” Kit said.
“No,” Weston agreed. “They did not merely suspect your misconduct, they considered it a virtual certainty. They regarded you as an adventuress.”
“Well,” she said, “I like the sound of that, but probably not the way they meant it.”
“No,” Weston agreed, “probably not. They expected that somewhere along the line there would be a public scandal and excessive financial demands would be made by you for your silence. They expected that people would look at it as a failure on their part to maintain discipline within their households, and a failure on their part to protect the Master, which is also a part of the job. They expected you to ruin them, and they tried their best to ruin you instead.”
Kit blinked hard and was surprised to find there were tears in her eyes. Not running down her face in some stupid girlish way, but they were thinking about it.
“But,” Weston said with a smile, “we work for a good man with a keen sense of justice.”
“What makes you so sure of that?” Kit asked, surprised.
“His conduct toward yourself,” Weston said. “There’s a bit of a routine he plays for others, and I imagine it is to keep people at arm’s length. That’s his business, not mine. But I know a good man when I see one.”
Kit nodded. She did too, and she was looking at one.
“I know a good girl when I see one too,” Weston said. “And I do trust you. But it is nearly impossible for me to maintain discipline at times, and having one staff member with extraordinary freedom is not exactly conducive to that.”
Kit frowned. “So what happens?”
Weston was all business. “I have already spoken to the Master and he agrees with me that it would simplify matters a great deal if you were transferred.”
“Transferred?” she blurted. “To where?”
“To nowhere at all,” Weston smiled. “You already maintain your own apartment, keep your own hours, so there really is no particular reason that you should be considered a member of the household staff at all. From this point on, you shall be an employee of one of the Master’s corporate divisions.”
“I work at Fenwick Industries now?” she asked, astonished.
“You do just what you have always done,” Weston said. “But you do not work for me, and our relationship does not have to consist of me looking over your shoulder and having you dislike me, which I should not enjoy.”
He smiled broadly, which he could do now, because she did not work for him.
“Deal?” he said, offering his hand.
“Deal,” she grinned, shaking it.
He stood up and returned to the front of the plane.
Thirty-One
As with any long trip, the final moments were the worst. The airport was a circus of customs officials trying to look like they were not playing favourites with the richest man in the city, whom they had no intention of challenging in the least. There were piles of baggage and the domestic dramas of the household staff and everyone was tired, cramped and trying very hard not to appear irritable. Fenwick Industries had obligingly sent over at least six nearly identical bright young men in nearly identical brown suits, each with a stack of nearly identical papers for August Fenwick to sign, and a deep desire to explain to him what they were, even though he was rather obviously not listening.
Kit wandered away and found a newspaper stand manned by a bored-looking kid. The newsie’s eyes opened wide as she approached, and if he swallowed hard and tried to look more presentable as he sold her a Daily Chronicle, Kit Baxter didn’t notice. Like most editions of the Chronicle, the banner headline was about as subtle as a truck full of piranhas, and she broke into a wide, toothy grin as she read it. She walked back through the Arrivals area with her nose buried in the story, prepared to force her way through the crowds of people surrounding Fenwick. Instead, they parted before her like the Red Sea as she approached, and she knew darn well that he was laying out a little hypnotic welcome mat for her, giving the masses the sudden mental compulsion to be standing somewhere else.
“Got you a paper, Boss,” she said, thrusting the Chronicle into his hands.
“Thank you, Kit,” he said as if deeply bored by the whole thing, “
that’s thoughtful of you.”
His languid air did not change, but she could see his eyes and they danced like fire as they read the headline: Another Rhyme Crime! Poet’s Crime Spree Reaches Fifth Day!
“You know what, Kit?” he asked fecklessly. “I’m a little bored. Are you a little bored?”
“Yes, Boss,” she said.
“You left the car here, didn’t you?” he asked. The bright young men could see what was coming and looked apoplectic at the prospect.
“Yes, Boss,” she smiled sweetly.
“Perhaps a bracing drive with the top down, what do you say?” he asked.
“I don’t think the top comes down on the limousine, Boss,” she said. “Should we go switch cars or something?”
He nodded as if this were a grand and jolly lark. “Yes, why don’t we do that right now?” He turned and saw clearly that all of the luggage that contained hidden panels and crime-fighting equipment had already been cleared by customs and would not be inspected further. “Weston, you’re all right here, aren’t you?” he asked, without waiting for a reply.
It was all the pair of them could do not to bolt for the car at a full run, and Kit Baxter bounced a little as she opened the exit door for him, leaving a stupefied crowd standing on the platform.
“No place like home, is there?” he said quietly as he passed her.
“Yes, Boss,” she beamed.
And as the great black car tore out of the parking lot, it was just possible that a passer-by might have heard a peal of laughter ringing out, just for a fleeting moment. It was a joyous call that those who thought themselves above the law knew to be a challenge, a threat, a battle-cry.
It was the laugh of the Red Panda!
-THE END-
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