Free Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master by Gregg Taylor Page B

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.
    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