The Cat Who Came To Breakfast

Qwilleran said to him, "If the weatherman is correct, there's going to be a leak in the plumbing of Mount Olympus tomorrow."

After that the words were ordinary: idea, blade, gable, hack, deaf (or fade) and deal (or lead). Then five of Koko's favorite dominoes landed on the floor: 3-3, 2-2, 6-6, 2-3, and 4-5. As usual, Qwilleran was able to spell field. There was no particular significance to field until the next draw, which consisted of 2-4, 1-3, 6-3, 6-6, and 0-5. Although the pips were different, they reduced to the same digits, which corresponded to the same letters: field. It had been one of the cat's favorites from the start. A tremor rippled across Qwilleran's upper lip. For the first time it occurred to him that field could be shuffled to spell filed. He hurried from the room and ran downstairs to have a look at the porch. The crawl space underneath was ventilated with panels of wood lattice. He found Nick hanging shutters on the south side of the building. "How do we get under the porch?" he asked. "I'd like to put Koko on a leash and have him look at the underside of the steps."

"There are removable panels at each end. You need a high-powered flashlight—maybe two. I'll go with you."

Qwilleran never traveled with the Siamese without taking their harnesses. Yum Yum abhorred the idea, but Koko always liked to be buckled up.

Downstairs Nick had removed the access panel and had two battery-operated lanterns.

Qwilleran said, "This is a wild shot, but we might find evidence of tampering." First he let Koko wander about the porch, now empty of swings and chairs. The cat sniffed in desultory fashion for a few minutes and then went directly to the third step from the top. In a low voice Qwilleran said, "He knows the trouble spot. Let's crawl underneath."

He went first, with Koko leading. Nick followed with the second lantern. It was a long crawl through damp sand, detritus, and skeletons of small animals. They made slow progress, as Koko was distracted by many items of catly interest. When they reached the steps, Nick flashed his lantern up at the new construction—treated wood, solidly braced and nailed—but the cat was interested only in the sand below. There were sawed-off remnants of lumber and new galvanized nails dropped by the carpenter. There were also fragments of old rusty nails and something else half-buried in the sand. Koko was digging for it—an old hack saw blade. Qwilleran's moustache bristled as he remembered the dominoes: hack and blade and filed.

He said to Nick, "Do you see what I see?"

"A couple of swipes with that thing would cut through a rusty nail like a piece of cake."

"Don't touch it. It's our evidence," Qwilleran said. "You know, Nick, when my barn was being converted, there were rusty nails in the hundred-year-old timbers, and the carpenter whacked them with a metal file. They broke like breadsticks."

"So now the question is: Who whacked the nails under our steps?"

"Let's get out of here."

They crawled out, dragging a reluctant cat. Nick wanted to finish the shuttering. Qwilleran wanted another look at the domino records he had been keeping. He also wanted to check the post office before it closed.

Upstairs, Yum Yum greeted the returning hero with assorted reactions; he brought with him the scent of untold mysteries. Koko, when divested of his leather trappings, took a half hour to launder his fur thoroughly. Qwilleran checked the records for words and numbers that would trigger a thought process.

Lead, depending on how it was pronounced, could refer to a metal with chemically poisonous properties, or it could be another name for leash. Words with K, L, and J reflected Koko's preference for high-pip dominoes: 5-6, 6-6, and 5-5. In general he favored doubles—like 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, and 4-4—suggesting a sense of order or balance.

Next Qwilleran examined his own shuffling of letters: Field became filed; idle could be lied; lake and leak appeared on the list every day. Why? Because Koko liked 5-6 and 6-6? The letters, Qwilleran now realized, could also spell kale, a kind of cabbage of which he was not fond, or the name of a local family. There were Kales, Beadles, and Lawsons all over the island, someone had said.

"Yow!" said Koko in a tone that made Qwilleran's moustache bristle again.

He glanced at his watch. There was no time to lose. "Be right back," he said to the Siamese, who gazed at him with their so-what? expression.

The postal clerk at General Delivery, who had disappointed him so many times, was pleased to hand him two pieces of mail. The postcard he read immediately. It was written in Polly's usual telegraphic style:

Wonderful country. Good birding. Sarah is fun! She's helped me make a very important decision. Details later. Arrive airport 7:35 Friday. Love, Polly

Qwilleran's suspicions were confirmed. So be it! He huffed into his moustache with resignation. It would make some changes in his life. It would never be the same without Polly.

The other piece of mail was a letter in a Pear Island Hotel envelope, with "D.S." inked above the return address. He put it in his pocket. At the moment, and under the circumstances, what did he care about Noisette's last name?

CHAPTER 17

Qwilleran was somewhat subdued as he helped shutter the windows of the inn. Nick said, "They darken the rooms completely, so we'll leave one window uncovered in each room—until the last minute. After that, we live with artificial light, like prison inmates— unless there's a power failure. That means no lights, no water, no refrigeration. We're filling the bathtub with water—and also some five-gallon jugs for drinking. Lori has a campstove that's all right for heating canned food and boiling coffee, but that's about all. The radios operate on batteries, and we have plenty of oil lamps and flashlights, but it won't be fun. If you don't want to stay, Qwill, I'll understand. I'll take you back to the mainland while the lake's still calm."

"I'll stay," Qwilleran said.

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you. If you want to phone anyone on the mainland, tell them we're on high ground, and the building is solid, constructed with huge timbers and thick planks. No shortcuts or substitutions or imitations."

Qwilleran took the suggestion and phoned the newspaper office, leaving a message with the secretary. It was a relief to find that Riker was out of the building. The editor would have tried to harangue him into changing his mind. Whatever Qwilleran proposed to do, his old friend insisted that it was too reckless, too impractical, too frivolous, or too expensive.

Now he was suffering from lack of sleep and the exertion of ladder climbing, and Polly's postcard had induced a state of numb indifference. He flopped on his bed, narrowly missing two dormant lumps of fur, and slept until he was disturbed by two active cats, who were themselves disturbed by noises in the corridor. There were voices, and sounds of luggage handling, and the opening and closing of doors. Someone was moving in! In the groggy state of first awakening, he wondered why anyone would move into the Domino Inn at a time like this, when everyone else was moving out.

He roused himself, combed his halt; washed his face, and went downstairs, where he was met by a wide-eyed Lori. "You'll never guess!" she said. "A new guest just registered! She has beautiful luggage, and she was brought here in a splendid carriage! She says she knows you!"

"What's her name?" he asked warily.

"Elizabeth Cage. I wanted to ask why she'd check into a place with shuttered windows, but then ..." Lori looked at Qwilleran slyly. "I thought it might be something private between you two."

"Where is she now?"

"Upstairs, unpacking. She's in the Lakeview Suite across from you."

"This comes as a total surprise. Do we have any meatloaf sandwiches left over from the fire?"

"That's about alt—including the whole meatloaf you gave us. I'm not prepared to serve dinner guests, you know."