"He's thanking you for the compliment," Qwilleran explained.
Koko had something else in mind, however. As soon as he had their attention, he nosed the maroon velvet box across the desk until it fell to the floor.
Qwilleran picked it up. "He has a parlor trick he performs. If I place the dominoes facedown on the table, he can make a blind draw and come up with high-scoring pieces, like double-six and double-five. You sit down and watch quietly." He spread the entire set on the table and encouraged Koko to draw.
The four dominoes that landed on the floor were not high-scoring pieces; they were 0-1, 1-2, 1-4, and 3-4. Elizabeth laughed merrily. It was the first time Qwilleran had heard her laugh. "Do you think cats have a sense of humor?" she asked.
"I think Koko gets a kick out of making me look like a fool."
She was toying with the four dominoes Koko had selected. "He's smarter than you think," she said. "If you add the spots on each one, you get one, three, five and seven. If you match them with the letters of the alphabet, you get A, C, E and G. And if you shuffle them, you get Cage. That's my middle name."
Qwilleran felt goosebumps on the back of his neck. It had to be pure coincidence, he thought. And yet he said, "I'd like to hear more about numerology. Would you have lunch with me at the hotel some day this week?"
"I'd be delighted!" she said, and her eyes sparkled.
He thought, There's nothing wrong with this girl that can't be cured by a reduction in motherpower and a few chocolate malts.
On the way out, Elizabeth caught sight of the gilded leather masks over the sofa. "Your theater masks are stunning!" she said and then she giggled. "One looks like my brother William, and one looks like Jack."
After the phaeton had rolled away from Four Pips, Qwilleran remembered an episode in his early-school years. His teacher, Miss Heath, had a toothy and ambiguous smile that could mean either good news or bad news. Being a domino player at home, although a reluctant one, his private name for her was Miss Double-six. The class was seated alphabetically, and James Qwilleran was assigned to sit in front of a fat kid named Archibald Riker. In dull moments they amused each other by exchanging notes in secret code. It was nothing that would stump a cryptographer—or even Miss Double-six if she had caught them; the letters of the alphabet were numbered 1 to 26. One day, while her back was turned, Qwilleran tossed a wad of paper over his shoulder: 13-9-19-19 8-5-1-20-8 8-1-19 2-9-7 20-5-5-20-8. Arch decoded it and laughed so hard that he choked and was sent into the hall for a drink of water. Forty years later, he still quaked with internal laughter whenever he saw someone with prominent dentition.
And now, after all those years, Qwilleran had a cat who was interested in double-six—most of the time. That was the name of Nick's boat; did it mean that Koko wanted to go home? Or did the twelve pips signify the letter L? And if so, what did the letter L have to do with anything? Kao K'o Kung had some obscure ways of communicating. Often it was merely a matter of nudging Qwilleran's thought processes. In this case, nothing clicked.
The morning plate of meatloaf was still untouched, and Qwilleran's determination to win the argument struggled with his humane instincts—and lost. Just because he had been impulsive enough to pay for ten pounds of meatloaf up front, he could not let them starve. He opened a can of boned chicken. The breakfast that the Siamese had ignored was carried to the trash cans for the strays.
Nick was there, working on the foundation of the building. "Mildew's a problem," he explained. "I'm taking a week of my vacation and trying to catch up on the maintenance ... Say, Qwill, does the music from Five Pips bother you?"
"It's a little mind-numbing when she practices technique, but I've learned to wear ear plugs for catfights, fog horns, and finger exercises."
"I had to speak to her about smoking this afternoon," said the hard-working innkeeper. "I was repairing one of her porch screens and saw a saucerful of butts. She thinks she's a privileged character because Exbridge pays her rent .. . How about you? Is everything okay?"
"So far, so good. Tonight I meet with my undercover man. Right now I'm on my way downtown for something to eat."
At the hotel he waited for the Comptons to come out of the small auditorium where Lyle had delivered his lecture on "Bloody Scotland." The superintendent of schools had a perverse sense of humor that Qwilleran enjoyed, and Lisa's agreeable disposition was a foil for her husband's orneriness.
She said, "We had a good crowd, with lots of young people. They like blood, and Lyle always pours it on: the massacre at Glen Coe, the atrocities of the Highland Clearances, and the slaughter at the Battle of Culloden."
