"He's here," she said nervously.

Qwilleran followed her to the kitchen to greet the man who was stealing his housekeeper. He gave Hackpole a handshake intended to be hearty and sincere and found his fingers crushed in a powerful grip.

"They say we can expect some snow tonight," Qwilleran said, employing Moose County's standard conversation opener.

"It won't snow for a few days yet," Hackpole said. "I've been out in the woods all day, and I can tell by the way the whitetails are acting."

"I hear you're an expert woodsman, and I'd like to hear more about that, but first... how about a drink? Mrs. Cobb, what is your pleasure?"

"Do you think I could have a whiskey sour?" she asked coyly.

"Shot and a beer for me," her date said. He was wearing his date-night attire: a corduroy sports coat with plaid flannel shirt. Koko had been circling him and finally ventured to sniff his shoes.

"Scat!" yelled Hackpole, stamping his foot.

Koko did not even blink.

"What's the matter with that cat? Is it deaf?" he asked. "I can make most cats jump two feet off the floor."

"Koko considers himself licensed to sniff shoes," Qwilleran said. "He knows you have dogs at home."

The three of them pulled up chairs around the ancient kitchen table imported from a Spanish monastery.

"Looks like you could use a new table," said the guest, surveying three centuries of carefully preserved distress marks. He tossed off the shot and then poked three fingers in the breast pocket of his sports coat.

Mrs. Cobb tapped his hand in an affectionate rebuke. "No smoking, dear. It's bad for the antiques, and it's forbidden by law in museums."

He left the cigarettes in his pocket and looked warily at Koko. "Why does it sit there staring at me?" he demanded with the irritability of a smoker who has been told not to smoke.

"Koko is evaluating you," Qwilleran said. "The data will be programmed in the minicomputer in his brain."

"We always used to have a pack of barn cats around," said the guest. "We'd tie a tin can to a cat's tail and have a swell moving target for a .22." He laughed, but he was the only one who did.

Qwilleran said, "If you tied a can to Koko's tail, he'd sit and stare at a point between your eyes until you began to feel dizzy. Soon there would be a dull ache under your left shoulder blade, then a stabbing abdominal pain. Your feet would get numb, and you'd find it hard to breathe. Then your blood would start to itch. Do you know what it feels like to have itching blood?"

Mrs. Cobb patted her friend's hand. "He's only kidding, dear. He's always kidding." She saw him fingering the cigarette pack again. "Oops! Musn't do!"

Hackpole threw the pack on the table.

"I hear you're pretty good with a deer rifle," Qwilleran said amiably.

"Yeah, I'm a pretty good shooter. I've hunted elk, moose, grizzlies — everything. The whitetail's my favorite, though. I've got some eight-point trophy bucks mounted, but the forkhorn gives the best meat. That's what I brought in yesterday. I always get my buck the first day."

Qwilleran thought, I'll bet he does some poaching the rest of the year.

"I made a clean kill and made sure it was well bled out. Then I gutted it, slung it over my back, and carried it to my pickup. I was home by noon. It weighed in at one ninety-eight."

Qwilleran mentally subtracted fifty pounds.

With a hint of pride Mrs. Cobb said, "Herb is a still-hunter."

"Yeah. You don't know about still-hunting, I bet." Qwilleran had to admit his ignorance.

"Still-hunters, we don't sit behind a bush and wait for something to come down the trail. You hafta move around, looking for game-very slow, very careful, very quiet. When you sight your buck, you stalk it and wait for the best shot. You hafta move like a deer and make noise like a deer would. Like, no zippers, no cigarette lighters. You hafta have good eyes and a good running shot. Lotta satisfaction in still-hunting."

"I'm impressed," Qwilleran said as he poured another shot for his guest. "I understand you're also a volunteer fire fighter."

"I'm quittin'," Hackpole said, looking disgruntled. "A lotta women are joining up. I don't mind them running a canteen when it's an all-night fire, but they got no business driving a truck and hanging around the fire hall."

The bride-to-be said, "I'm glad he's giving it up. It's terribly dangerous."

"Yeah, smoke inhalation, for one thing. Or you're trying to vent a fire and the roof caves in. Once I saw a hose get away from the nozzleman and go whipping around, cracking heads and breaking bones. You don't know the power of water going through a hose! There's a lotta stuff people don't know."

"I've always wondered why firemen go crazy with the ax," Qwilleran said.

"We gotta vent the fire, so the smoke and heat can get out and we can go into the building and knock down the blaze."

"Any idea what caused the Picayune fire?"

"Started in the basement. That's all anybody knows. My shop did some repair work on those old presses. They had a drip pan underneath to catch the solvent when they cleaned off the ink. There was a lotta rags, a lotta paper. Bad business! The stairs acted like a flue, and the fire went right up to the roof.”

"Well, dear," Mrs. Cobb said, "we ought to be going, but first I want you to see the pub in the basement."

The original builders of the mansion had imported an I English .pub from London, complete with bar, tavern tables and chairs, even wall paneling.

It was something Hackpole could appreciate. "Hey, you could get a liquor license and open a tavern down here," he said.

As they rode the elevator back to the main floor, Qwilleran asked where they were going to dinner.

"Otto's Tasty Eats. One price — all you can eat." He fingered his breast pocket. "Where's my cigarettes?"

"You left them on the kitchen table, dear," said Mrs. Cobb.

"I don't see the damn things," he called from the kitchen.

"Did you look in all your pockets?"

"It don’t matter. I got another pack in the glove compartment."

Qwilleran extended his hand. "I'm glad we could finally meet, and let me congratulate you on finding a wonderful — "

He was interrupted by a loud crash. It came from the rear of the house. He and the housekeeper rushed into the solarium, followed slowly by their guest. The place was in darkness, but a pale, ghostly shape streaked out of the room as they entered.

When the lights were switched on, the catastrophe was revealed. In the middle of the floor stood the mobile herb garden, and nearby was a clay pot, smashed, with soil and foliage scattered in every direction. Other plants had been uprooted from their pots and flung about the room, and the floor was a gritty mess of soil and leaves.

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" said Mrs. Cobb in shock and dismay.

"It's our resident ghost," Qwilleran explained to Hackpole. "Did Mrs. Cobb tell you we have a ghost?"

Nobly she said, "Every old house should have a ghost," but there was a tremor in her voice, and she glanced around uneasily for a glimpse of the guilty cat.

"We'll replace everything," Qwilleran reassured her. "Don't worry. You two go to dinner, and I'll clean up the mess. Have a nice evening."

As soon as the couple had left, he went in search of the Siamese. As he expected, they were in the library, looking innocent and satisfied. He stepped on a small bump and found a cigarette under the Bokhara rug. That was Yum Yum's contribution to the occasion. Koko had his chin on his paw and his paw on the cover of a pigskin-bound book. He raised his head and turned bright expectant eyes on the man.

"I'm not going to read to you. You don't deserve it," Qwilleran said quietly but firmly. "That was a wicked thing to do. You know how much Mrs. Cobb loves her herb garden, and our food tastes better because of the things she grows. So don't expect any kind words from me! You lie there and contemplate your sins, and try to be a better cat in the future... I'm going out to dinner."