"How in the name of Zappa do you do it?" he asked. "It's hard enough even to tame roches, to say nothing of training them as you've done."
Hanlon grinned. "Professional secret, nyer." Then he sobered and added, "Actually, it's mainly a matter of hours and days and months of hard work with them, until they know me and like me well enough to do what I tell them, and I know what they are able to do."
He broke away, then, before they could question him further. In his dressing room, while he was putting the uniforms on his dogs and himself, and donning his roch-mask, he pondered seriously a thing that had struck him a stunning blow. For Ebony's mind and delicate senses seemed to detect a distinct similarity between the tones of Egon's voice and those of the masked man—as well as a sameness of effluvia—even though the two spoke in different keys and timbre of voice.
Profoundly stirred, Hanlon studied this seeming fact with intense concentration. How could he make certain?
But his call came just then, and he had to let this new matter rest while he devoted his entire mind to the work of controlling his roches for their act.
Later, in his room, as he again watched Yandor through the cat's eyes, he saw him in his home with Egon and two other men, playing cards, but merely as a group of friends. Nothing whatever was said, during the hours, about any special activities of a criminal nature. No sedition nor revolution was talked; neither Terra nor the matter of Estrella's joining the Federation was so much as mentioned.
Still Hanlon was not sure—and he must become so. Perhaps, he reasoned, the other two men were not in on any of these activities, and for that reason Yandor and Egon could not discuss these matters in their presence. Or perhaps Egon, himself, was not part of Yandor's criminal group after all.
There must be some way of getting proof, Hanlon thought anxiously. How could he positively connect the two, and make sure whether or not the cat's feelings were correct—that Egon was the masked man?
The opportunity came just before the party broke up for the night, many hours later. Egon had picked up the cat and was petting it, as the men were preparing to leave Yandor's house. Not being used to cats, and not knowing the manner in which they like to be petted—rubbing the fur the way it naturally lies down—Egon was ruffling it and rubbing his hands forth and back across Ebony's body.
The cat did not like it. It was only Hanlon's firm control that kept it from ... "Hey, that's it!"