“I’m surprised Old Lady Mann didn’t sleep in a different room,” Jake said. “There must be a dozen bedrooms in that place.”
“Seventeen,” Hans said. “We used to host visiting theater troupes when they came through town. Some of the bedrooms have been closed up for years, but even when my mother tried sleeping in those rooms, the noises followed her, and there were things thrown around every morning.” He pushed his plate away and faced me. “Hix knows my mother,” he said, “but you don’t, Snicket. So let me tell you that she is tough as nails. She doesn’t frighten easily. In fifty years of local theater she’s seen too many crazy actors and elaborate productions to be troubled by nonsense. So when she told me she was frightened, I was worried, but now she’s panicked and I’m frantic.”
I put down my fork. It is not polite to talk to frantic people with one’s mouth full of whipped cream. “Was there something specific that made her panic?” I asked.
Hans nodded. “Last night, she says, she finally saw the ghost who was responsible for all the disturbances.”
“There are many things that could be responsible instead of ghosts,” I said.
“Right again, brother,” Hans said with a nod. “I don’t believe in ghosts, and my mother never did either. But last night she told me she saw the ghost of my father floating outside her bedroom window. That’s on the fifth floor! No person could climb up all that way!”
“Most people couldn’t,” I agreed, “but some people could. I went to school with a few of them. I bet there’s even a windowsill they could stand on.”
“It’s too narrow,” Hans said, “and too crumbly. But my mother said she saw my father there, clear as day in the middle of the night—a floating, fluttering specter with a dark and shadowy face.”
“A shadowy face,” I repeated. “Then how could your mother be sure who it was?”
“Because she was married to him for thirty-seven years,” Hans said. “You could recognize your husband, even if it was dark out.”
“The whole town could recognize him,” Jake said. “He was famous in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. He made those mosaics we were talking about.”
“He was in a few of the Playhouse shows, too,” Hans said. “I remember my sister worked all night on his costume for The Man Who Looked Somewhat Like Winston Churchill before she joined the air force. But now it’s my father’s ghost flying around out there, my mother says. But it doesn’t really matter if it’s a real ghost or not. I’m taking my mother back to the city.”
“Not so fast,” Jake said, and pointed his spatula at me. “I bet Snicket can solve this mystery just by asking a question or two. Am I wrong, Snicket?”
“What makes these bananas taste so good?” I asked.
Hix frowned, and I guess I deserved a frown. I was showing off a little.
“I caramelize them,” Jake said, “but that’s a professional secret.”
“It’s no secret that the world is full of secrets,” I said. “I guess we’d better go over to the Mann mansion and uncover one or two.”
“You’re welcome to talk to my mother,” Hans said, “but I told you everything she told me.”
“It’s not your mother I want to talk to,” I said, and pushed my plate away with a sigh. “In a way I feel sorry for the guy. You were right, Hans. You can’t always have the life you want most. And even if the mosaics go to a museum, a mansion is a much better home than an old shack in the former Anchovy District.”
The conclusion to “Troublesome Ghost” is filed under “Train Wreck,” here.
FIGURE IN FOG.
Sometimes you are suspicious because of something, and sometimes you are suspicious because of nothing. This incident began in the library, where I could find nothing good to read. This was suspicious. Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s library was not particularly big, but it was one of those libraries that seemed to grow bigger every time I visited. Thanks to the librarian, Dashiell Qwerty, the shelves kept offering books that again and again turned out to be just what I needed at the time. But this afternoon what I needed was to go outside. Nothing told me this. I just shut the fifth book I’d tried, and knew. The book had begun with a brute of a man who attacked a little girl, and then felt bad about it and offered her family a huge sum of money that he’d stolen from a famous scientist. If that didn’t interest me, it was time to leave the library.
Outside it was foggy, which was also suspicious. The sea had been drained away from the shores of Stain’d-by-the-Sea so Ink Inc., the biggest company in town, could chase the last few remaining octopi and keep the ink industry alive for just a little longer. Usually, if there’s no sea there’s no fog, but nobody had told the fog this. From time to time a thick gray mist spread out over the empty seascape, dribbling over bridges that had once curved over the rippling waters, and wrapping itself around Offshore Island, where a bell still rang from a tower sometimes, and that was suspicious, too.
“Leaving so soon?” asked a voice behind me, and I turned around to see Dashiell Qwerty shooing a moth out of his library. “I should think on a day like this you’d want to stay inside and read a book, not wander around town.”
“It is a little miserable out there,” I agreed, gesturing toward the lawn, “but it’s interesting, too. I thought you could only have fog near a body of water.”
“Oh, no,” Qwerty said, frowning at the departing moth. “Many marshes or unusually damp valleys create enough moisture for fog.”
“But there aren’t any marshes around here, are there?”
“There are not.”
“And the valleys are not particularly damp.”
“They are not.”
“So the whole thing is suspicious.”
Qwerty cocked his head at me. “The whole thing?” he repeated.
“The fog,” I said. “The vanished sea, the living forest of seaweed, the island and its bell, the thefts, the disappearances, the kidnappings, the mysteries, the puzzling pieces of a shadowy and fiendish plot with an equally shadowy and perhaps even more fiendish villain.” I paused, not knowing how much of the story I should tell him. Librarians are generally trustworthy people, but part of a librarian’s job is to make information available to everyone, and this was information I felt should be kept secret. “All the strange encounters,” I finished, “and all the troubling incidents I seem to find in this town.”
“Do you find them, Snicket? Or do they find you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Look at it this way, Snicket,” Qwerty said as the fog kept rolling across the grass. “To a stranger in town, such as yourself, Stain’d-by-the-Sea is full of suspicious incidents. But to the people of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, you’re a suspicious incident yourself. You arrived out of the blue and live in a hotel suite with an adult who seems to be neither your parent nor your guardian. You ask a lot of questions about anything and everything, and anyone and everyone has questions about you. There are rumors you’re part of a secret organization. There are rumors you are in charge of an important investigation. But nobody really seems to have the foggiest notion what you’re up to.” The librarian sighed, a great billowy sigh that went perfectly with the fog. “What are you up to, Snicket?”
“I couldn’t find anything good to read,” I said, “so I thought I’d take a walk.”
“Good luck,” Qwerty replied.
“With my walk?”
“With the whole thing,” Qwerty said, and gave me a wave as he walked back into the library. Conversations with Dashiell Qwerty often brought me more questions than answers, but many conversations with librarians are like that. If you’re a librarian, questions are good for business.
I walked down the stairs, which had once been impressive, and away from the building, which had once been City Hall, but I stopped halfway across the lawn, right near the ruins of what had once been an important statue. I stopped for a reason.
There was a figure in the fog.
The figure looked about my size, perhaps a
little taller. The figure was just a little ways away, facing me, with its arms straight down and its legs slightly apart, like it was about to move. But it wasn’t moving. It wasn’t doing anything, and that’s what seemed suspicious.
“Hello?” I said.
The figure seemed to nod. That seemed suspicious, too, although I had to remind myself that there was nothing wrong with nodding. Still, I wondered why the figure hadn’t replied with “Hello” or “Good afternoon” or “Foggy out today, isn’t it?” or even “Lemony Snicket, you didn’t recognize me, did you? It’s me, Such-and-such, your associate, and I’ve found a place in Stain’d-by-the-Sea that makes very good root beer floats and I’d like to buy you one.” Instead it had said nothing, and instead it had done nothing, and now it still was saying nothing and doing nothing, and all these nothings made me suspicious, so at last, when it stopped doing nothing and began to walk, I decided to follow.
I’ve said before that the trick to following someone without getting caught is to follow somebody who doesn’t know they’re being followed, but of course if you have no idea who the person is you’re following, you have no idea if they know you’re following them, and so you have no idea if you’re going to be caught or not. If you think you might be caught at something, you should have an excuse ready, so I decided that if the figure confronted me, I would say I was just trying to find the Lost Arms and got lost in the fog. It wasn’t a great excuse, but I couldn’t think of a better one. In any case, if the figure knew it was being followed, it didn’t do anything about it. It kept walking, and I kept following, about half a block behind. I still couldn’t tell anything about the figure. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female, child or adult, stranger or associate. All I knew was that it was suspicious, although I thought of what Qwerty had said, and realized maybe I was the suspicious one. After all, I was following somebody. The figure was just walking.
It turned out to be a long walk, through many streets and alleys in many neighborhoods of Stain’d-by-the-Sea. We walked without rhyme or reason, a phrase which here means every which way, and although we passed many places which were familiar to me, the route was an unfamiliar one. At times it seemed we were going in circles, or taking the long way around or perhaps a shortcut that had never occurred to me, or maybe we were traveling along a very definite path, taking the shortway or a longcut that had occurred to me many times, as the town was so foggy and empty that I was growing confused. Confusion is not good if you are already suspicious. Suspicion means you think something is going to happen. Confusion means you don’t know what it is. If something is going to happen and you don’t know what it is, you begin to ask yourself more and more questions and get more and more suspicious and confused.
Sure enough, as the figure led me through Stain’d-by-the-Sea, I asked myself more and more questions about suspicious incidents I had recently encountered.
We passed a boarded-up window that had once been smashed, and I thought of the Big Bad Brick Gang and their burglaries, and I wondered about all of the closed-up businesses, and where all the shopkeepers had gone when their stores had vanished.
We walked by a stationery store, and I thought of the staple gun factory and Hans and the rattling chains in his mother’s house, and I wondered about theatrical productions, fish scale mosaics, and other lost creations of the residents of Stain’d-by-the-Sea.
We crossed the road that led to the office of the Doctors Sobol, and I thought of Oliver and his two pairs of glasses, and I wondered how to keep something as fragile and valuable as a rare newt safe in such a ragged and desperate place as Stain’d-by-the-Sea, or any amusement park.
We passed Hungry’s, and I thought of the voice coming out of the walkie-talkie, and I wondered why the guy who came into town once a month for steak frites lived in a condominium just a few blocks from the diner.
We rounded Homily Hill, and I thought about the sled race and the photograph and the party at Mr. Willow’s home, and I wondered about a person who had once loved a man enough to get married and despised him enough to frame him for theft.
We walked around a deep, dark hole in the ground, and I thought of Marguerite, the minor and the miner, and I wondered about her mother, who had left her beloved portraits on the walls but was nowhere to be found.
We walked by Moray Wheels, and I thought about the missing dog and the mechanic named Jackie and I wondered about a grandfather who liked to joyride, and a grandchild who liked to repair automobiles, and how long they could continue to live in a town that was going nowhere.
We passed an abandoned band shell, where brass bands must have performed in better times, and I thought of the French horn factory and the three brothers in the Mitchums’ jail, and I wondered how many people in Stain’d-by-the-Sea were hungry enough to steal.
We walked by a chain-link fence with a hole in it, and I thought of Randall and the drifters and the stolen spoon, and I wondered how desperate you would have to be to live on the outskirts of a town that was almost gone.
We passed the Swinster Pharmacy, and I thought of Lois Dressing and the postcard, and wondered about the Yamgraz, and what vanished people had come even before them.
We walked by Cozy’s, and I thought of the twins and the failing rocking chair business and wondered why some people believed in things like demons, and if they were right to do so.
We passed Black Cat Coffee, and I wondered if a small boy was safe and sound. But I also wondered about someone else, a mysterious figure who was the reason I’d stopped by Black Cat Coffee that day and any other day. Maybe the mysterious figure is the mysterious figure, I thought to myself. She’s the type who might nod, rather than return a greeting. She’s the type who might lead me all around town. She’s the type you might end up following, Snicket, even though you’d be suspicious about where she might lead you. The figure got farther and farther ahead of me until I found myself calling her name into the fog.
Maybe the figure was Ellington Feint and maybe it wasn’t, but suddenly I knew one thing for certain about the figure, and that was that the figure was gone.
I looked this way and that, the way you do when you are alone and hope you aren’t, or when you aren’t but hope you are. I thought I heard footsteps in the fog, but I didn’t have the foggiest notion where they were coming from or what they were up to, or even if they were suspicious after all. Just because you think it’s suspicious doesn’t mean it is. Think of what Qwerty said, about all the people in Stain’d-by-the-Sea who are suspicious of you, just because you’re a stranger in town and they don’t have the foggiest notion of what you’re up to.
And then I heard a sound—a person’s voice calling a single word.
I could not tell where exactly it was coming from or what exactly it was saying, and I didn’t know whose voice it was. I didn’t even know if it sounded familiar. The villain I was facing, in my biggest case, had the skill of imitating anyone’s voice. It could be him imitating someone. It could be someone he was imitating. It could be someone else imitating someone else. It was another mystery, another suspicious incident, or perhaps it was nothing. The voice called out again, a single word I could not quite catch, like something in a book that’s difficult to understand, or written in fading ink.
I stood in the fog and wondered what to do next. Wherever I went in town, I found questions I had to ask, no matter how wrong and no matter how suspicious the answers might be. You’re going to keep asking questions, Snicket, I thought to myself. You’ll keep searching for the right answers even if the questions are wrong. The voice called out again, and I took a deep breath and followed it into the fog.
The conclusion to “Figure in Fog” is filed under “Shouted Word,” here.
Sub-file B: Conclusions.
Small Sound. Chalked Name. Panicked Feet. Very Obvious. Message Received. Train Wreck. Shouted Word.
SMALL SOUND.
A hollow metal space will amplify small noises, such as the breathing of a young, frightened boy. D
rumstick was hiding in the garbage can, dirty but grateful and seriously considering becoming a vegetarian.
CHALKED NAME.
Mrs. Willow was not holding her husband’s sled, which would have been marked with the number four. She was holding her own, unmarked sled. She was the thirteenth sledder, joining the race in secret and stealing the painting in order to frame her husband and run away with the lawn mower technician. Ms. Mallahan and Mr. Snicket notified the authorities in town, but Mr. Willow had escaped from prison some time before with a skeleton key. Did his locksmith wife regret framing him? Or did he escape of his own accord? Anyone with further information should contact us through the publisher.
PANICKED FEET.
Tatiana fell on the piers to give Treacle enough time to dash back to Cozy’s, to give himself the appearance of innocence. But he had to work quickly to change out of the long, black coat and into his pajamas. He hid his long, bushy wig in the most convenient place—in the basket, where it blended in with the hairy dog. It would have worked, but when the dog was summoned the wig was revealed. After some conversation over tea, the twins agreed to get Tatiana out of her marriage through calm conversation rather than tricks with demons, though the mystery of why anyone likes rocking chairs remains to be solved.
VERY OBVIOUS.
It was the third brother, of course. It’s important to get a good night’s rest.
MESSAGE RECEIVED.
Lois Dressing, sipping tangerine soda, had suddenly realized she was about to leave town with a library book on the Yamgraz, and hurried back to the library. In her haste, she left the postcard in the book, and by the time she was at Stain’d Station noticing its absence, Qwerty had put the book back on the shelf. Luckily, no one had checked it out in the interim, possibly because of the unsightly cover design.