“What is all this?” Harvey Mitchum asked sternly.
“This,” I said, “is Cleo Knight. She had been planning to work in secret on an important formula. And this is Dr. Flammarion, who abducted her so he could get the formula for himself. His accomplice, Nurse Dander, is around here somewhere. She has been provoked and might be dangerous.”
Mimi Mitchum peered at Cleo. “Is this true?” she demanded.
“Of course it’s true,” Cleo said, and gave Flammarion a shove toward the officers. “Nobody would make up something like that.”
“In that case,” Harvey said sternly to the doctor, “you’ll be on the next train to the city, where you will be imprisoned for your crimes.”
“My turn,” Mimi said sharply.
Her husband frowned at her. “What?”
“It was my turn to give the speech about being on the next train to the city. You got to say it to that Ellington girl.”
“Mimi, what difference does it make?”
“If it doesn’t make a difference, then—”
A piece of plaster fell from the ceiling to crumble at my feet, and the Colophon Clinic gave another mighty groan, as if it, too, were tired of the Mitchums’ bickering.
“Might I suggest we leave?” I said. “This building may very well collapse.”
For once the Mitchums did not argue, and soon Dr. Flammarion was the one in chains at last. He glared at the ground. Stew smirked at him. We hurried back through the empty halls of the clinic to the front door. I didn’t like the idea that this corrupt doctor would soon be cellmates with Ellington. Except she’s not there, I thought. The police were lured away, and Ellington Feint has picked the pin tumbler lock and is out of jail by now. I thought of her running across the lawn, and I thought of the statue she was holding. It will be a while, I guessed to myself, and I guessed correctly. It will be a while before you see her. And indeed my finger was entirely healed the next time I saw Ellington Feint, although I had other troubles.
At the front door it first looked like the Bellerophon brothers were riding a horse, but then I realized that they were sitting on Nurse Dander, Pip on the top half and Squeak on the bottom half, with their hands grabbing her thrashing arms and legs.
“We’re happy to see you,” Squeak said.
“It looks like you did good work,” I told him.
Pip shook his head. “Don’t worry about us. Worry about Moxie. She’s hurt.”
“Bad?”
“If it wasn’t bad, I wouldn’t mention it.” He nodded toward the far end of the room, and I ran to the girl lying on the floor. Her hat had come off and she was pale, with her eyes closed. There was a long red line down her arm, and it took me a moment to realize that it had been made with Nurse Dander’s knife. The weapon lay on the ground, next to Moxie’s typewriter. Anyone who thinks the pen is mightier than the sword has not been stabbed with both. I knelt by her and tried not to look at the wound.
“Moxie.”
Her eyes fluttered open. “You were right, Snicket,” she said, with a smile and then a wince and a frown. “This is dangerous work.”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“That’s the wrong question,” she said, and closed her eyes again. “The question is, can you save me?”
“This girl needs a hospital,” I said to the others.
“This is the only hospital around here,” Jake Hix said, but Cleo hurried to Moxie and took a look.
“She’ll be all right,” the chemist said firmly, and in one swift gesture she tore one of the sleeves off her shirt. It was a new shirt, I could tell, one of the many fashionable items worn by the daughter of the wealthiest family in town. Now it was a bandage, and Cleo tied it expertly around Moxie’s arm. “See what you can find in those rooms we passed,” she said firmly to her sweetheart, and Jake hurried back out of the room.
Moxie opened her eyes. “You’re Cleo Knight,” she said weakly. “What did Dr. Flammarion want? Who was behind the plot to kidnap you? When will—”
“Shh,” Cleo said.
“This is Moxie Mallahan,” I explained, “a journalist and an associate of mine.”
“I’ll answer all your questions, Moxie,” Cleo promised, “as soon as we fix up your arm.”
There was a rush of cold air, and I saw that the Officers Mitchum had opened the front doors of the clinic. Stew Mitchum gave me a glare and then skipped down the stairs as perkily as he could. The officers started to follow, lugging Dr. Flammarion and Nurse Dander, who was now also in handcuffs. “Looks like we have the culprit and the accomplice,” Harvey Mitchum said to me.
“The real culprit’s not here,” I said. “Hangfire escaped a little while ago.”
“Who’s Hangfire?”
“Skip it,” I said.
Mimi glared at me. “Don’t tell my husband to skip it.”
“I can handle this, Mimi.”
“Like you handled the drive over here? That was the bumpiest ride of my life!”
“Don’t insult my driving!”
“Don’t insult me!”
“Could you please,” Nurse Dander said, “take us to jail now?”
The Mitchums escorted the criminals out the door, and the room was quiet. Pip and Squeak brushed off their clothing and stood up to shake my hand.
“I appreciate your help,” I told them, “although I’d like to ask another favor.”
“Name it,” Pip said.
“In the back of the building is a spiral staircase,” I said. “At the top is a room with a broken window, and somewhere in that room is an old-fashioned record player. It was on a bed stand, but Hangfire hid it right before I came in. Please take it, along with all those papers on the desk, to Black Cat Coffee and put it in the attic. There’s a cupboard there that’s larger than it looks.”
Squeak frowned. “Who wants all that stuff? Another associate of yours?”
Moxie opened her eyes and watched me carefully. “I wouldn’t call her that,” I said, and then Jake Hix came running into the room with an armful of bottles.
“This is all the medicine I could find, Cleo,” he said. His sweetheart took the bottles from him, and after quickly examining the labels, she grabbed two and began to mix their contents together. Another piece of plaster fell to the floor, and I was tempted to ask Cleo to hurry, even though she was hurrying.
“Will Moxie be OK?” I asked instead.
“It’ll be a few days before she can type,” Cleo said, nodding at the typewriter, “but she’ll be fine, Snicket. Let me work. I can heal a cut. Chemistry is a branch of science dealing with the basic elementary substances of which all bodies and matter are composed.”
“I never found it interesting until now,” I said.
“Hopefully, the whole town will find it interesting before long.”
“How close are you to finishing the formula?”
“I don’t know,” Cleo admitted. She peeled back the bandage and began to dab her concoction on Moxie’s cut. The journalist winced, and I reached down to hold her other hand. Nobody should feel pain all by themselves. “I thought I was close a few nights ago and tested it out in my bedroom, but it didn’t work.”
“I know. I tested it myself.”
“Well, perhaps my luck will change. I’ve set up a laboratory in a small cottage right where the sea used to be.”
“Handkerchief Heights?”
“That’s the one. It’s a good location. Some of the ingredients I need can be found near Offshore Island, just a short hike from the cottage.”
“Maybe the Coast Guard can help you,” I said. “I think they’re the ones who ring the bell when it’s time to don masks.”
“I have a theory,” Cleo said, “that the masks aren’t for a scientific reason at all. They’re just superstition—another fading myth in this town.”
“Like the Bombinating Beast,” I said.
“Or Colonel Colophon,” Jake Hix said. “He was supposed to be a brave war hero, but he turned out to be a vil
lain.”
Moxie shook her head. “Hangfire is the villain,” she said. “The real Colonel Colophon must be somewhere else.”
I opened my mouth and didn’t say anything. There was no reason to mention the window in Hangfire’s room, which had already been broken, or the swimming pool that churned under it. I just closed my mouth and frowned at Moxie, and Moxie frowned back, and Cleo frowned at Moxie’s arm.
“I’ve got to get that formula finished,” she said. “It’s a puzzle, but I’ve got to solve it. Invisible ink that actually works could make Ink Inc. a successful company again. We could save this town from all the people who want to destroy us. I’ve got to do it myself. I told my mother and father that, in my note. I love them, but my parents have given up on making things better.”
“So have mine,” Jake said, and the Bellerophon brothers nodded too. Even Moxie nodded in agreement.
“You’ll need help,” I said.
“I have help,” she said, smiling at Jake and then at the entire room. It was the first time I had seen Cleo Knight smile. It was a good smile. I could see why Jake had fallen for the girl who smiled it. Pip and Squeak gave me a wave and left the room to gather Ellington’s things, and Jake went to fetch the Dilemma. Everyone had something to do. I started down the steps.
“Where are you going, Snicket?” Moxie’s voice was quiet, but I could hear her curiosity. Being curious is the most important part of being a journalist. It might be the most important part of being anything.
“I have a job to do,” I said, and I began to walk back to town. Anyone would have given me a ride, but I wanted to walk, so I could think. I had to report to my chaperone, but what, I asked myself, could I report? The building cracked and heaved behind me. Whatever Hangfire was planning, with those tables and fish tanks and shackles for children, he wouldn’t be able to do it at the Colophon Clinic. But his treachery wasn’t over. It would move somewhere else, somewhere shadowy and hidden, in a town that had more and more abandoned places with every fading minute. It was a puzzle, a dark and lonely one, and if I were a piece in this puzzle, I did not know where I belonged. I needed to put myself aside, just for a little while, until I saw where I might fit in.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was past midnight when I let myself in. For a moment it looked like the Far East Suite was covered in confetti. I could hear Theodora snoring. After all this time it was a familiar sound to me, but I couldn’t say that I was used to it. I stepped to the bathroom and turned on the light and left the door open a crack so I could see. The reason it looked like the room was covered in confetti was that it was covered in confetti. There were a few streamers taped to the walls, and I could see a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice. Theodora was asleep on her bed, with a bright pink party hat tilted on her head. She had fallen asleep in the middle of her celebration for solving the case of Cleo Knight.
I sat on my bed. My feet hurt from the walk back to town. Above me was the usual painting of a little girl holding a dog with a bandaged paw. It had been a long day, and I don’t mind saying that I cried a little bit. There is nothing wrong with crying at the end of a long day. I tried to be quiet, but Theodora jerked awake and sat up and looked at me.
“You got your hair cut,” she said.
I nodded and wiped my eyes. I’d had my hair cut the last time she saw me. At least she had noticed now.
“Where were you?” she asked. “Visiting your little friend in jail?”
“Ellington’s not in jail anymore,” I said.
“What?”
“At least, I don’t think so.”
Theodora stood up from the bed in a cloud of confetti. She took off her hat and threw it to the ground. “This is a disaster,” she said. “If the culprit has escaped, then we’re failures, Snicket.”
“Ellington Feint is not the culprit,” I said. “She has nothing to do with the case.”
This was almost true, and Theodora almost believed it. “What are we going to do?”
“I already did it,” I said. “I’ll write up a report in the morning, and you can sign your name to it.”
“I’m not sure I like your tone.”
“I don’t like it either, Theodora. But it’s the right tone for someone who has solved the mystery but is still mystified.”
“Tell me how you solved the mystery.”
I faced my chaperone, S. Theodora Markson. “Tell me what the S stands for,” I said.
“Such a tone!” she said, in such a tone. “Not proper, Snicket. Be sensible.”
“I’ll be sensible later,” I said. “Right now I want to get some sleep.”
But there was a knock on the door. And then, when nobody answered it, another one. “Mr. Snicket,” came the voice of Prosper Lost. “You have a young visitor waiting for you in the lobby.”
“Just one minute,” I said, and I heard the footsteps of the proprietor pad back down the hall. I looked at the girl in the painting. She was busy with the dog. Theodora glared at me and then lay back down on her bed. In the morning, I knew, I would be responsible for sweeping up the confetti. It was part of my job as an apprentice. It could be anyone, I told myself. There’s no reason, walking down the stairs, that you should think it’s Ellington Feint waiting for you in the lobby of the Lost Arms.
Sure enough, standing in the middle of the room, just under the statue of the armless woman, was somebody else.
“It’s not your fault, Snicket,” he told me right away. He’d always had a philosophy that you should not hesitate.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“Can we talk here?”
“No,” I said. I knew without looking that Prosper Lost was close by with his ear to the ground, a phrase which here means “his ear to our conversation.”
“Can we take a walk, then?”
I nodded. My feet ached. The day wasn’t over yet, not even after midnight. I followed my associate out of the hotel and down the street. Naturally, we walked toward the library, though we stopped in the middle of the lawn, where the ruined statue glinted in the moonlight. I could see lights on in the police station, where the Officers Mitchum were arguing over whose fault it was that Ellington had slipped out of the cell, while Dr. Flammarion and Nurse Dander sat, handcuffed and forced to listen. The library looked closed and locked up, although I thought I saw a few moths fluttering near the entrance, now that their home, a tall, broad tree, was gone. I wondered if Dashiell Qwerty had finished all the work he was doing in the library. Perhaps he was sleeping there now. “What happened?” I asked finally.
“Kit’s been arrested,” my associate said. “My sources tell me they got her just as she was trying to open the hatch. It was too heavy for her to open by herself.”
I closed my eyes. It was even darker that way. “She was not supposed to be by herself,” I said.
“Snicket, I said before, it’s not your fault.”
“You can say it as many times as you want.”
“Kit knew you wouldn’t be there. She decided to try anyway. And I can’t blame her. The Museum of Items hasn’t had an exhibit like that in years.”
“Eighty-four years,” I said. “If we don’t get the item now, we won’t have another opportunity in our lifetimes.”
“She got the item, but she got arrested too. There will be a trial, Snicket. She may very well go to prison.”
“Where is the item now?”
“Nobody knows.”
“We’ve got to find out.”
“Aye,” my associate said with a slow nod. It was his way of saying yes. “You know I’d help you if I could. But I told Headquarters that I had to explore this area. When they find out there’s no more water here, they’ll confiscate my submarine.”
“You’ll get it back.”
“Not soon enough.”
“You shouldn’t have come, I guess.”
“I wanted you to know, Snicket. Your sister put her mind to it, but she couldn’t open the hatch to get out of the museum.” r />
“Thank you,” I said, “for telling me.”
“You know I’d help you if I could,” he said again.
I leaned against the statue and took off my shoe. “Then tell me if you know what this is,” I said.
“It’s your shoe.”
“No, the muddy stuff on it.”
“Mud? Moss?”
“It’s something else, I think.”
Widdershins frowned, and took the shoe from me. He sniffed at it. “Fishy,” he said.
“Yes.”
“We have it as a snack on board the submarine sometimes. Caviar. Fish eggs. Gustav loves the stuff.”
“Thanks,” I said, and put my shoe back on.
“Is this part of the case you’re working on?”
“It might be.”
“What’s happening in this town, Snicket?”
“There’s a villain named Hangfire,” I said. “He kidnapped a naturalist and forced the naturalist’s daughter to steal a statue of a mythological beast. He had a chemist abducted so he could steal her formula for invisible ink. He’s part of a group of people called the Inhumane Society, and they’re planning more treachery. He was last seen pretending to be a war hero named Colonel Colophon, who was injured during an explosion that turned this statue into a lump of metal, and he’s planning on capturing a number of children for some terrible purpose.”
My associate tapped his finger on the remains of the statue and then nodded at me. “How much of this does your chaperone know?”
“How much does your chaperone know,” I asked, “about your secret trip here?”