“A successful fish business requires loyal workers,” Moxie said, “and a steady supply of food, so Hangfire preyed on the schoolchildren of Stain’d-by-the-Sea. They stole honeydew melons to feed the young animals they were taking care of. Eventually the creatures would get old enough to feed on the children themselves. Hangfire nursed and nurtured his plan, waiting patiently and quietly. He knew that soon the entire town would be under his control, once he had the statue that could make the beasts do his bidding.”
“Beasts?” asked Pocket, the s hissing in the air. “You mean there’s more than one?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Perhaps it has many siblings. I tried to read more about the harvesting of aquatic creatures, but the book that contained the most important secrets was destroyed.”
Moxie opened her typewriter, and finally looked me in the eye. “That book was destroyed because of you,” she said, “and you destroyed Hangfire, too. You murdered him, Snicket. You didn’t have to feed him to that creature, but you did.”
The crowd frowned and murmured. “With Hangfire gone,” I said, “the Inhumane Society will fall apart. There will be nobody to keep the schoolchildren drugged and imprisoned at Wade Academy, and his treacherous plot of revenge will no longer hang over Stain’d-by-the-Sea, and the town can rise again.”
The woman with the dented suitcase looked around the lonely landscape. “How?” she asked.
“With a brilliant chemist,” I told her, “whose formula for invisible ink can rescue the town’s industry from ruin. With a skilled cook who can feed those hungry for food, and an excellent journalist who can feed those hungry for information. With a sculptor learning to fight fires from the uncles who are raising her, and two brave and resourceful siblings who can learn from the mistakes of their mother.”
Sharon gasped and pointed at the air. We all stopped and listened. It was the bell at the top of the tower at Wade Academy. Even with Hangfire gone, someone was ringing the all-clear. “And a generation of schoolchildren,” I finished with a smile, “freed from the Wade Academy, who can help return this town to its law-abiding ways.”
Pip gave me a cautious smile. “And I suppose my brother and I,” he said, “can drive all these noble people around.”
“I hope you’ll do more than just that,” I said. “Stain’d-by-the-Sea no longer has a librarian, not even a sub-librarian. But you two are some of the most voracious readers I know. You’ve never taken money from me, only book recommendations, and you know where we hid the books when the library was wrecked.”
“In the attic of Black Cat Coffee,” Squeak said. “That cupboard’s a lot larger than it looks.”
“You can restore the library,” I said, “keep the books safe from the Farnsworth Pulpeater moths, and keep the accounts of my time in this town safe and accessible.”
“What accounts?” Pip asked.
“The ones I plan on writing,” I said. “It’s a fragmentary plot, so I can’t send my complete report to one place. That way the history of these times can’t be destroyed in one blow.” I turned my gaze to the three adult librarians, and the two future librarians who would continue the work of Dashiell Qwerty. “Walleye, Pocket, Eratosthenes, Bellerophons—I will send you some materials.”
“You can send it to us,” Walleye said, with a cautious nod. “Paper will put up with anything that’s written on it. You can send us whatever answers you have found.”
“Not answers,” I said. “Questions. I’ll send you each some questions,” and if you are reading these reports then you know they received them.
“Giacomo Casanova had a turn,” Pocket said. “Marcel Duchamp had a turn. Beverly Cleary had a turn. Librarians have done difficult things for more or less noble reasons. It’s our turn now. We are witnesses to your story, Lemony Snicket.”
Eratosthenes nodded. “But we weren’t witnesses to Qwerty’s murder. We’ll tell those police officers what we really saw.”
“We’ll tell everyone,” Walleye said, turning his bald head to look at everyone gathered around us. “There was a murder on The Thistle of the Valley this evening,” he said, “and the murderer forced us to lie about it.”
“A child burst into our compartment through the window,” Pocket replied, “and told us there’d be three more dead librarians if we didn’t tell the police that Theodora was the murderer.”
“That Markson woman was framed,” Eratosthenes said. “She should be released from her cell.”
“She will be,” came the voice of Harvey Mitchum, as he walked forward with his wife, “now that we have the real criminal in custody.”
“We caught Qwerty’s murderer just as she was trying to slip away,” Mimi said, and the Mitchums parted like heavy, sweaty curtains to reveal Ellington Feint. Her green eyes were stormy, and her hands seemed to glint in the dim light as she held her bag. Stew lurked behind her like a shadow, although shadows rarely smirk at the people around them.
“This is wrong,” Walleye said, pointing at Ellington, and it was only then that I saw Ellington was in handcuffs. “She’s not the murderer.”
“It’s that boy behind her,” Pocket said.
“Yes,” Eratosthenes said, and pointed one of his long and bony fingers at Stew Mitchum. “He’s the one.”
The Mitchums could not look at each other, or at their son. “You’ll leave our boy alone,” Harvey said quietly.
“He’s a good boy,” Mimi said. “He’s never given us an ounce of trouble.”
“He’s as adorable as he is innocent,” Harvey Mitchum agreed.
“And innocent as he is adorable,” his wife agreed.
“We’re not going to arrest our own son,” Harvey said.
“It’s not natural,” his wife agreed. “It’s this Ellington girl who committed murder.”
“She’s always been a suspicious character.”
“She’s a bad egg.”
“A dreadful influence on the community,” Harvey said.
“You’re wrong,” I said to Mimi Mitchum.
“Don’t tell her she’s wrong,” Harvey said to me. “I’m the one who tells my wife when she’s wrong.”
“You’re wrong about that,” said Mimi to her husband.
“How can you call me wrong?”
“Because you are wrong, Harvey.”
“You’re wrong about that, Mimi.”
“I’m wrong about your being wrong, but you’re not wrong about calling me wrong? Only a sofa cushion would think that made sense.”
“Only a lampshade would say that,” Harvey said. “You’re saying the wrong things and you’re saying them wrong.”
“Incorrectly,” Mimi corrected, and I turned from them and looked at Ellington. Tendrils of seaweed from the Clusterous Forest waggled at me behind her. So much danger, I thought, staring into that vast and lawless place. So much danger, and the Mitchums of the world just bicker. “You’re letting a murderer go free,” I said, and now Ellington raised her eyes to look at me.
“You’re a murderer yourself,” she said, her mouth curled with fury. “You’ve been tricking me since the night we met, in order to push me in the right direction. You knew all along, didn’t you? You knew Hangfire was my father.”
I reached out to her, and she moved violently away from me. I had to grab the chain that bound her hands, in order to look into her eyes. Her curled eyebrows had always reminded me of question marks, but now they just looked furious. You’ll never see Ellington Feint smile again, I thought to myself, but it was a moment before I could bring myself to reply. “I hoped it wasn’t true,” I said finally.
“You could have told me what you knew,” she said.
I looked at the statue in my other hand. “You could have told me what you had,” I said.
“You killed him,” she said. Her voice was a wild whisper.
“He was a villain,” I said.
“He was my father,” Ellington said. “You promised to help me, and you murdered him instead.”
“I think I kept my promise,” I said, but the Mitchums stepped into the middle of our argument.
“Unhand her, lad,” Harvey Mitchum said firmly. “This girl is under arrest for the murder of Dashiell Qwerty.”
“You can’t arrest her,” I said. “She didn’t kill him.”
“We say she did,” Mimi Mitchum said, and her son smirked and nodded.
“We’re letting your chaperone out of jail, Snicket,” Harvey said, and tried to pry my hand loose from the little chain, “but this girl is coming with us.”
“We’ll stop you,” I said, hanging on as hard as I could.
“We?” Stew repeated scornfully. “You look all alone to me, Snicket.”
I looked around, but no one around looked back. Jake and Cleo were staring off at the Clusterous Forest. Ornette was looking back in the direction of town. The Haines family couldn’t take their eyes off one another, now that they were together, and Pip and Squeak were staring in confusion at each other, now that they had heard what had happened. Moxie was the only one who met my eyes, and then after a moment she looked back at the page she was typing.
“Snicket,” she said gently, “Ellington Feint has been helping Hangfire from the moment she arrived in town. She deserves to be in a prison cell.”
“But not for murder,” I said. “You know the truth, Moxie.”
“I’m typing up the truth,” she told me.
“But it’s more than a matter of journalism,” I said. “It’s a matter of law.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I think it’s a matter of handcuffs.” And Moxie Mallahan was right. Mimi kept tugging my hand away, and then Harvey stepped in to help, and when Stew put his grimy hand in and began tugging at the handcuffs, my own hands fell away and Ellington Feint was under their control.
My eyes fell on Gifford and Ghede. Gifford was looking at his watch, and Ghede was looking at Gifford’s watch too. “Can’t you help?” I asked, but they were already shaking their heads.
“Not our job, Snicket,” Gifford said.
“What is your job,” I asked, “besides poisoning my tea?”
“We told you our jobs,” Ghede said, “and you mucked up our plan but good.”
“What do you mean?”
“‘But good’ is a phrase you can put at the end of a sentence to give it particular emphasis,” Gifford said. “Someday we’ll explain it to you but good.”
“Explain it now,” I said. “Explain everything now.”
Ghede reached out and straightened my collar, as if she couldn’t help pretending to be my mother, even after all this time. “You derailed more than a train,” she said. “You derailed a grand scheme, in which everyone had a job to do. The engineer’s job, for instance, was to make an unscheduled stop. The job of the police was to guard the prisoners. The conductors’ job was to keep track of all the passengers. Hector is surveying an icy mountain lake, and Widdershins is in a submarine deep underwater. Josephine is delivering a message to Monty, and Beatrice is accompanying Olaf to the edge of a strange forest. All the volunteers are doing their jobs—all of us except you. You threw a wrench in the works, Snicket. Instead of drinking your tea like a good boy, you left your sister to do a two-person caper all alone, and now you’ve mucked up our job of making sure no one interfered with the volunteers on board.”
“Well, you failed,” I said. “All the volunteers have been interfered with. Dashiell Qwerty is dead and Theodora was arrested.”
“You’re wrong, Snicket,” Gifford said, but I was already stalking off to see. I followed close behind the Mitchums as they trooped back to The Thistle of the Valley, jangling their keys and dragging their prisoner onto the train and down the corridor of the prison car. Ellington looked at nothing but the floor. It doesn’t matter if you never see someone again, I told myself. There are millions of people in the world, and most of them never see each other in the first place. You hoped to know Ellington Feint forever, but there’s no such thing as forever, really. Everything is much shorter than that. When we reached the cell door, the Officers Mitchum both tried to use their keys at the same time and argued over it, so Stew had time to give me a nasty smile before his parents opened the heavy, clumsy lock. The cell door creaked open, and there stood S. Theodora Markson, my chaperone, her hands still cuffed and her hair still ridiculous. It seemed like a long time since I’d seen her.
“Lemony Snicket,” she said to me. “What are you doing?”
“S. Theodora Markson,” I said. “What does the S stand for?”
She frowned at me and at the Mitchums. “Surely there’s an explanation for this,” she said.
“You’re free to go,” Harvey Mitchum told her, “and that’s all we have to say to you.”
“We also say, don’t come back to Stain’d-by-the-Sea,” Mimi said.
“And,” her husband said, “you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“And come on out,” Mimi said, but when Theodora came on out I was so startled I almost jumped. I made myself stop myself.
Breathe, I thought. Breathe and keep still, Snicket.
There are times when you’re so wrong that you can’t even be right about how wrong you really are. All my wrong questions came crashing together like a derailed train. This was the right cell, where Theodora had been, and she hadn’t been here alone. I had been told this. I had been told there were more volunteers on the train, but it hadn’t meant anything to me until this moment, holding the statue and letting Ellington go. The other prisoner stood there too. She kept still and breathed. We’d learned at school not to talk to each other, not to recognize each other, if circumstances demanded it.
Kit Snicket and I stood and thought about each other.
The Officers Mitchum gave Ellington a little push, and she stumbled her way into the cell. She looked back at me, but they slammed the door before she could say anything but my name. Behind her I saw my sister extending her hand, as she did whenever she met someone new. The locks clanked into place. Ellington had her bag with her. My sister was good with a skeleton key. Soon they would know each other. I could do nothing more.
“Now get out of the prison car,” Harvey Mitchum said, “and get out of town.”
“And stay away from our child,” Mimi said.
“Mimi,” Harvey said with a sigh, “if he stays out of town he’ll automatically stay away from Stew.”
“Everyone will stay away from your son,” I told them. “Bullies don’t last long all by themselves. Without Hangfire, the Inhumane Society is scattering to the winds. Where does that leave Stew Mitchum?”
The boy went a little pale and stepped aside as I walked with Theodora down the corridor of the train. All three Mitchums glared at me one last time. When my chaperone and I stepped off The Thistle of the Valley and pushed through the seaweed at the edge of the Clusterous Forest to stand with the others, I could see that the crowd had relaxed a little bit. Most of the masks were forgotten on the ground. Kellar and Lizzie were sitting on the fender of the taxicab, smiling and talking while their mother stood quietly by. Cleo was sketching something on a scrap of paper while the three librarians looked on. Jake was smiling at something that Pip had said, and Moxie was just finishing with a page of type, and I could see Sally Murphy walking amongst some of the other passengers, offering to sign autographs. But when they saw me return, everything stopped and everyone stared. They stared and they shivered. I walked amongst them like a moving shadow, casting darkness over everyone I knew. Gifford and Ghede were the only ones who approached me, but they didn’t give me as much as a glance, and talked right over my head.
“Your apprentice’s foolishness has derailed our plan,” Gifford said to Theodora, gesturing to The Thistle of the Valley. “We need to get this whole thing back on track.”
“There’s work to be done,” Ghede said, with a nod. “Every capable adult will need to help us.”
“And me,” Theodora added, with a hairy nod. “Snicket, talk to th
e people here and see if anyone has some rubber bands. I’ll supervise while you braid them together into a towing rope.”
“You’ll have to do that yourself,” I said. “My apprenticeship is over.”
She frowned at me. “What?”
“I said my apprenticeship is over.”
“I heard you the first time, Snicket,” she said, and looked at Gifford and Ghede. “I’m afraid my apprentice is at a difficult age.”
“Maybe he needs a nap,” Gifford said. “He’s probably on his last legs, an expression which here means you’re a tired boy.”
“We’re all on our last legs,” I said. “We don’t start out as eggs, or tadpoles. These are the only legs I’m ever going to have.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” Ghede said, looking at me at last. “You’ll go with us back to the city, where you should have been in the first place.”
“No,” I said, “and you heard me the first time.”
Theodora frowned at me. “Be sensible, Snicket. Be proper.”
“I’m not old enough,” I said, and walked away, away from my chaperone and her associates and the whole mess that concerned them. My own associates saw me, but they didn’t say anything. Nobody did. I would have liked it if they’d said something, but I do not volunteer expecting gifts or thanks in return. It was not necessary for the denizens of Stain’d-by-the-Sea to help me, just as it was not necessary for me to tell them all I knew. I knew that Moxie’s mother would never send for her, just as I knew Pip and Squeak’s father was gone forever. I knew that Kellar and Lizzie were going to help each other, and that Jake and Cleo were lucky to have found each other. But it was not necessary to say such things. It was not necessary to say anything at all. My heart ached to say something to them, but it wasn’t my job.
I just gave them a wave, which here meant “so long.” They gave me a wave back, which could have meant anything at all.
I walked for some time along the train tracks, with the dark statue of the Bombinating Beast tucked into my coat. Long ago, I had made a promise to return the statue to its rightful owner. The sky was getting lighter and I was whistling the tune Ellington had played me, first on a Hangfire phonograph and then on a music box her father had given her. She had not told me the name of the tune. It was a mystery, like what the S stood for in Theodora’s name. I kept walking, with nothing but solitude for company. “Solitude” is a fancy name for being all by yourself. It’s not a bad name, I thought.