The Ersatz Elevator

by Lemony Snicket

  The Baudelaires tossed and turned, and wondered about all these things, and as it grew later and later they felt less and less like logs and more and more like children in a sinister and mysterious plot, spending one of the least somniferous nights of their young lives.

  CHAPTER

  Six

  Morning is one of the best times for thinking. When one has just woken up, but hasn't yet gotten out of bed, it is a perfect time to look up at the ceiling, consider one's life, and wonder what the future will hold. The morning I am writing this chapter, I am wondering if the future will hold something that will enable me to saw through these handcuffs and crawl out of the double-locked window, but in the case of the Baudelaire orphans, when the morning sun shone through the eight hundred and forty-nine windows in the Squalor penthouse, they were wondering if the future would hold knowledge of the trouble they felt closing in around them.

  Violet watched the first few rays of sunlight brighten her sturdy, tool-free workbench, and tried to imagine what sort of evil plan Gunther had cooked up. Klaus watched the dawn's rays make shifting shapes on the wall that separated his room from the Squalor library, and racked his brain for a way Gunther could have vanished into thin air. And Sunny watched the emerging sun illuminate all of the unbiteable baby toys, and tried to figure out if they had time to discuss the matter together before the Squalors came to wake them up.

  This last thing was fairly easy to figure out. The littlest Baudelaire crawled out her bedroom door, fetched her brother, and opened Violet's door to find her out of bed and sitting at her wooden workbench with her hair tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. "Tageb," Sunny said.

  "Good morning," Violet replied. "I thought it might help me think if I tied my hair up, and sat at my workbench, as if I were inventing something. But I haven't figured out a thing."

  "It's terrible enough that Olaf has shown up again," Klaus said, "and that we have to call him Gunther. But we don't have the faintest clue what he's planning."

  "Well, he wants to get his hands on our fortune, that's for sure," Violet said.

  "Klofy," Sunny said, which meant "Of course. But how?"

  "Maybe it has something to do with the In Auction," Klaus guessed. "Why would he disguise himself as an auctioneer if it weren't part of his plan?"

  Sunny yawned, and Violet reached down and lifted up her sister so she could sit on her lap. "Do you think he's going to try to auction us off?" Violet asked, as Sunny leaned forward to nibble on the workbench in thought. "He could get one of those terrible assistants of his to bid higher and higher for us until he won, and then we'd be in his clutches, just like the poor Quagmires."

  "But Esmé said it's against the law to auction off children," Klaus pointed out.

  Sunny stopped chewing on the workbench and looked at her siblings. "Nolano?" she asked, which meant something like "Do you think the Squalors are working together with Gunther?"

  "I don't think so," Violet said. "They've been very kind to us--well, Jerome has, at least--and anyway, they don't need the Baudelaire fortune. They have so much money already."

  "But not much common sense," Klaus said unhappily. "Gunther fooled them completely, and all it took were some black boots, a pinstripe suit, and a monocle."

  "Plus, he fooled them into thinking that he had left," Violet said, "but the doorman was certain that he hadn't."

  "Gunther's got me fooled, too," Klaus said. "How could he have left without the doorman noticing?"

  "I don't know," Violet said miserably. "The whole thing is like a jigsaw puzzle, but there are too many missing pieces to solve it."

  "Did I hear someone say 'jigsaw puzzles'?" Jerome asked. "If you're looking for some jigsaw puzzles, I think there are a few in the cabinet in one of the sitting rooms, or maybe in one of the living rooms, I can't remember which."

  The Baudelaires looked up and saw their guardian standing in the doorway of Violet's bedroom with a smile on his face and a silver tray in his hands.

  "Good morning, Jerome," Klaus said. "And thank you, but we're not looking for a jigsaw puzzle. Violet was just using an expression. We're trying to figure something out."

  "Well, you'll never figure anything out on an empty stomach," Jerome replied. "I have some breakfast here for you: three poached eggs and some nice whole wheat toast."

  "Thank you," Violet said. "It's very nice of you to fix us breakfast."

  "You're very welcome," Jerome replied. "Esmé has an important meeting with the King of Arizona today, so we have the whole day to ourselves. I thought we could walk across town to the Clothing District, and take your pinstripe suits to a good tailor. There's no use having those suits if they don't fit you properly."

  "Knilliu!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "That's very considerate of you."

  "I don't know what 'Knilliu!' means," Esmé said, walking into the bedroom, "and I don't care, but neither will you when you hear the fantastic news I just received on the phone! Aqueous martinis are out, and parsley soda is in!"

  "Parsley soda?" Jerome said, frowning. "That sounds terrible. I think I'll stick to aqueous martinis."

  "You're not listening," Esmé said. "Parsley soda is in now. You'll have to go out right now and buy a few crates of it."

  "But I was going to take the children's suits to the tailor today," Jerome said.

  "Then you'll have to change your plans," Esmé said impatiently. "The children already have clothing, but we don't have any parsley soda."

  "Well, I don't want to argue," Jerome said.

  "Then don't argue," Esmé replied. "And don't take the children with you, either. The Beverage District is no place for young people. Well, we'd better go, Jerome. I don't want to be late for His Arizona Highness."

  "But don't you want to spend some time with the Baudelaires before the work day begins?" Jerome asked.

  "Not particularly," Esmé said, and looked briefly at her watch. "I'll just say good morning to them. Good morning. Well, let's go, Jerome."

  Jerome opened his mouth as if he had something else to say, but Esmé was already marching out of the bedroom, so he just shrugged. "Have a good day," he said to the children. "There's food in all of our kitchens, so you can make yourselves lunch. I'm sorry that our plans didn't work out after all."

  "Hurry up!" Esmé called, from down the hallway, and Jerome ran out of the room. The children heard their guardians' footsteps grow fainter and fainter as they made their way to the front door.

  "Well," Klaus said, when they couldn't hear them anymore, "what shall we do today?"

  "Vinfrey," Sunny said.

  "Sunny's right," Violet said. "We'd better spend the day figuring out what Gunther's up to."

  "How can we know what he's up to," Klaus said, "when we don't even know where he is?"

  "Well, we'd better find out," Violet said. "He already had the unfair advantage of the element of surprise, and we don't want him to have the unfair advantage of a good hiding place."

  "This penthouse has lots of good hiding places," Klaus said. "There are so many rooms."

  "Koundix," Sunny said, which meant something like "But he can't be in the penthouse. Esmé saw him leave."

  "Well, maybe he sneaked back in," Violet said, "and is lurking around right now."

  The Baudelaires looked at one another, and then at Violet's doorway, half expecting to see Gunther standing there looking at them with his shiny, shiny eyes.

  "If he was lurking around here," Klaus said, "wouldn't he have grabbed us the instant the Squalors went out?"

  "Maybe," Violet said. "If that was his plan."

  The Baudelaires looked at the empty doorway again.

  "I'm scared," Klaus said.

  "Ecrif!" Sunny agreed.

  "I'm scared, too," Violet admitted, "but if he's here in the penthouse, we'd better find out. We'll have to search the entire place and see if we find him."

  "I don't want to find him," Klaus said. "Let's run downstairs and call Mr. Poe instead."

  "M
r. Poe is in a helicopter, looking for the Quagmire triplets," Violet said. "By the time he returns it may be too late. We have to figure out what Gunther is up to--not only for our sake, but for the sake of Isadora and Duncan."

  At the mention of the Quagmire triplets, all three Baudelaires felt a stiffening of their resolve, a phrase which here means "realized that they had to search the penthouse for Gunther, even though it was a scary thing to do." The children remembered how hard Duncan and Isadora had worked to save them from Olaf's clutches back at Prufrock Preparatory School, doing absolutely everything they could to help the Baudelaires escape Olaf's evil plan. The Quagmires had sneaked out in the middle of the night and put themselves in grave danger. The Quagmires had put on disguises, risking their lives in order to try to fool Olaf. And the Quagmires had done a lot of researching, finding out the secret of V.F.D.--although they had been snatched away before they could reveal the secret to the Baudelaires. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny thought about the two brave and loyal triplets, and knew they had to be just as brave and loyal, now that they had an opportunity to save their friends.

  "You're right," Klaus said to Violet, and Sunny nodded in agreement. "We have to search the penthouse. But it's such a complicated place. I get lost just trying to find the bathroom at night. How can we search without getting lost?"

  "Hansel!" Sunny said.

  The two older Baudelaires looked at one another. It was rare that Sunny said something that her siblings couldn't understand, but this seemed to be one of those times.

  "Do you mean we should draw a map?" Violet asked.

  Sunny shook her head. "Gretel!" she said.

  "That's two times we don't understand you," Klaus said. "Hansel and Gretel? What does that mean?"

  "Oh!" Violet cried suddenly. "Hansel and Gretel means Hansel and Gretel--you know, those two dim-witted children in that fairy tale."

  "Of course," Klaus said. "That brother and sister who insist on wandering around the woods by themselves."

  "Leaving a trail of bread crumbs," Violet said, picking up a piece of toast from the breakfast tray Jerome had brought them, "so they don't get lost. We'll crumble up this toast and leave a few crumbs in every room so we know we've already searched it. Good thinking, Sunny."

  "Blized," Sunny said modestly, which meant something like "It's nothing," and I'm sorry to say she turned out to be right. For as the children wandered from bedroom to living room to dining room to breakfast room to snack room to sitting room to standing room to ballroom to bathroom to kitchen to those rooms that seemed to have no purpose at all, and back again, leaving trails of toast crumbs wherever they went, Gunther was nowhere to be found. They looked in the closets of each bedroom, and the cabinets in each kitchen, and even pulled back the shower curtains in each bathroom to see if Gunther was hiding behind them. They saw racks of clothes in the closets, cans of food in the cabinets, and bottles of cream rinse in the shower, but the children had to admit, as the morning ended and the Baudelaires' own trail of crumbs led them back to Violet's room, that they had found nothing.

  "Where in the world can Gunther be hiding?" Klaus asked. "We've looked everywhere."

  "Maybe he was moving around," Violet said. "He could have been in a room behind us all the time, jumping into the hiding places we already checked."

  "I don't think so," Klaus said. "We surely would have heard him if he was clomping around in those silly boots. I don't think he's been in this penthouse since last night. Esmé insists that he left the apartment, but the doorman insists that he didn't. It doesn't add up."

  "I've been thinking that over," Violet said. "I think it might add up. Esmé insists that he left the penthouse. The doorman insists that he didn't leave the building. That means he could be in any of the other apartments at 667 Dark Avenue."

  "You're right," Klaus said. "Maybe he rented one of the apartments on another floor, as a headquarters for his latest scheme."

  "Or maybe one of the apartments belongs to someone in his theater troupe," Violet said, and counted those terrible people on her fingers "There's the hook-handed man, or the bald man with the long nose, or that one who looks like neither a man nor a woman."

  "Or maybe those two dreadful powder-faced women--the ones who helped kidnap the Quagmires--are roommates," Klaus said.

  "Co," Sunny said, which meant something like "Or maybe Gunther managed to trick one of the other residents of 667 Dark Avenue into letting him into their apartment, and then he tied them up and is sitting there hiding in the kitchen."

  "If we find Gunther in the building," Violet said, "then at least the Squalors will know that he is a liar. Even if they don't believe he's really Count Olaf, they'll be very suspicious if he's caught hiding in another apartment."

  "But how are we going to find out?" Klaus asked. "We can't simply knock on doors and ask to see each apartment."

  "We don't have to see each apartment," Violet said. "We can listen to them."

  Klaus and Sunny looked at their sister in confusion for a moment, and then began to grin. "You're right!" Klaus said. "If we walk down the stairs, listening at every door, we may be able to tell if Gunther is inside."

  "Lorigo!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

  "Not so fast," Klaus said. "It's a long trip down all those stairs, and we've already done a lot of walking--and crawling, in your case, Sunny. We'd better change into our sturdiest shoes, and bring along some extra pairs of socks.

  That way we can avoid blisters."

  "And we should bring some water," Violet said, "so we won't get thirsty."

  "Snack!" Sunny shrieked, and the Baudelaire orphans went to work, changing out of their pajamas and into appropriate stair-climbing outfits, putting on their sturdiest shoes, and tucking pairs of extra socks into their pockets. After Violet and Klaus made sure that Sunny had tied her shoes correctly, the children left their bedrooms and followed their crumbs down the hallway, through a living room, past two bedrooms, down another hallway, and into the nearest kitchen, sticking together the whole time so they wouldn't lose one another in the enormous penthouse. In the kitchen they found some grapes, a box of crackers, and a jar of apple butter, as well as a bottle of water that the Squalors used for making aqueous martinis but that the Baudelaires would use to quench their thirst during their long climb. Finally, they left the penthouse apartment, walked past the sliding elevator doors, and stood at the top of the curving stairway, feeling more like they were about to go mountain climbing than downstairs.

  "We'll have to tiptoe," Violet said, "so that we can hear Gunther, but he can't hear us."

  "And we should probably whisper," Klaus whispered, "so that we can eavesdrop, without people eavesdropping on us."

  "Philavem," Sunny said, which meant "Let's get started," and the Baudelaires got started, tiptoeing down the first curve of the stairway and listening at the door of the apartment directly below the penthouse. For a few seconds, they heard nothing, but then, very clearly, they heard a woman talking on the phone.

  "Well, that's not Gunther," Violet whispered. "He's not a woman."

  Klaus and Sunny nodded, and the children tiptoed down the next curve to the floor below. As soon as they reached the next door, it flung open to reveal a very short man in a pinstripe suit. "See you later, Avery!" he called, and, with a nod to the children, shut the door and began walking down the stairs.

  "That's not Gunther either," Klaus whispered. "He's not that short, and he's not calling himself Avery."

  Violet and Sunny nodded, and the children tiptoed down the next curve to the floor below the floor below. They stopped and listened at this door, and heard a man's voice call out, "I'm going to take a shower, Mother," and Sunny shook her head.

  "Mineak," she whispered, which meant "Gunther would never take a shower. He's filthy."

  Violet and Klaus nodded, and the children tiptoed down the next curve, and then the next, and the next and plenty more after that, listening at each door, whispering brief
ly to one another, and moving on. As they walked farther and farther down the stairway, they began to grow tired, as they always did when making their way to or from the Squalors' apartment, but this time they had additional hardships as well. The tips of their toes grew tired from all that tiptoeing. Their throats grew hoarse from all that whispering. Their ears were aching from listening at all those doors, and their chins drooped from nodding in agreement that nothing they heard sounded like Gunther. The morning wore on, and the Baudelaires tiptoed and listened, whispered and nodded, and by the time they reached the lobby of the building, it seemed that every physical feature of the Baudelaire orphans was suffering in some way from the long climb.

  "That was exhausting," Violet said, sitting down on the bottom step and passing around the bottle of water. "Exhausting and fruitless."

  "Grape!" Sunny said.

  "No, no, Sunny," Violet said. "I didn't mean we didn't have any fruit. I just meant we didn't learn anything. Do you think we missed a door?"

  "No," Klaus said, shaking his head and passing around the crackers. "I made sure. I even counted the number of floors this time, so we could double-check them on the way up. It's not forty-eight, or eighty-four. It's sixty-six, which happens to be the average of those two numbers. Sixty-six floors and sixty-six doors and not a peep from Gunther behind any of them."

  "I don't understand it," Violet said miserably. "If he's not in the penthouse, and he's not in any of the other apartments, and he hasn't left the building, where could he be?"

  "Maybe he is in the penthouse," Klaus said, "and we just didn't spot him."

  "Bishuy," Sunny said, which meant "Or maybe he is in one of the other apartments, and we just didn't hear him."

  "Or maybe he has left the building," Violet said, spreading apple butter on a cracker and giving it to Sunny. "We can ask the doorman. There he is."