By now I was at the front door, and Moxie was still asking me questions. “Where are you going? Why won’t you talk to me? What’s going on?”
I stopped on the driveway, outside the mansion. “I don’t know what’s going on,” I said, “but it’s dangerous. We just had to rescue a woman from drowning.”
“She didn’t seem like she wanted to be rescued,” Moxie replied. “She said only he could help her, even though he put her in the basement to begin with. Who is he?”
“Someone who sounded like me,” I said.
“What?”
“I think,” I said, thinking out loud, “that his name is Hangfire.”
“What?” Moxie said again, and then “Who? Why? How? Tell me the story, Snicket.”
I thought about Theodora, who was probably angry at me all over again. It was afternoon, and the statue had not arrived, as I had promised it would. I had to stop making promises. “I don’t know the story,” I told Moxie. “This whole town is a mystery. It’s something we can’t see, remember?”
“I’m a journalist,” Moxie said. “I can help you solve it.”
“Then go back to the cottage,” I said, “and look for clues. There was someone living there, a girl a little older than us. I’ve got to find her.”
“A girl?” she repeated with a frown. “What does she have to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and started to walk down the driveway.
“Come home with me,” Moxie said. “You can dry off, and we can compare notes.”
“I’ve got to get into town,” I said.
Moxie frowned again and put her hands on her hips. “Lemony Snicket, you can shoo me off to Handkerchief Heights. But I know more about this town than you do. You can’t solve this mystery alone.”
“I know I can’t,” I admitted, but I started walking alone toward the road.
CHAPTER TEN
By the time I reached the streets of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, the town still quiet and unpeopled and my socks still wet and squishy, I had figured out what to look for. At first it seemed like there was too much to find. I had to find whoever had broken into the Sallis mansion. I had to find whoever had tried to drown Dame Sally Murphy. I had to find Ellington Feint, and her father, and whoever had captured him. And I had to find out why all this had happened. But halfway down a gray and empty block, I realized all these beads were strung together. Everyone was after the Bombinating Beast, and if I got my hands on that black, spooky statue, then everything else would try to find me instead. The deserted blocks of Stain’d-by-the-Sea seemed like an easier place to find one mysterious item than a bustling city full of them. I thought of all the mysterious items back in the city, and how difficult it would be for someone I knew to get her hands on one in particular, particularly without my help.
I wanted to see her. Communicating through made-up book titles was not enough. I could almost hear her saying to me, “Well, L, where was the last place you saw this statue?”
“On the table,” I imagined saying, “in Handkerchief Heights, right before the Officers Mitchum knocked on the door.”
“And what was happening while you were answering the door?” She always had a knack for knowing the right question to ask.
“Ellington was wrapping the statue in newspaper. Then she did the same for a bag of coffee. She gave me the coffee with Theodora’s address on it and carried the other package with all the other things she was mailing.”
“And did she drop it in the mailbox?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I saw her.”
“And did you see the address she wrote on the newspaper?”
“No,” I said, “but she must have been mailing it to herself.”
“She could have been mailing it to an accomplice.”
“She was living in that cottage all by herself,” I said. “Besides, if Ellington had an accomplice, she never would have asked me to help her.”
“Well, she didn’t mail it to Handkerchief Heights, or the package would have been there in the morning. You or Moxie would have found it. Think, L.”
“You know I hate it when you call me L.”
“Where did she mail it?”
I took a long sip of root beer and thought. As long as I was having an imaginary conversation, I saw no reason why I couldn’t have an imaginary root beer to help me think. “To the one reason she ventures into town,” I said finally.
“And where is that?”
“Black Cat Coffee. Corner of Caravan and Parfait.”
“Good work, L. You’re doing all right by yourself.”
“Are you?”
She didn’t answer, of course, and she didn’t talk to me the rest of the way. I still didn’t know my way around all the streets of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, so my steps were unsure. Normally one could ask directions of passersby, but without a soul on the streets, there was nobody to ask; and normally one can find a map at a hotel, but I didn’t want to go to the Lost Arms. Theodora was likely there, devoting her time, effort, and chutzpah to a much better scolding than the one I had been given the previous night. So I found my own way. I headed toward the tall pen-shaped building and eventually came across Caravan, a wide street, empty as all the others, that wandered its way around town like it didn’t know where it was going either. Finally I hit Parfait, a narrow lane with a cold wind, and there was Black Cat Coffee, the sole business on a block that was otherwise boarded up. The only sign of life was a large wooden sign that didn’t even have the name of the place, just the large, stenciled cat I recognized from the bag of coffee.
When I pushed open the doors and walked in, my first thought was that there was finally somewhere in Stain’d-by-the-Sea that was bustling with life. My second thought was that there was nobody there. Black Cat Coffee was a long, narrow room with an enormous counter in the center, but not one person was sitting on one of the stools. Behind the counter was a mass of shiny machinery of a sort I had not seen, with tubes and levers and spouts and panels all loud and busy with activity, but there was nobody there making it go. And in the corner was a piano playing music, but when I stepped closer, I saw it was a player piano, which can play all by itself. It sounded like it might have been the same music Ellington had been playing in the cottage, but perhaps that was just because I was thinking about her. I had forgotten to ask her the name of the tune. Well, there was no one to ask here, not anything. There was no one to ask if there was a package waiting for Ellington Feint. There was no one to ask if Ellington Feint had been there already to collect the package. And there was no one to ask to see a menu.
“Hello?” I asked, which is what everyone asks when they enter a room they are surprised to find empty. I stepped closer to the counter and saw three large brass buttons, right in a row, that had been built into a place on the counter where there were no seats. The buttons were each labeled with a brass letter: A, B, and C.
When I pressed C, the machinery behind the counter whirred to life. Steam clouded out from a row of holes toward the top of the machinery, and an enormous round bulb, like a lightbulb but made of metal, began to quake noisily. A small door opened, and a funnel came out on a long metal spring, and soon something was pouring from the bulb through the funnel into something that looked like a radio. Finally, a metal claw emerged from someplace with a small white saucer holding a small white cup, which got filled to the brim with something that smelled dark and familiar. The claw deposited the cup and saucer right in front of the C button, where it sat steaming at me.
“Coffee?” I said out loud, and then, because I had offered it to myself, felt it would be polite to tell myself “No, thank you.”
When I pressed B, different parts of the machine began to tremble, and a different kind of steam began to cloud from a different row of holes. Two devices that looked like metal hands began to wrestle over something white and sticky, which was then pounded by a pair of loud wooden hammers. Finally the whole mess was push
ed into a door, and a clock began ticking, and after some time a bell rang and the door opened and something slid down a slide to stop in front of the B button. A better smell filled the empty room.
“And B is for bread,” I said, and it was delicious.
When I pressed the A button, the machinery stayed quiet, and for a second I thought it was an aberration. But then right above me was a mighty scraping, as if the entire building were being lifted by a crane, and I stepped aside as a huge part of the ceiling lowered at a strict, sharp angle, revealing a staircase that led up and away from where I was standing.
“Attic,” I said. It was a good place to keep packages. The music from the piano told me there was nothing to worry about, but I climbed the staircase with my belly full of bread and butterflies. I was tired of surprises in strange rooms. But the attic of Black Cat Coffee was just another big room with nobody in it. Along the wall were a few cupboards, and shelves with bags of coffee on them. There was a long table with envelopes and packages stacked in separate piles, as if quite a few people collected their mail at Black Cat Coffee instead of at home. I wondered why. There were not that many packages. There was a small box marked MEDICAL SUPPLIES addressed to a Dr. Flammarion. There was a long tube marked ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT addressed to nothing more than a pair of initials that were unfamiliar. And then there was a package about the size of a bottle of milk, wrapped in newspaper with a handwriting I recognized immediately.
I unwrapped it carefully. It was the Bombinating Beast. It did not look happy to be found, but I was happy to see it. Everything in the world, I thought to myself. Every single thing, Snicket, has a place, and this statue is now with you.
The sun was dying when I stepped back out into the street, and the statue felt like it was bombinating under my arm. It was not actually buzzing, of course, but it made me nervous to carry something that everyone wanted, even though I’d rewrapped it carefully. I thought of the Far East Suite and how few hiding places it had, and took a detour, walking quickly past the Lost Arms and toward a place that had so many secrets already that one more wouldn’t hurt.
“Welcome,” Dashiell Qwerty said as I entered the library. “I see you’re still carrying the same burden I saw you with this morning.”
“So it would appear,” I said.
“Are you checking on your loan requests from the Fourier Branch?” he asked, his face as blank as usual. “Because I haven’t heard anything back just yet.”
“I was just looking for something to read,” I said.
Now Qwerty smiled and made a wide gesture with his hand and the sleeve of his leather jacket. “Make yourself at home,” he said, and I did. I had been in Stain’d-by-the-Sea for only a couple of days, and already I had spent more time here than I had in the meager room I was sharing with Theodora. Even though he had curious hair and a blank expression, I felt more comfortable with my sub-librarian than I did with my chaperone. And the rows of shelves, though as unpeopled as the streets I’d just walked, made me feel better than just about anything in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. I was at home, which is why I decided it was acceptable to hide something in the shelves, just for a little while. I searched for a long book that looked boring, and settled on something called An Analysis of Brown, Black, and Beige, hoping that nobody would be interested in the study of ordinary colors for at least a day. I unwrapped the statue, pulled the book from the shelf, and pushed the Bombinating Beast into the empty space as far as it could go, before replacing the book.
Now, I realized, I needed something to wrap the newspapers around. Qwerty had noticed my package, and he would notice if I didn’t have it when I left. One large book, or perhaps three medium-sized ones, would be a good substitute, and I knew at once which three books I would pick. It made me feel a bit guilty to sneak books out of the library, but I promised myself I’d return them promptly. I found the titles at once and sat down at my usual table. I was in no hurry to return to my hotel. I could take some time to read. Even with everything that had happened, there was something else that had been on my mind since morning.
I ended up reading until Qwerty told me it was closing time, when I thanked him and strolled down the proper aisle, pretending to return the books. Instead, I slipped them into the newspaper and gave him a wave good-bye as I stepped outside. It was quite late. I was not sure The Long Secret was the best. All three of the books were good. I walked across the scraggly lawn, hoping I would find Ellington Feint. Perhaps she would read them, too, and we could have a good-natured argument over which was best. Nothing firms up a friendship like a good-natured argument. But you’re not friends, I told myself, with Ellington Feint.
My thoughts went like this all the way back to the Lost Arms, where a dented, familiar taxi was parked outside. Through the window I could see Pip sound asleep against the steering wheel. I envied him as I walked into the lobby. Theodora was standing at such an angle that the head of the plaster statue looked like it was peeking out of her hair, but she was in no mood for me to point that out.
“Where have you been?” she said in a terrible voice. “I have been worried sick, Snicket.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said.
“I just received an upsetting phone call,” she told me, and began to pace up and down in front of the plaster woman. “This is already after the police suspect you of burglary and the vandalism of a streetlamp. And now you were playing with a little girl near a well. You’re supposed to be my apprentice, Snicket, not my stomachache!”
I was tired of all these mysterious phone calls, particularly when I had been unable to use the phone myself. “Who called you?” I asked.
“Mr. Mallahan,” Theodora said. “He was very upset and told me to tell you that you’re not allowed near his daughter anymore.”
“I don’t think that was Mr. Mallahan.”
“Don’t be daft, Snicket. He said he was Mr. Mallahan, and he sounded just like him.”
“There’s much more to this mystery than we know,” I said. “That’s why it isn’t safe to have the Bombinating Beast here.”
“You mean that isn’t it?” Theodora said, pointing to the parcel under my arm. “You mean you don’t even have what you were assigned to retrieve in the first place? I told you before that people are watching us. If you fail me in this task, my reputation will suffer.”
“You’re already ranked last,” I said, and regretted it at once. I had not been raised by people who raised their hands to me, so I had not yet learned that with some people if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, you will be hit.
Theodora’s eyes widened with shock at what I had said to her. “Not sensible!” she shouted. “Not proper!” And with a growl that sounded like something I would have expected from a legendary beast, she raised her gloved palm up in the air. She likely wanted to slap me, but I do not know if she would have. What I do know is that we were interrupted by the voice of Prosper Lost, who was standing in the booth in the corner of the lobby, calling to me.
“Lemony Snicket,” he said, “you have a phone call.”
Theodora uttered a high-pitched shriek of annoyance, turned on her heels, and stalked up the stairs. I watched her go and nodded at Prosper Lost, who had dropped the phone, letting it dangle from its cord, to walk back to his post at the desk. I walked toward the phone booth, the newspaper crinkling underneath my arm. I wondered who was calling me, and I wondered it out loud. I asked the question printed on the cover of this book, and once again it was the wrong one to ask. The right question was “When had I heard this person’s voice before?” but that question didn’t occur to me, not even when I picked up the receiver and heard the terrible things that were said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Hello?”
“It’s Ellington,” said the voice out of the phone. Her voice sounded breathy and worried, or perhaps that was just the phone. “I’m in trouble.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“He’s captured me,” the voice said. “I nee
d your help.”
“Hangfire?”
“Hangfire.” I am not a hairy person, but each one of my hairs stood up and showed off at the sound of his name. The sound seemed to have a similar effect on Prosper Lost, who stepped back out from behind his desk and took a sudden interest in dusting off the cushions of the sofa. I wish my Beginning Eavesdropping instructor had been there in the lobby to flunk him.
“He found me in the cottage and dragged me away and threw me into this room. I’m frightened.”
“Thank goodness you found a telephone,” I said.
“Do you have the statue?”
“The Bombinating Beast?” I said, just so I could see Prosper Lost take an interest in an even closer cushion. Dust, dust, dust, Mr. Lost, I thought.
“Do you have it, Lemony?”
I liked it better when Ellington called me Mr. Snicket. Of course, I liked it better when I was actually talking to Ellington. “I don’t think it’s wise to answer that question on the phone.”
“Of course,” the voice replied. “Well, if you have it, bring it to Thirteen Hundred Blotted Boulevard.”
“If I have it,” I said, “I should bring it to a certain address in the middle of the night, instead of keeping it here, where it might be safe?”
“If he gets the statue, I won’t be his prisoner anymore. Please hurry, Lemony.”
“It was certainly nice of him to let you pack your things before he dragged you away,” I said. “Even your record player was gone. What was the name of that tune, again?”
“Hurry,” said the voice again, and the line went dead. I had to admit it did really sound like Ellington Feint, just as it must have sounded like Mr. Mallahan, and it must have sounded like me when Moxie picked up the phone. I looked at the parcel in my hands.
Who Could That Be at This Hour? (All the Wrong Questions) Page 9