The Penultimate Peril - Snicket Lemony. Страница 27

"They must be murderers!" cried yet another person. "Nobody else would act as suspiciously as that!"

"We'd better hurry downstairs," said one more guest, "before they escape!"

"Wow!" squealed another voice. "Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio read the headline: 'VICIOUS MURDER AT HOTEL DENOUEMENT!' That's much more exciting than an accident!"

"Mob psychology," Sunny said, remembering a term Klaus had taught her shortly before she took her first steps.

"Sunny's right," said Klaus, wiping his eyes. "This crowd is getting angrier and angrier. In a moment, they'll all believe we're murderers."

"Maybe we are," Violet said quietly.

"Poppycock!" Sunny said firmly, which meant something like, "Nonsense." "Accident!"

"It was an accident," Klaus said, "but it was our fault."

"Partially," Sunny said.

"It's not for us to decide," Violet said. "We should go inside and talk to Justice Strauss and the others. They'll know what to do."

"Maybe," Klaus said. "Or maybe we should run."

"Run?" Sunny asked.

"We can't run," Violet said. "If we run, everyone will think we're murderers."

"Maybe we are," Klaus pointed out. "All the noble people in that lobby have failed us. We can't be sure they'll help us now."

Violet heaved a great sigh, her breath still shaky from her tears. "Where would we go?" she whispered.

"Anywhere," Klaus said simply. "We could go somewhere where no one has ever heard of Count Olaf, or V.F.D. There must be other noble people in the world, and we could find them."

"There are other noble people," Violet said. "They're on their way here. Dewey told us to wait until tomorrow. I think we should stay."

"Tomorrow might be too late," Klaus said. "I think we should run."

"Torn," Sunny said, which meant something along the lines of, "I see the advantages and disadvantages of both plans of action," but before her siblings could answer, the children felt a shadow over them, and looked up to see a tall, skinny figure standing over them. In the darkness the children could not see any of his features, only the glowing tip of a skinny cigarette in his mouth.

"Do you three need a taxi?" he asked, and gestured to the automobile that had brought Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor to the entrance of the hotel.

The siblings looked at one another, and then squinted up at the man. The children thought perhaps his voice was familiar, but it might just have been his unfathomable tone, which they'd heard so many times since their arrival at the hotel that it made everything seem familiar and mysterious at the same time.

"We're not sure," Violet said, after a moment.

"You're not sure?" the man asked. "Whenever you see someone in a taxi, they are probably being driven to do some errand. Surely there must be something you need to do, or somewhere you need to go. A great American novelist wrote that people travel faster now, but she wasn't sure if they do better things. Maybe you would do better things if you traveled at this very moment."

"We haven't any money," Klaus said.

"You needn't worry about money," the man said, "not if you're who I think you are." He leaned in toward the Baudelaires. "Are you?" he asked. "Are you who I think you are?"

The children looked at each other again. They had no way of knowing, of course, if this man was a volunteer or an enemy, a noble man or a treacherous person. In general, of course, a stranger who tries to get you into an automobile is anything but noble, and in general a person who quotes great American novelists is anything but treacherous, and in general a man who says you needn't worry about money, or a man who smokes cigarettes, is somewhere in between. But the Baudelaire orphans were not standing in general. They were standing outside the Hotel Denouement, at the edge of a pond where a great secret was hidden, while a crowd of guests grew more and more suspicious about the terrible thing that had just occurred. The children thought of Dewey, and remembered the terrible, terrible sight of him sinking into the pond, and they realized they had no way of knowing if they themselves were good or evil, let alone the mysterious man towering over them.

"We don't know," Sunny said finally.

"Baudelaires!" came a sharp voice at the top of the stairs, followed by a fit of coughing, and the siblings turned to see Mr. Poe, who was staring at the children and covering his mouth with a white handkerchief. "What has happened?" he asked. "Where is that man you shot with the harpoon?"

The Baudelaires were too weary and unhappy to argue with Mr. Poe's description of what happened. "He's dead," Violet said, and found that tears were in her eyes once more.

Mr. Poe coughed once more in astonishment, and then stepped down the stairs and stood in front of the children whose welfare had been his responsibility. "Dead!" he said. "How did that happen?"

"It's difficult to say," Klaus said.

"Difficult to say?" Mr. Poe frowned. "But I saw you, Baudelaires. You were holding the weapon. Surely you can tell me what happened."

"Henribergson," Sunny said, which meant "It's more complicated than that," but Mr. Poe only shook his head as if he'd heard enough.

"You'd better come inside," he said, with a weary sigh. "I must say I'm very disappointed in you children. When I was in charge of your affairs, no matter how many homes I found for you, terrible things occurred. Then, when you decided to handle your own affairs, The Daily Punctilio brought more and more news of your treachery with each passing day. And now that I've found you again, I see that once more an unfortunate event has occurred, and another guardian is dead. You should be ashamed of yourselves."

The Baudelaires did not answer. Dewey Denouement, of course, had not been their official guardian at the Hotel Denouement, but he had looked after them, even when they did not know it, and he had done his best to protect them from the villainous people lurking around their home. Even though he wasn't a proper guardian, he was a good guardian, and the children were ashamed of themselves for their participation in his unfortunate death. In silence, they waited while Mr. Poe had another fit of coughing, and then the banker put his hands on the Baudelaires' shoulders, pushing them toward the entrance to the hotel. "There are people who say that criminal behavior is the destiny of children from a broken home," he said. "Perhaps such people are right."

"This isn't our destiny," Klaus said, but he did not sound very sure, and Mr. Poe merely gave him a sad, stern look, and kept pushing. If someone taller than you has ever reached down to push you by the shoulder, then you know this is not a pleasant way to travel, but the Baudelaires were too upset and confused to care. Up the stairs they went, the banker plodding behind them in his ugly pajamas, and only when they reached the cloud of steam that still wafted across the entrance did they think to look back at the mysterious man who had offered them a ride. By then the man was already back inside the taxi and was driving slowly away from the Hotel Denouement, and just as the children had no way of knowing if he was a good person or not, they had no way of knowing if they were sad or relieved to see him go, and even after months of research, and many sleepless nights, and many dreary afternoons spent in front of an enormous pond, throwing stones in the hopes that someone would notice the ripples I was making, I have no way of knowing if the Baudelaires should have been sad or relieved to see him go either. I do know who the man was, and I do know where he went afterward, and I do know the name of the woman who was hiding in the trunk, and the type of musical instrument that was laid carefully in the back seat, and the ingredients of the sandwich tucked into the glove compartment, and even the small item that sat on the passenger seat, still damp from its hiding place, but I cannot tell you if the Baudelaires would have been happier in this man's company, or if it was better that he drove away from the three siblings, looking back at them through the rearview mirror and clutching a monogrammed napkin in his trembling hand. I do know that if they had gotten into his taxi, their troubles at the Hotel Denouement would not have been their penultimate peril, and they would have had quite a few more woeful events in their lives that would likely take thirteen more books to describe, but I have no way of knowing if it would have been better for the orphans, any more than I know if it would have been better for me had I decided to continue my life's work rather than researching the Baudelaires' story, or if it would have been better for my sister had she decided to join the children at the Hotel Denouement instead of waterskiing toward Captain Widdershins, and, later, waterskiing away from him, or if it would have been better for you to step into that taxicab you saw not so long ago and embark on your own series of events, rather than continuing with the life you have for yourself. There is no way of knowing. When there is no way of knowing, one can only imagine, and I imagine that the Baudelaire orphans were quite frightened indeed when they walked through the entrance to the hotel and saw the crowd of people waiting for them in the lobby.