"Who Could That Be at This Hour?" (All the Wrong Questions) (6 page)

“Hold still,” the boy replied, taking out his slingshot. “Let me see if I can hit that idiotic smile of yours from across the room.”

Qwerty appeared as if from nowhere. “
Stew
,” he said, a word that sounded much scarier in such a deep voice. “Leave this library at once.”

“I’m allowed in here,” Stew said, glaring at the librarian. “This is a public library.”

“And you are a public nuisance,” Qwerty replied, grabbing Stew’s arm and propelling him toward the door. “Out.”

“See you soon,” Stew called out nastily to me, but he left without further insult, and Qwerty went over to examine the wall.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, frowning at a small dent and rubbing it with his finger. “Stew Mitchum is like something stuck at the bottom of a waste bin. I try and try to throw him out, but he just sticks there, getting older and older. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Sort of,” I said. “Can I check out books if I don’t live in town?”

“Regrettably, no,” Qwerty said. “But I open the library very early every day. You’re always welcome to come in and read anything you like. It’s not often we get people interested in theater.”

I did not bother to remind him that famous actresses were not the legends I was researching. “Thank you,” I said. “I suppose I should get going.”

“Of course,” Qwerty said, “if you have a library card, you can send requests for books from the library close to where you live.”

“You mean, my library in the city can send books here that I can check out?”

“No,” Qwerty said, “but you could fill out the paperwork here, and the book would be waiting for you in the city.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back there,” I said. The city, and the people I liked best in it, seemed even farther away than they were.

Qwerty reached into a pocket of his jacket
and pulled out a blank card. “You see, how it works is that you write down your name and the title of the book, and the person working at the research desk sees what book you are requesting.”

I thought quickly. “So the person at the research desk sees the title of the book I want?”

“Yes.”

“Or their apprentice?”

“I suppose so,” Qwerty said. “Have you changed your mind?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to request a book from the Fourier Branch.”

“The Fourier Branch?” Qwerty repeated, taking a pencil from behind his ear. “Isn’t that near where they’re building that new statue?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, perfectly sure.

“And what is your name?” he asked me.

I told him, and told him it was spelled like it sounded. He wrote it down in careful block letters and then paused with his pencil in the air.

“And the author of the book you’re looking for?”

I was blank for a moment. “Sorry,” I said.

“Sorry is the author’s name?”

“Yes,” I stammered. “I believe she’s Belgian.”

“Belgian,” he said, and looked at me and wrote it down and looked at me again. “And the title of the book?” he said, and it was a perfectly reasonable question. I hoped my answer sounded reasonable, too.

“
But I Cannot Meet You at the Fountain
.”

Qwerty looked at me, his face as blank as one of those extra pages tucked in the back of a book for notes or secrets. “So your complete request,” he said, “is ‘Sorry,
But I Cannot Meet You at the Fountain
.’”

“That’s right,” and Qwerty looked at me just for a second before slowly writing it down.

CHAPTER FIVE

I walked back to the Lost Arms feeling much
lighter than I had all day. The library had been restorative, a word an associate of mine used to describe activities that clear the brain and make the heart happy. A root beer float is restorative, as is managing to open a locked door. Hopefully, I thought, this associate of mine would soon receive my request at the Fourier Branch of the library and save herself some trouble.

It was trouble that was waiting for me at
the Lost Arms, and one could spot it half a block away, as there was a car parked out front with a red light on top. It looked like a police car, but when I got closer, I saw it was a run-down station wagon with a flashlight taped to its roof. Nevertheless, there were two adults in uniform standing at the steps of the Lost Arms, where Theodora was sitting. She had to look up to speak to them, and her eyes looked serious and worried beneath her hair. As part of my education, I’d learned that one should never have a serious conversation in a position in which one has to look up at the other person. I’d thought this was a ridiculous thing to teach children, who tend to be shorter than anyone else, and said so. As punishment for speaking out in class, I had to sit in the corner. The teacher looked even taller from there.

“Snicket,” Theodora said as I reached our hotel. “These are the Officers Mitchum.”

The two officers turned to look at me, and
I found myself facing a man and a woman who looked so much alike they could only be twins or two people who had been married for a very long time. They both had pear-shaped bodies, with short, thick legs and grumpy-looking arms, and it looked like they had both tried on heads that were too small for them and were about to ask the head clerk for a larger size.

“My wife and I have questions for you,” said the first Officer Mitchum, rather than “Hello” or “Nice to meet you” or “I thought you might be hungry, so I took the liberty of bringing you some lamb chops.”

“Harvey,” the other officer said sharply. “You’re not supposed to call me your wife when we’re on official business.”

The first officer sighed. “Mimi, you’re my wife whether we’re on duty or not.”

“Don’t remind me,” his wife replied. “I’m having a bad enough day as it is. It was your turn
to empty the dishwasher, Harvey, but as usual you forgot, and I had to do it myself.”

“Mimi, stop nagging me.”

“I’m not nagging you.”

“Yes you are.”

“Harvey, gently pointing something out is not nagging.”

“That was gentle? I’ve seen a pack of wolves act as gentle as that.”

“When have you ever seen a pack of wolves?”

“Well, not actual wolves, but I’ve visited your sister’s house, and her kids—”

I can’t imagine there is anyone reading this who needs to be told that when two married adults start to argue, it can last for hours, if not days, and the only way to stop it is to interrupt them. “You said you had some questions for me?” I asked.

“We’ll ask the questions around here,” Mimi Mitchum said. “We’re the law in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. We’re the ones who catch criminals and put
them on the train back to the city to be locked up. From the outskirts of town in the hinterlands to the boundary of the Clusterous Forest, we know every single thing that happens in this town. So when strangers arrive, we feel it is our duty to welcome them and ask them what exactly it is that they’re doing here.”

“We love ink,” Theodora tried.

“You told Mr. Mallahan you loved lighthouses.”

“We love everything,” Theodora said with a desperate smile.

“What my chaperone means,” I said, “is that although we’re here on business, we hope to take in some of the fantastic sights of this wonderful community. I was just admiring your police station, for instance.”

“Harvey hung that sign himself,” Mimi Mitchum said proudly.

“It’s true,” the male Officer Mitchum said, “but what we’re here to say is that one sight we
hope you will
not
enjoy is the inside of our only jail cell. We couldn’t help but notice that soon after the arrival of two strangers, this town experienced a crime. It is a small crime, to be sure, but it is a crime nonetheless.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“A streetlight was vandalized,” Harvey Mitchum said. “Right around the corner from the library, someone slung a small rock and shattered the bulb. It’s still too early to make assumptions, but it wouldn’t be surprising if this crime could be traced to the two of you. Where have you been for the last hour, Snicket?”

“In the library,” I answered.

“Can anyone verify this?”

“Dashiell Qwerty, the librarian.”

“That ruffian,” Mimi Mitchum scoffed. “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t spend time on his appearance.”

“I’d say he spent lots of time,” I said. “That haircut looked like it took hours. He and I were
interrupted by a young boy with a slingshot. Qwerty said his name was Stew.”

The Officers Mitchum looked sternly at me, their mouths set in identical snarls. “Our son, Stewart,” the female Mitchum said, “is a genius and a gentleman. He is certainly not a criminal. Why, he begged to come with us just in order to welcome you.”

She gestured to the station wagon, and I saw for the first time Stew’s thick, sneering head peering out the open window. When the eyes of the adults were upon him, he found an enormous smile someplace and plastered that on his face instead. “Nice to meet you, Lemony,” he said to me in a falsely cheerful voice. “I love meeting nice people my own age! I do hope we become the bestest of friends!”

“You see?” Harvey Mitchum said to me as Stew stuck his tongue out at me without anyone seeing. “A charming boy.”

“A
darling
boy,” Mimi Mitchum said. “Lately
he’s been interested in local bird life.”

“I bet he grows up to be a brilliant scientist,” her husband said.

“Or a doctor,” said his wife.

“A
brilliant
doctor.”

“Of course, Harvey. You know I meant a brilliant doctor. You don’t have to embarrass me like that.”

“I wasn’t trying to embarrass you.”

“Well, then you were wasting time.”

“I wasn’t wasting time! It only took a second!”

“Then what were you trying to do? Why would you even say such a thing if you weren’t trying to embarrass your wife?”

“You said I shouldn’t call you my wife when we’re on duty!”

“And you said I was still your wife whether we were on duty or not.”

“Excuse me,” I said, “but if you don’t have any more questions, I’d like to go to my room.”

The Officers Mitchum looked at me in irritation for interrupting their argument. “We’ll be keeping an eye on you two,” Mimi Mitchum said, pointing a surprisingly long finger, and after a brief dispute over which Mitchum would drive, the station wagon rattled away down the street, and Theodora stood up to stare down at me.

“We’re not in town one day,” she said, “and already you’re in trouble with the law. I’m disappointed in you, Snicket.”

“I didn’t vandalize a streetlight,” I said.

“That’s not important,” she said with a shake of her hair. “We need to move tonight.”

“Let’s look for a place with two separate rooms.”

“No, I mean tonight we must be interlopers,” she said, “a word which here means stealing the Bombinating Beast and returning it to its rightful owners.”

“I think the statue
is
with its rightful owners,”
I said, not adding that I had known what “interlopers” meant since I was ten years old and read a short story by a British man with a funny false name. “I did some research at the library, and local legends say that the Bombinating Beast has been associated with the Mallahan family for generations. And when Moxie Mallahan showed it to me, it looked very dusty, as if it hadn’t been moved in years.”

“Legends are just made-up stories,” Theodora said scornfully, “and anyone can pour dust on something to make it look old. Some years ago I had a case where two brothers were arguing over a seashell collection. The younger brother poured dust on the shells to try to prove they were his, but I saw through his ridiculous ruse. In any case, it’s all settled. I called the Sallis mansion this afternoon and made arrangements with the butler. We will take the statue from the lighthouse and climb out the window to reach the mansion by way of the hawser. The butler agreed to leave
the window to the library open and signal us with a candle that all is clear. We will deliver the statue to him, and the case will be closed.”

It struck me that it was probably not dust but sand on the shells, so that it was likely that the younger brother was the true owner of the seashell collection. It also struck me that it was not a good time to say this. My chaperone leaned in close to me. “What you are to do,” she said, “is break into the lighthouse sometime this evening and wait inside. At midnight exactly you will open the door for me and lead me to the item in question. This must go off without a hitch, Snicket. People are watching us.”

“You mean the Officers Mitchum?”

Theodora shook her head. “I mean someone from our organization. Wherever a chaperone goes, there is someone keeping an eye on things. You don’t know this, Snicket, but out of fifty-two chaperones, I am ranked only tenth. If I solve this case quickly, my ranking will improve.
Now off you go. I’ll see you at the lighthouse at midnight.”

“What about dinner?” I asked.

“I already had dinner, thank you.”

“What about
my
dinner?”

She frowned at me and walked up the stairs. “That’s the wrong question, Snicket. There are more important things than dinner. Focus on the case.”