I headed down the corridor to do my job. You got curious, I told myself, as I began to canvass the train. You got curious, but just make sure that you don’t get dead.
CHAPTER SIX
The Thistle of the Valley clattered through the night. Criminals were afoot and so was I, stepping back into the corridor and pushing open the sliding doors that led to the next passenger car. I had to knock loudly on the compartment door so I could be heard over the sounds of the train, and I had to lean in to hear the sounds that came from behind the door. There was some gasping and some rustling and a big shh that came too late.
I knocked again. This time the silence was performed a little better.
“I know you’re in there,” I said, and opened the door. What I’d said was true, although I did not know who the “you” was until I stepped into the compartment and took a look. It was a boy, sitting on the bench with a bright blue jacket wadded up next to him. At least, he appeared to be a boy older than I was. He was not much taller than I was but had a small patch of beard on his chin. My chin hadn’t developed the ability to grow a beard, but when it did, I thought, I wouldn’t grow a beard like that. It was a small, dark square, more like a business card than a beard, and it hung from his face as if it had been hurriedly taped there. All in all it was a startling sight, and the person standing next to the boy was startling too, although she shouldn’t have been. So many unexpected appearances, I thought. It’s like a haunted house or a surprise party, two things I’ve never enjoyed.
“You again,” said Sally Murphy.
“Me again,” I said back.
“I thought we left you behind at Stain’d Station,” the actress said.
“No such luck,” I said. “I’m conducting an investigation. Did you hear or see anything suspicious right before the train came to a stop?”
Sally Murphy was already shaking her head. “Neither of us did,” she said, without even consulting her companion. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m sorry to say that a crime has been committed on board this train.”
“A crime?” Sally Murphy repeated, as if the word were unfamiliar to her, rather than a recent hobby of hers. “Is that why the train came to a stop before?”
“No,” I said, and the actress and the boy exchanged nervous glances. “A murder was committed, just before The Thistle of the Valley made its unscheduled stop.”
Neither passenger replied or even looked at me. They were still looking at each other. A mention of murder hadn’t made them as nervous as the train’s unscheduled stop.
“I’m hoping to find a witness,” I said, “or anyone who can provide useful information.”
Sally Murphy blinked and turned to me. “We didn’t witness anything,” she said quickly, “and we’re certainly not useful. We’ve been hiding in this compartment since the train left Stain’d Station. Ow!”
The actress rubbed her arm and looked at the other passenger. It looked like she’d been given a hard poke. “Not hiding,” she said quickly. “Sitting, I meant to say. Yes, we’ve just been sitting here.”
Sally Murphy sat down and crossed her arms, which I noticed were trembling. The person next to her seemed to be trembling, too—trembling so hard that the beard looked in danger of falling off his face and fluttering down to the wooden bench, where the blue jacket lay crumpled. “I suppose this is your nephew or something,” I said to the actress.
“I don’t have a nephew,” Sally Murphy said, and then jumped a little. “Ow! I mean, of course I have a nephew. He’s a real live nephew and he’s sitting right there.”
“So I see,” I said. “He’s sitting next to a bright blue jacket with a thistle in the lapel, just like porters wear at Stain’d Station.”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” the actress said.
“Well, I happen to think it is,” I said. “I’ve made a number of things my business. The theft of a statue, for instance. A great number of children going missing, for instance, including a young woman whose brother is frantic to find her. And now the murder of a librarian is my business, so I’m canvassing the train, looking for anything suspicious, which is why I notice things left out on compartment benches.”
Sally Murphy leaned back and then forward, like it was her first dance lesson. “I—” she said.
“Don’t worry if your performance doesn’t fool me,” I said. “I’m not a drama critic. But some people think this train stopped to let on another passenger who might be even more interested in your performance than I am.”
The actress blinked at me.
“His name is Hangfire,” I said, and her eyes widened with fear. I remembered her screams in the basement of the Sallis mansion as it filled up with water from an underground well. She was terrified then, and the incident is described in an earlier report of mine, in case you feel like being terrified yourself. “You said at the station that you could never escape from Hangfire,” I reminded her now, “but tonight we may have an opportunity to stop his treachery.”
“If Hangfire is aboard this train,” Sally Murphy said, “there’ll be no stopping him.”
“If Hangfire’s aboard,” I said, “he’ll see right through you. Porters’ uniforms don’t lie around on trains unless a retired grocer helps someone’s nephew with a disguise.”
“No one’s wearing a disguise,” Sally Murphy said quickly.
“Then get rid of that,” I said, pointing to the jacket, “and hurry up about it.”
“I’m hurryupping,” muttered the nephew, and he began to fold up the uniform while Sally Murphy gave me a trembly frown.
“And you hurry up out of here, Snicket,” she said. “You have no idea what is going on.”
I looked at the actress, and then at her mysterious companion, and then left the compartment without so much as a “good-bye” or a “so long” or a “This mystery continues to confound me.” She was right. I had no idea what was going on. Wherever I turned, there were surprising people and mysterious schemes afoot, and I was no closer to finding Qwerty’s murderer. I looked out the window at the dark and racing scenery and I thought of the city, where the train would eventually arrive. I hadn’t seen the city since my apprenticeship began, and for a moment I felt so homesick I had to stop and lean my head against the glass. Dear Kit, I thought. And then I said it out loud.
“I wish you were here.”
My voice was quiet. Kit didn’t answer. Nobody did. I let myself rest against the window for ten more seconds, and when twenty seconds were up I stood and walked to the next compartment door. Continue your canvass, Snicket, I thought to myself. See what there is to see.
I knocked on the door while opening it, the way parents do to children, which leads to a lot of shrieking about privacy. The occupants of the compartment said nothing about privacy. There were three of them, all strangers and all sitting on one of the benches, quiet as cans of soup. One was a man with a very round, very bald head, and very round, very thick glasses around his eyes. Next to him was a heavily sweatered woman, either old enough to be the man’s mother or young enough to be his wife but hadn’t gotten enough sleep lately, and then a very old man with a gray beard that grew out in two different directions, like a split in a river. On the small table near the window were three thick books. None of them had the same title or the same author, but they all had the same thing on the spine. Next to the books were a few pencils and scraps of paper, held together with rubber bands, and more pencils and scraps of paper tucked here and there in more books stacked up in the racks above their heads. I knew what the books meant, and the pencils and the scraps of paper. Anyone from my organization would have known.
“Good evening,” I said, and the wind whistled through the compartment’s window, which was open just a tiny bit. It ruffled the scraps of paper, but no one made a move to close it. “I’m Lemony Snicket.”
“Walleye,” the bald man said.
“Pocket,” said the woman.
“I’m Eratosthenes,?
?? said the man with the unusual beard, the only one who met my eyes. His own eyes looked like they were asking me something, but I did not know what it was.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” I said, “but I’m in the middle of an important investigation. Did any of you hear or see anything suspicious, right before the train came to a stop?”
The wind ruffled the papers again. Everyone looked at the papers, and then at the window, and then at me.
“I’m afraid a murder has been committed,” I said, and the wind blew again, a bit harder. A few scraps fluttered down to the carpet. The three strangers watched them flutter.
“I’m on the lookout for anything suspicious,” I said, “like for instance, three people keeping very quiet and still when a murder has been announced, not even moving to close the window.”
Eratosthenes gave a sort of growl, and stood up. The two ends of his beard pointed in two different directions, but his finger, bony and pale, pointed at me. “Shut the window yourself, if you want it shut,” he said. “Open it if you want it open. Climb out of it or climb back in. We’ll say anything you want us to say. Just leave us alone.”
“We’re peaceful people,” said Pocket, “and we want no part of this.”
“Point your dart gun at someone else,” Walleye said.
“Dart gun?” I said, but the three passengers might not have heard me over the sound of a siren in the corridor. The wooden door opened, and a number of people walked into the compartment. First came the Officers Mitchum, Harvey leading the way and Mimi telling him that she should be leading the way. Then came Theodora, still looking pale and still looking at the ground, and then came Theodora’s hair, which took longer to enter the room than she did. Bringing up the rear, which was where he belonged, was Stew Mitchum, whose mouth stopped imitating a siren and started smirking as soon as he saw me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “We’ve found the real witnesses you were blabbering about. These three people witnessed Dashiell Qwerty’s murder. Thanks to them, your precious Theodora will be locked up for good.”
“My chaperone is not a murderer,” I said, but Theodora didn’t even raise her head. Stew smiled the sort of smile that fools many adults but never a single child, and he walked over to the bench.
“Tell me,” he said to the passengers, “did you hear or see anything suspicious, right before the train came to a stop?”
The three strangers looked at one another, like they were in line to walk the plank. Stew kept up his grin. Some people are trouble from the moment you meet them, and Stew Mitchum was one of those people. But he was also the sort of person who got worse, like a small cut on your hand that you don’t bother to take care of. First it hurts, and then it hurts worse, and before you know it people faint dead away at the sight of the gruesome and bloody mess you have on your hands.
“Well?” Harvey demanded. “Are you a witness to this crime?”
Walleye cleared his throat and looked at his two companions. “Yes,” he said, in a “yes” that sounded very much like a “no.”
“What’s your name?”
“Walleye,” said Walleye.
“Occupation?”
“Harvey, what does it matter what he does for a living?” Mimi asked her husband with a sigh, and then turned to Walleye. “Tell us what you heard.”
The bald man sighed, like there was medicine he had to take. “I heard two people fighting in Cell One,” he said.
“You couldn’t have heard that,” I said. “Your compartment is nowhere near the prison car. Passengers much closer to the crime said they didn’t hear a thing.”
The woman coughed, a rough sound over the clattering of the train. “My name is Pocket,” she said, like she was reading it off an eye chart. “My occupation is—”
“Never mind that,” Harvey interrupted. “What did you see?”
“I saw S. Theodora Markson shoot Dashiell Qwerty with a poison dart.”
“You did no such thing,” I said.
The old man looked the most scared of all. “Eratosthenes is my name,” he said, “and my occupation is the same as the others. I saw that stranger over there, S. Theodora Markson, throw the weapon out the window of the train when she was done, and I heard the glass shatter on the floor.”
“If she’s a total stranger,” I said, “how do you know her name?”
“I’m asking the questions here,” Harvey Mitchum barked, “and I have no further questions for this witness. The case is closed. I’ll write up my report and deliver Theodora to the authorities when the train reaches the city.”
There’s a kind of astonishment you can taste in your throat, a burning angry flavor that made me spit out my words. “This is absurd,” I said, and the Mitchums turned to me in anxious unison, a phrase which here means that they did it at the same time and with the same sickly look. “Theodora is being railroaded.”
“Well,” Mimi said, “she is on a train.”
“‘Railroaded’ is a word which here means ‘framed for a crime,’” I said, and though it was the right definition it was the wrong thing to say. I looked at Theodora. Her head was still down and her hair was still in her face, and she had twisted her hands together like she was already in handcuffs.
“You saw her yourself, lad,” Harvey said, his voice trembling slightly, “standing in the cell, next to Qwerty’s body. I hate to tell you this, but your chaperone is a murderer. We’re locking her up now and she’ll go to trial in the city.”
“You can’t lock her up in Qwerty’s cell,” Mimi said. “She could escape through the broken window.”
“I know that, Mimi,” Harvey said sharply. “You think I don’t know that? I’m putting Theodora in Cell Two with the other prisoner.”
“A cell is not a sandwich, Harvey. You can’t ask people to share it.”
“Qwerty shared his.”
I thought of all the murmuring voices I had heard before the shattering of glass. “With whom?” I asked.
Harvey and Mimi exchanged a quick, guilty look. “That’s the wrong question,” Mimi said to me. “In fact, there are no more questions. You said the authorities would want proof, and now you have it. Three witnesses say Theodora is the murderer.”
I walked closer and closer to the bickering officers until I stood face to face with them, or face to badge, as they were both taller than I was. The badges had lost most of their shine and looked like they were quite tired of being pinned to the people they were pinned to. I stared at them for a second and then looked the Officers Mitchum right in their eyes. Between the two of them, and their four eyes, I saw not one speck of courage. Get scared later, is what I wanted to tell them, but they were scared now. “Why are you doing this?” I asked them, instead.
The two Mitchums shared a look again. “You know why,” Harvey murmured, just barely.
“We’re the law,” Mimi told me quietly, as if she did not believe a word of it, “from the outskirts of town in the hinterlands to the boundary of the Clusterous Forest. And we’re telling you that Theodora is guilty.”
She put one hand on my chaperone’s shoulder, and Harvey put his hand on the other. “This is wrong,” I said, but I do not know if the Mitchums even heard me, because the compartment rang with a loud, shaky noise. For a moment I thought the train had been derailed, but I turned and realized Stew had pounded his fist on the wall. He shot a dark look every which way, finally settling on the Mitchums as if he wanted to tear his parents limb from limb. Everyone wants to tear their parents limb from limb sometimes, but Stew looked like he might do something about it. His parents looked away, and the three witnesses looked at the ground. Theodora looked nowhere, just allowed herself to be led out of the compartment by the two officers, with their sneering son following. I turned to the three passengers on the bench. “Do you know what you’ve done?” I asked them. “Because of your testimony, an innocent woman has been framed for the death of a friend of mine.”
The strangers said nothing.
“A terrible villain has been terrorizing a community, and because of your lies he’s going to continue,” I said. “There’s treachery afoot, and thanks to you, it’s going to stay afoot a little bit longer.” The strangers added nothing to the nothing they had already said.
“Would it make a difference,” I asked them, “if I told you that the murder victim was a librarian—just like you?”
The three strangers looked like they’d been punched in the stomach, and then like they wanted to punch back. “How did you know?” Walleye sputtered.
“Lots of library books,” I said, “pencils and scrap paper, shabby but stylish clothing. It’s not much of a mystery, if one has worked with librarians all one’s life. Giacomo Casanova was a noble librarian. So was Marcel Duchamp, and that goes double for Beverly Cleary. But you three are disgraces to the profession, and you know it.”
“Now see here, young man—” Eratosthenes started.
“I’m trying to see here,” I said. “I’m trying to see the solution to this mystery, but I don’t know where to look. Normally in a situation like this I’d ask a librarian for help. But the best librarian in these parts is dead, and you three are too busy being ashamed of yourselves to even pick up the books you brought with you.” I slammed out of the compartment as scornfully as I could, although not as scornfully as I wanted. I stood in the corridor feeling like an angry pebble. It didn’t matter where I rolled off to. The mystery and treachery of the world continued, and a pebble like me could get angry over anything it liked and it wouldn’t do any good. Librarians not reading, I thought to myself. Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.