Please find enclosed herein the misfiled fourteenth (14) report from the previously numbered thirteen (13) reports filed under "Suspicious Incidents" in our archives. This misfiled report has one (1) conclusion which has been separated from its corresponding report for security reasons. The report is contained in sub-file Three (3) and the conclusion in sub-file C (c) so that it is impossible for the report and conclusion to be in the same place at once. For your convenience, both sub-files are included here.
The information contained herein is secret and important, meant only for members of our organization. If you are not a member of our organization, please put this down, as it is neither secret nor important and therefore will not interest you.
All missing and/or confusing information, by definition, is none of your business.
There is only one apartment block in Stain'd-By-The-Sea, and it sticks up from the landscape like a pimple that nobody ever bothered to pop. It is four stories high, and resembles an island resort in the same way that a tarantula resembles a butterfly. Only four people and a manager live in it now, and I don't especially know why they would want to.
It is at this apartment block that I found myself on one gloomy afternoon, sitting on the staircase outside one of the only occupied rooms as S. Theodora Markson argued with the occupant inside. I could not make out exact words, but she appeared to be getting more and more distressed as the conversation dragged on, and I could hear the pitch of her voice steadily rising. It reminded me of a siren in its intensity, and I kept waiting for its pitch to come down like a siren should.
This, as I'm sure you're aware, is never a pleasant way to spend your afternoons. There are far better things I could have been doing, including reading a very good book by a very good author about an electric monk, a time machine, and a detective who shouldn't be as good at his job as he actually is, or drinking a root beer float, or spending time with my associates- or even all three at once. But the library did not have the very good book in its collection, root beer seemed to be an extinct substance in this sad, fading town, and Hungry's Diner was across town and out of my reach.
There is a method of eavesdropping that involves using an empty glass tumbler to listen in on conversations that may be occurring out of your earshot, and although I did not have a glass tumbler, empty or otherwise, on hand, I knew an alternative way.
"-course he was meant to be my protégée," Theodora was saying, sounding increasingly frantic as I pressed my ear flush to the door and listened in. "He chose me, there was no question of it-"
"Nevertheless," another voice cut in, "it has come to our attention that-"
I began to get an uncomfortable sinking feeling in my stomach that usually occurs when I suspect that I'm being talked about behind my back.
Inside the room, I heard a bell ring.
"-there are inherent problems with the apprenticeship situation, and even we will-"
"Snicket!" a voice said, startled, and I recoiled from the door, glancing behind me. Opposite the door that I was listening at, another door had opened. Standing in the half-open doorway was a girl with hair so blond it looked white and round glasses that made her eyes look very small. It was Cleo Knight, a brilliant chemist and an associate of mine. "What on earth are you doing-"
I made the universal gesture for 'I'm eavesdropping at this door', which is mouthing 'I'm eavesdropping at this door', and she made a universal gesture which means 'oh', which is covering your mouth with both hands and nodding.
Inside the room, I heard a bell ring once more, and I knew, even as I moved back to listen at the wall, that the message was over and I was far too late to pick up on anything of use.
In retrospect, Cleo's intervention was probably a stroke of good fortune- a phrase which here means 'saved me from a long, arduous lecture about eavesdropping from Theodora and possibly a sore head from having a door slammed into it', because that's precisely where the door would have hit had I still been kneeling there.
"Snicket!" said a voice, also startled, but this one was far less welcome. "What are you doing, kneeling there?"
"It seemed like a better idea than standing," I told Theodora. "Are you done?"
"Yes." She frowned, and it was the frown of a person that doesn't want to talk about it. "We're leaving, Snicket- come on."
I glanced behind me. Cleo had retreated back behind the door that she had appeared from, closing it so it was only open a crack. "I'll walk back."
"You'll walk back," she said, and it wasn't phrased as a question. "I will see you back at the Lost Arms at no later than eight tonight. If you are not back by then, there will be consequences."
She did not state what these consequences were, and I did not ask.
"What does the 'S' stand for?" I yelled after her as she began to descend the stairs.
"Stay out of trouble!" she screamed back, and she was gone. I turned back to the mostly-closed door, which was slowly creaking open even as I watched.
"What are you doing here?" Cleo repeated when the echoing noise of Theodora's clattering footsteps faded away into nothing.
"You know, I have absolutely no clue," I said honestly. "What are you doing here?"
"I live here," she said, and gestured over her shoulder into the apartment she had emerged from. "Or work here, anyway. It's not the most accommodating of lodgings, but the manager doesn't ask too many questions."
Cleo Knight was a brilliant chemist, and although most of the town believed her to have run away with the circus, I and a few other of our associates knew that she was really hiding out in an undisclosed location, working on a chemical formula that might just be able to save the town. I had the utmost faith in her, but from what I could tell, she had been having a difficult time making progress recently.
"How's the invisible ink?" I asked.
"On the record, there's no such thing," she said with a small smile. "Off the record-"
She paused, and then let out a sudden sigh.
"It's not good, Snicket," she admitted. "I seem to be stuck, and I don't say that lightly. There's a crucial ingredient I'm missing, but I don't know what it could be."
She looked tired and she looked like she needed a hug, but I didn't think there was much I could do for her. Cleo Knight is not the sort of person who accepts a hug unless she is very fond of the person giving it.
"You'll figure it out," I told her.
"I know," she said with confidence that seemed genuine. "It's just hard going at the moment. I wish I could see my parents." She stepped out into the corridor, hand still on the doorknob. "What I need is a distraction, Snicket."
"Thief, thief!" somebody cried, and we both looked up. It was coming from the fourth floor, two floors above us. "Thief! Somebody help!"
Cleo looked at me, and I shrugged. "How's that?"
"Perfect," she said, shutting her apartment door with a clean snap. "Let's go."
"It was a ghost," gasped the man who had called 'thief' in the first place, white-faced and trembling. His door had been askew and he had been sitting on the ground in shock when Cleo and I arrived. And his name, as we soon found out, was Filibus Templar. "A ghost came in through the walls and took my microscope!"
"Your microscope?" Cleo asked, eyes narrowing behind her glasses.
"It belonged to Ingrid Nummet Knight," he explained. "You may not have heard of her. She was the most prominent chemist in this town."
"I've heard of her," Cleo said.
"How did you come by it?" I asked.
"My old mentor Bobby Tapputti gifted it to me two years after we first started working together," he said, a sudden fond expression passing across his face. "He worked with Ingrid Knight, did you know that?"
I made a little hum of acknowledgement, and he seemed to take that as an invitation to continue.
"Anyway, soon after he gave it to me, he vanished. Kaput!" He made a gesture with his hands that indicated something blowing up, although I wasn't sure how that was relevant. "Never saw him again, but golly did that microscope work wonders for my research. Until today, anyway."
"And so-"
"And so it's Ingrid's ghost that has taken it!" he wailed, loud enough for S. Theodora Markson, who was probably halfway across town by now, to hear it.
"I very much doubt that," Cleo said, and I agreed silently. Ghosts, by general rule, tended not to exist.
"The door was locked," said Filibus Templar, "and nothing has been disturbed except for the microscope. It was on my desk, right here."
We looked. Sure enough, there were no microscopes on the desk, haunted or otherwise. There was, however, a note.
I HAVE TAKEN YOUR MICROSCOPE. THERE IS NO WAY YOU WILL GET IT BACK, SO DON'T EVEN BOTHER LOOKING FOR IT. YOU WILL NEVER SEE IT AGAIN.
SINCERELY, A GHOST.
Cleo looked sceptical, and rightfully so. I was feeling quite a large amount of scepticism towards the existence of ghosts, too.
"How about we pretend, just for a moment, that a ghost didn't take it?" she suggested carefully.
Filibus Templar looked unsure for a moment, and then shrugged. "Fine."
"So who could have stolen it?" Cleo said. "That's not a ghost, I mean."
"The window was closed," Filibus Templar insisted, "and my only door was locked!"
I frowned. "Well, does anybody else have a key?"
His brow wrinkled for a while, and he appeared to be deep in thought. "The manager of this apartment," he said after a moment. "But I've never actually met him in all the three years I've been living here."
Cleo shrugged when I looked at her. "Me neither. My parents have rented this apartment for longer than I could remember. I just took the key. Nobody apart from Jake- and, well, you now- knows I'm living here."
"The boy at the diner on the corner," Templar added suddenly. "Jake! That's his name. He has a key too. Every Friday he brings around my groceries, so I don't have to visit the store."
Cleo and I exchanged looks.
"Did you talk with anybody before the microscope went missing?" I asked.
"Well, no…" Templar began, but then his brow wrinkled again. "Ah, actually- somebody called to interview me for their newspaper. They were interested in the microscope, I remember."
"A reporter?" I said, startled- since there was only one reporter in Stain'd-by-the-Sea that I knew of. "Did you get their name?"
He shrugged. "Sorry, no. I never thought to ask." He looked at us expectantly. "So- can you find my microscope?"
"We'll do our very best," I told him, "but I have one last question."
"Yes?"
"What were you researching before the microscope was stolen?"
He ran a hand through his hair. "Ah, well- it seems kind of stupid now, but-" He sighed. "I was trying to develop a synthetic alternative for the ink in this town. Something that doesn't hurt the octopi. I wasn't getting very far, but-"
"Thank you," I said. "We'll be in touch."
And Cleo and I left his apartment.
"I want to," she said as soon as we were alone in the corridor outside. "It sounds like exactly the sort of thing to help me bring me out of my temporary lapse in work, and it doesn't seem like the sort of investigation you'd want to undertake alone."
I smiled. "Then come with me, and we can solve it together."
"That's just the thing," she said regretfully. Her fingers tapped against the side of her leg, and I saw that her nails were bitten and worn down in the nature of somebody who has been working on the same problem for a very long time without any headway. "I can't. If anybody sees me-"
I considered this for a long time, and then I took off my cap and presented it to her.
"Let's trade," I offered.
She smiled; took off her own hat, which was round and the color of a raspberry, and exchanged it for mine, laughing when I put it on and raised my eyebrows innocently at her. She quickly coiled her long white hair into a loose bun, and tucked it underneath the cap so only a few loose strands were peeking out.
Her striped shirt was still very distinctive, so I slipped off my jacket, which was perhaps one size too big for me, and offered it to her as well. She slipped it on, and it was perhaps one size too small for her, but it fit nonetheless. She now resembled a glasses-wearing older me, and the disguise was complete.
"Perfect," she said, and adjusted her hat on my head so it tilted forwards. "Do you want to ride in the Dilemma?"
That was the wrong question. The right question was 'who in their right mind wouldn't want to ride in a Dilemma?" Although I didn't know anything about cars worth talking about, I could easily tell you that the Dilemma is the Kenneth Grahame of the car world. There is not a single thing wrong with a Dilemma.
We exited the apartment block and Cleo showed me where she had hidden her car- behind a row of sad-looking bushes which were drooping as if somebody had told them that there was no root beer left in town. I could relate. I helped her clear off the leaves and sticks, and soon the Dilemma was shining before us.
The first person to visit, of course, was Jake Hix- who worked at Hungry's Diner, cooked the best food in Stain'd-By-The-Sea and all other places I had ever visited, and also happened to be Cleo's sweetheart. Cleo and I both knew that there was no possibility of him having stolen the microscope, but we needed to explore all options.
"The hat's quite fetching," he told Cleo after doing a very quick double take. "But I think I prefer the other one."
She leaned over the counter, and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Hello, Jake. It's good to see you too."
"I'm sorry I haven't been able to come over," he said, frowning at the counter in front of him, "but my aunt is being her usual self. She says I can't go out of the diner until we've closed for the night."
Cleo made a small, sympathetic noise, and gave him another kiss. This time, I averted my eyes.
"We're undercover today," I said. "That's a word which here means in very thin disguises, but just thick enough to deceive anybody who might recognize Cleo."
"I see," he said to me, grinning as he flipped an omelette du fromage in his pan. His hair was almost as fiery-red as the flame he was cooking it over. "Good thinking, Snicket. What's the scoop?"
"The proper phrase is 'what's the news'," corrected Moxie, smiling over at us from across the room. Her arm was still in a cast, but she was determinedly picking away at her typewriter with her one free hand. "And I have no doubt that he's about to tell us- aren't you, Snicket?"
"You deliver groceries to a man named Filibus Templar, don't you?" I asked Jake by means of preamble.
He served the omelette onto a plate, and sprinkled parmesan across it. "Yep. Every week, on a Wednesday morning. You've met him?"
"His microscope's been stolen," Cleo said.
Jake grimaced, and slid the plate down the counter towards Moxie, who trapped it with her elbow and picked up a fork with her free hand. "Egad, that's terrible. He really loves that old thing."
"He thinks you might have stolen it," I added, and Jake laughed.
"Why would I need to steal a microscope? And what would I need it for? I doubt even an antique would be worth much around here- there's nobody left to buy it."
"That's true," I acknowledged. "But why else would somebody steal a microscope?"
Conversation stalled for a moment as Jake declared his intention of making both Cleo and I a delicious afternoon snack. Neither of us argued. You should never refuse food from Jake Hix.
"Mr Templar said something about a journalist interviewing him a week or so ago," Cleo said as Jake resumed his place at the stove again.
Everyone glanced instinctively at Moxie, who dropped the fork and raised her one uninjured arm in protest. "I've been confined to my house all week on your orders, Cleo." She raised her injured arm for effect. "When would I have had the time to interview somebody?"
I nodded, and watched as she picked up the fork again and started eating. "But you're the only journalist left in Stain'd-By-The-Sea. Either he was lying, or-"
"That's not entirely true," Moxie added from between bites of omelette. "-this is excellent, Jake, thank you."
"No problem, Moxie," he said, "and what do you mean?"
"Well, The Stain'd Lighthouse wasn't the only publication in this town when it was still alive," she said. "It was certainly the most well-researched and well-respected, but there were a few amateur magazines and newsletters floating around." She paused, and glanced over at her typewriter, as if she wanted to start typing again, but she pulled herself quickly away. "One of the larger newsletters is still running, but they print out of town, and deliver out of town too. The Daily P- something."
"That's interesting," said Cleo, taking a seat next to me at the counter. "But what does it have to do with a stolen microscope?"
"Probably nothing," she said. "The current editor lives in town, and- I wouldn't say he's evil, that's going a bit too far, but he does come across as slightly extreme. I wouldn't even say he's a journalist; he just falls under the general category, which may be why Mr Templar referred to him as such."
"Where does he live?" I asked.
"Two blocks over," Moxie said, gesturing with her fork out the window. "24 Erysthothine Avenue, if I remember correctly."
Cleo and I exchanged glances with each other, and then Jake's cooing.
"It'll be getting dark soon," she said. "We should go talk to him before sundown."
"Yes," I agreed. It's always better to solve mysteries in the daylight, where you can see them in full detail.
For a second, Moxie looked as if she wanted to stand up and join us, but then Cleo and Jake gave her identical stern looks, and she sank back into her seat, defeated.
"Fine," she groused, clearly unhappy with the situation. "Good luck solving your mystery."
"Yeah, I phoned him this morning," said the editor of the out-of-town newsletter. "What about it?"
"We were curious about the microscope," said Cleo, adjusting the cap on her head. She had removed her glasses for the time being, just to be on the safe side, and I barely recognized her. Her eyes seemed much larger than usual. "It's been stolen from its owner, and he's very anxious to get it back."
"The microscope?" the editor laughed. "Sure, it's valuable. But why would I steal it? I run a perfectly good business right here. Plenty of good money intake from sales in the City. The microscope story was just a general interest topic, you know. It's not like anybody's going to pay attention to it."
"Hm," I said, studying him. He seemed entirely genuine, but I knew that wasn't any indication of somebody's true nature.
"No, if you're looking for the thief, you should check out the second-hand shop down the road," the editor continued with a tilt of his head. "Syd's always looking for something to sell. I bet you anything he took it. He was the one who gave me Templar's phone number in the first place."
And that seemed to be the end of that.
Syd's Second-Hand Store was run by a man named Syd, as the name implied. Unlike the name implied, however, Syd did not have a second hand. In place of his right hand, he had a screwdriver- shiny and silver, as if he had polished it that morning and many mornings before.
"Go on," said Syd as soon as he saw the look on my face, "ask. Everybody does."
I shrugged, and obliged him.
"A screwdriver is much more useful than a hook," he said. "You wouldn't believe the amount of motor control I can get out of a screwdriver when it's attached to my hand."
"That sounds very handy," I told him, and Cleo elbowed me angrily.
"It also means I can't pick things up easily," he continued sadly, regarding his shiny screwdriver, "or write. I'm right-handed, y'see."
"Couldn't you learn to write with your other hand?" Cleo asked.
Syd shrugged. "I guess I could, but I just don't have the time! Just this morning I was helping Jackie with a part of the engine from that car that's making a lot of trouble in the garage. Took me fair ages, let me tell you. I don't think I stopped working once." He paused, frowned. "Why were you here again?"
"It doesn't matter," I said. "I think we've got what we came for."
"It was nice to meet you," Cleo added, and we left the shop.
We drove back to the apartment building in the Dilemma, and Cleo let me sit up front in the passenger seat, which was something that I didn't usually do. Whenever I rode in Theodora's beat-up green roadster, she usually made me sit in the back seat, next to the paperwork. This was an entirely different and rather nice experience.
It took about fifteen minutes to return to the building, and during that time she told me about the autobiography of a woman who could do many things well, including riding horses, flying planes, and writing about both of them. In return, I recommended a book by the author who wrote about the peculiarly brilliant detective which was much more well-known, and involved a master plan concocted by mice and the destruction of the planet Earth.
"It's much better than it sounds," I assured her.
"I'll do my best to find it," she said, and handed me a brown paper bag. "You look like you haven't eaten all day, Snicket. Have this."
I opened it, inhaled, and smiled. "Jake."
She smiled too. "He's wonderful, isn't he?"
"He is," I said, and inhaled the contents of it as well. It was roast beef sandwich with homemade gravy, and it was as marvellous as it smelled. "You're a very lucky girl, Miss Knight."
"I know," she said softly, and we pulled up in front of the apartment block. Together, we covered the Dilemma with stick and leaves and hid it amongst the bushes, and then we left it behind as we ascended the stairs of the block once more.
At Room 221, we knocked on the door, and waited as Mr Templar bustled and tripped his way to the door.
"Did you find it?" he said when he saw us.
Cleo and I exchanged brief glances, and she nodded. "I think we did."
"We need to look around your rooms first," I added.
He frowned, but nodded and let us enter.
Cleo began to check over the shelves and desks, while I crossed to the other side of the room and to the more important part of it. I took one look out of the window, and instantly came to a conclusion. "There's no way the thief could have escaped by jumping off the fourth floor. It's too high up to make a landing without risking a broken leg, or worse."
"So they definitely had to have a key for the door," Cleo said.
"Yes," I agreed, stepping onto the window ledge.
Cleo turned to look at me, and so did Filibus Templar. Both of them looked quite panicked now, although, I suspected, for entirely different reasons.
"Lemony," she said, brow furrowing like I was a chemical equation that had yet to be balanced. "What are you doing?"
I shrugged, and gave her a smile that my sister assures me makes me look quite innocent and charming.
"Solving the mystery," I said.
And I jumped out of the window.
After Cleo had finished yelling at me for five minutes straight for doing something that nearly gave her a heart attack, and I was able to assure Mr Templar that yes, there was part of a fire escape outside the window that I could land on and I wasn't another ghost, Cleo and I solved the rest of the mystery together.
"The people you suggested as culprits couldn't have done it," Cleo said. "Jake Hix is currently working at Hungry's Diner near-perpetually, and his aunt can probably tell you that he hasn't left the premises once."
Templar frowned. "Fine, that makes sense. But what about the reporter?"
"He talked to you over the phone," I reminded him. "You never told him where you lived, and even if he did know, he wouldn't have had a way to enter the apartment anyway. And besides, he only knew the number because he got it from Syd's Second-Hand Store."
"But what about Syd?" Templar protested. "I bet he'd love to get his hands on it!"
"Hand," I corrected. "Singular. And he couldn't. He admitted himself it's nearly impossible for him to pick up anything without breaking it- and he couldn't have written the note. He's right-handed, but his hook's on his right hand too."
Templar frowned again. "Then it really was a ghost that took my microscope!"
"Possibly, but I doubt it," Cleo said. "Snicket, show me that fire escape again."
She swapped places with me on the fire escape, and examined the jagged, broken edge where the stair part of it must have snapped off under too much weight. Instead of a steep, rickety descent to the brown remnants of grass below, there was only a four-story drop. "It's rusted. This happened years ago."
I nodded. "That's not relevant. But if you duck down under the windowsill-"
She did, and both Templar and I could see that she was completely obscured from our view.
"You'd have to lean out of the window to see anybody that was hiding here," she concluded, straightening up.
"And if it was closed, then you wouldn't even bother doing that," I agreed. "You'd just assume that the thief got in and out some other way, since the window locks from the inside."
"But if the window locks behind you…" she said, and closed it behind her. She rattled it, and then tried to open it. It was securely locked- the latch had flipped down as soon as it had been shut.
I reopened it for her, and she climbed back inside the apartment.
"Then how did the thief escape?" she asked.
"I don't know," I admitted.
"It was a ghost?" offered Filibus Templar, but he didn't sound too sure.
Cleo stared at him for a moment, a curious expression passing over her face. And then she smiled. "Of course."
"Of course?" I wondered.
"I think we need to go speak to the manager," she told me.
The manager of the sole apartment block in Stain'd-by-the-Sea lived on the top floor, tucked into the very corner of the building. To our surprise, he opened the door almost immediately after we knocked, and smiled at Filibus Templar. "I knew you'd be back."
"You've got my microscope," Templar pointed out, but he was smiling too.
The conclusion to "A Microscopic Mystery" is filed under "An Inky Situation".