Now I find life a millionaire
That brags for rags and jewels
A snarling pup is wild enough
But as his anger proves
He's left to sharpen useless tools
That tear and graze and finer phrase
But few are worth the name
It's nothing but a dirty rotten shame
Elvis Costello, Dirty Rotten Shame
His pulse quickens as he follows the three children through the night, silently stalking them as he has for the past several months. They do not hear his footsteps in the grass, old brown shoes meeting the ground and blades of grass tickling his bare ankles. They do not see his shadow stretching out across the empty fields, casting everything it touches into darkness. He's gaining on them, although they don't know it. They're too busy running from something they're sure they can conquer.
He wonders what she'll say when she finally notices the man behind them. Then again, what she says won't really matter.
He doesn't want to touch her. He'd never show it, but he does have at least one moral bone in his body. No, any fingerprint he might leave on her would be defiling a work of art. Spray painting all over a series of Da Vinci's paintings would rack him with less guilt than laying a dirty hand on Violet Baudelaire. He did it once, of course, before he had grown to fully appreciate the simplicity of her attractive features. After that one time, he never forgave himself.
He's perhaps six yards behind them now, the one with glasses carrying the one with teeth and the object of his attention holding her brother's hand. How like her, he thinks, with a rather wry smirk. Dangerous situations bring out panic in some people, anger in others, and love in few. The bespectacled one smiles hopefully at her.
For once, she doesn't smile back.
She heaves a sigh, shoulders sagging under the immense weight of keeping feelings to herself. She'd always been an open person, and if she didn't have anyone to talk to, her journal had been a source of comfort. But how was she supposed to unleash feelings of fear and resentment in a charred book of ashes, miles and miles away from where she now found herself? She couldn't think of relating anything to her poor brother, who already had quite enough to worry about. She couldn't tell him she wanted to give up now, when it they might have a chance to get away from the man who had been following them for who-knows-how-long.
What will it matter if Count Olaf has their money in the end? It's only money; love of money is the root of all evil. Her parents told her so a million times, and she had taken that advice to heart. It seemed that they weren't really running for their lives after all: merely for their parents' estate.
She sighs again; he watches with interest, gradually quickening his pace. Five yards away, he guesses, still observing the silence of the three orphans. Four... three... Still as the grave, he continues to be an unknow presence. Two yards. He can hear the the children breathing, gasping for air as they all travel through the moonlight.
His respiratory system, however, is not so out of shape. He has had plenty of practice when it comes to running from things.
He's three feet away, traveling behind the people who can give him the one thing he wants more than anything else in the world. Very calmly, he reaches out one bony hand and grasps the arm of the orphan with glasses. The boy shrieks, the baby shrieks, and Violet Baudelaire turns around to find herself in the midst of an internal struggle.