The Lemony Snicket Affairs
It was 1944. A year of optimism, of victory gardens, devotion, and war. Winter was long behind,
and spring had sprung. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general, and future president of the United
States, was made in charge of the storming of France to take control back from the Nazis. His
plans, however good, had been foiled over, and over again, by mysterious collect phone calls
from France, telling him every aspect of the invasion. Despite his carefulness, the enemy was
always one step ahead, and knew his every move. He became suspicious.
This suspicion provoked him to contact me, a detective, in the process of retiring to an
apartment in Liverpool. I was just then emptying out my office, and waving good-bye to the
many cases I had once solved. The filing cabinets that had once lined my walls, were gone. The
Chince arm-chair that had once, so proudly headed my desk, had also retired to my
apartment, now heading only my brand new black and white television. My many research books,
and extensive library, had been put in storage. The only thing that remained in my lonely office,
was my now bare desk, and my telephone. I was done for the day, and decided I might as well
go, and grab a bite to eat. I switched off the light, and the door was halfway closed, when the
telephone rang.
There is a thing. No one is quite sure what it is, but in some way, or another, it effects the
proceedings of one's life. No one knows exactly, who is in charge of it, nor do they know
when it will hit them, for it can strike randomly at any time. Especially when one is least expecting
of a change. For instance, once I was planning to go on an island get away. At the gate, however,
the ticket collector informed me, that a deadhead would need my seat, and I would have to catch
the next available flight. I was very angry, of course, but agreed. After the flight took off, however,
the plane faced many storms, and went down in flames. Things in life, happen for a reason, and
that reason is fate. And for the same reason, my telephone rang.
I waited for a moment, on the verge of two options. I could choose to ignore it, and forever
wonder who was calling, I could pretend that my phone had never rung. But, alas, my curiosity,
as it so often does, had the best of me, and I was embroiled into another case, and my retirement
put on hold.
Detectives are curious people, I know, I am one. We have developed, in some way, or
another, our own way to analyze a crime scene. Some things we do are conscious efforts,
taught to us in police training, that are common in all of us. But the other part of us is different,
The semi-conscious reflexes we have developed, vary from person to person. These
reflexes, we have picked up, after years of solving crime.
So it was, when I was flown into Bristol the very next day, which was were General Eisenhower
was residing. I entered his hotel room, and already, within moments, many clues were banked
into my mind. An ash tray, filled to the brim, with the burnt studs of cigarettes, stood vividly in my
mind. Through further investigation of hotel room 304, I realized that all
through out the room signs of intimacy were present. A crumpled skirt, and a male t-shirt and tie
lay at the foot of the bed. Looking closer at the t-shirt I examined a lipstick mark under
the collar. The shade was of the deepest red, the kind of red that you would find at the bottom of
a pool of blood. The studs of cigarettes, had prints of the same lipstick on them. On the desk
there was a letter, it was addressed to "Rosa Telneman" , there was however, no return address,
instead the words "From France" stood where the return address should have
been.
This was when my semi-conscious detective instincts kicked in. I retrieved from my pocket, a
miniscule camera and placed it under the leaf of a shrub in the corner of the room. Just as my
hand was pulled away and I had straightened up I heard a voice behind me.
"Bojour," was all that was said but the voice was tainted and colored deeply with a French
accent. Slowly I turned around to face the voice behind me.
"Hello, Rosa Telneman I presume."
The woman I saw wearing a deep red lipstick and a short black skirt accompanied by a low-cut
red t-shirt that revealed much. A black fish-net veil covered her hair. In her right
hand, between her index and middle finger was a cigarette. Ugh! A nasty habit "Rosa I have
some questions for you"
There are three reasons in the world why a couple would not share a common last name. One
applies to couples who are doctors, and changing their names would confuse their patients.
Another is if their name of one spouse is very well renowned or they are embarrassed by their
lover. The final and most common is if the two people are not married.
"Are you Eisenhower's wife?" I knew the answer to the question I asked before the answer
was given. I knew that Rosa Telneman was certainly not a doctor, and that I would be difficult to
embarrassed of having the honorable General Eisenhower as a husband enough to not share his
last name.
"No I am his mistress, his wife lives in America, Marie is her name, I believe." Just at that
moment Eisenhower entered the room. He stood for a moment on the threshold nervously, as if
not sure whether his presence was aloud.
"Dwight, my dear fellow, come in," This apparently settled all of his uneasy thoughts and he
entered. ' Dwight, do you have anyone close to you, anyone I can talk to further my
investigation?"
" You can talk to Douglas, Douglas MacArthur, an old school teacher of mine, and my wife, Marie
Doud, back in New Jersey. She, um, kept her maiden name, she is a little, well,
embarrassed of me. And of course you could talk to my boss, Franklin D. Roosevelt."
"I already have talked to him, quite an honor, actually." At that moment Rosa left the room.
"I shall leave you boys to chat, shall I ?"
I remembered the result of my conversation with Franklin. He seemed to point the finger, at an x-
employee of Dwight's, a French-man by the name of Jacob Soufflé. He had
been laid off after two consecutive weeks of unexplained absences. He had reason for revenge.
"Actually" said I "I must be off, you've been much help."
The next day I met Douglas MacArthur for lunch. He, however, pointed the finger of blame of
blame at Hoobert Crincle, a rival student of Dwight back in High School.
Shortly After lunch I phoned Marie Geneva Doud, and once again her testimony incriminated
another soul and added another suspect to my list. Bobby Eisenhower, brother of Dwight. As
children they competed over everything. It was possible that his jealousy had pushed him too far
and caused him to betray not only his brother, but the entire American
nation.
I needed now, to return to my office and sort out all the clues, but since my office was not
readily available, I decided to get a bite to eat and filter out the situation the way I liked to (And
still like to) most. I took the bus to a nice little Diner on 5th street. It seemed suitable, so I went
inside.
On the subject of fate, one must also compare fate to a strange, unpopular restaurant filled
with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for, and don't always like. But
on the rare occasion the waiters bring you a plate full of caviar and charge you not at all, fate is
well appreciated for it's stupidity. So when I entered the Diner it was much like fate. I
did not like the food, and thought my waiter was a little crazy, I was very pleased with the arrival
of a very unexpected person, who assisted me in the capture of my criminal.
I sat myself down in a booth, with red leather seats, and a lining of silver chrome. In a few
moments, a man showed up at my booth. He looked a little taller than a circus tent. But
realistically, he was probably around 6'5. He was very thin around maybe 130 Lbs, if even. Over
his right arm was a towel. He wore a very tight belt, and tucked in it was a small notepad. As he
arrived at my table he pulled this notepad out of his belt and flipped to a fresh page. "Can I take
your order?" his voice was high and nasally, and seemed rather bored with
everything.
"I don't have a menu." I replied as if this wasn't obvious enough.
"I see," the waiter said and he walked away.
"Hold on, I do need one."
"Oh." he turned to the table he was next to and took a menu from the man sitting their. The man
didn't seem to notice. "Here" he handed me the menu," are you happy now?"
I must have looked confused at this moment at being treated so rudely. "Umm, yeah, I guess
so." the waiter stood and looked at me as if waiting for an order, now that I had my
menu. "Give me half a moment" then he walked away. He never came back.
I then proceeded to take out a sheet of paper, it was crisp and fresh. I made a list at that point
of all my clues, for later reference. It read like this:
Letter from France to Rosa
Cigarette studs in Dwight's room
Confession of Rosa to being Dwight's mistress
Lipstick on various items in the hotel room
The hatred for various reasons of three different people
And last the taped conversation from my tape recorder under the leaf of the shrub in the corner of
the room.
Now, I thought to myself. This would be telling. I pulled from my brief case my receiving device
to my tape recorder. I paused as a buzz-bomb whistled overhead, praying it would
not choose to explode on the diner. A moment of painful silence, then an explosion and
screaming, about, by the sound of it, 20 miles East.
I listened to the conversation that Rosa and Dwight had had just after I left. "Hmm" curious, it
seemed like Rosa was trying to pry information from Dwight. "Curious".
It is a curious thing, being tapped on the shoulder. It can happen to anyone, at anytime. When
it happens to a person they are often jerked out of a daze, and are quite surprised to have
company. "What may I ask is curious?" it was the voice of Rosa Telneman.
"Well, Rosa I am looking over Dwight's case right now would you care to join me? Perhaps you
can be of assistance."
"Okay." She sat down.
"As of right now there are three prime suspects," she stared into my eyes and looked anxious as
if she might be one. "First on my list, in no particular order, is Bobby
Eisenhower"
"His brother?" she looked now as if she was about to throw up. In her mind, if his brother was a
suspect then she was certainly next on the list, "why his brother?"
"Bobby was very jealous of Dwight as children according to Marie." Her face loosened a bit.
"Next is Jacob Soufflé an employee of Dwight who was laid off recently."
"Self-explanatory," a smile was curling on her lips now.
"Then Hoobert Crincle, a rival student of Dwight's back in high school." At this point a loud sigh
escaped from the heavily make-up laden lips of Rosa Telneman, but her moment
of relief did not last very long.
"But," Rosa's smile faded, her moment of glory, alas, had faded with a single word "but," I said
again, "these people were only suspects."
"What do you mean by were?"
"I mean that you, madam, are under arrest."
"A deer in the headlights" is a phrase which here means frozen in shock and fear. So when I
say that Rosa looked like a deer in the headlights, it does not mean that Rosa Telneman
suddenly turned into a fuzzy woodland creature, scurried off into the road and was killed by an
18-wheel truck, it simply means that she was so shocked by what I said that for a
moment she could hardly move. Suddenly from every corner of the room there was a silence.
"Call the police" I said to my waiter who was lying down on the bar counter. "Tell them I have
caught a criminal who longs for the iron pen a Scotland Yard" he to my surprise obeyed
immediately. Rosa then stood up and attempted to run out of the diner, but just in time I grabbed
her arm, and brutally sat her back down. She looked into my eyes; a sad and desperate look was
reflected in them. I stared deeply into them and shook my head. She relaxed and stopped
struggling. My final case was solved.
I curled up in my first class seat, on an airplane headed back to Liverpool, where my retirement
could continue. I glanced down at my shirt and noticed my purple heart that had
been awarded to me for assistance to the winning of the war. I had tried to refuse by saying that
they would have won the war without my help, but Roosevelt insisted. I would not have
solved the case without the taped conversation of Rosa and Dwight, and my semi-conscious
detective reflexes urging me to put the recorder under that shrub. It sure was lucky too that
Rosa just happened to turn up at the same diner as me.
It is possible that the final case of the great Lemony Snicket was the greatest and most
important of all. What a wonderful thought!
Then to top matters and to silence my aching brain I contented myself with enjoying a bag of
peanuts.
The hardest thing to think about is one's regrets. Regrets are things that one wish they had
done or not done places they wish they had gone or not gone. Regrets on an over all level, are
very depressing to think about. Everyone has something they wish they had not done. I have
many. I wish I had never become a prostitute, I wish I had not put up my first child for adoption, I
wish I had never met Dwight D. Eisenhower, I wish I had never been persuaded to leak his
military secrets. I, Rosa Telneman, wish many things, but I shall have much time to think them
over. I will have the next twenty years to ponder what if's in a small 10x10 cell wearing my black
and white convict suit and laying on my rock hard bunk bed. Justice, sadly enough, as it so often
does, has prevailed.
The End