Chapter 4
"Capture the Baudelaires!" shouted the man with a beard and no hair. "They're heading to the elevators."
"Search the entire hotel and capture anyone suspicious," added the woman with hair and no beard. "We'll tell you if they are villains or not. You can't decide such things for yourself."
"Wrong!" said the enormous clock, striking the hour.
Klaus stuck his foot in the door of the Olaf's elevator.
"Let me go," said Olaf, "Or I'll tell everyone where you are."
"Let me in," Klaus said, "Or I'll tell everyone where you are."
Olaf moved aside and let him in. "What happened to your little sister?"
"She was right behind me a moment ago. Someone must have grabbed her," lied Klaus (actually Sunny had pushed the up button of another elevator and gotten in).
"Still want to get in?" asked Olaf.
"I'm going where you're going," said Klaus.
"I have errands to run," said Olaf. "First, I'll go down to the laundry room and get the sugar bowl. Ha! Then I'll go up to the roof and get the Medusiod Mycelium. Ha! Then I'll go down to the lobby and poison everyone with the fungus. Ha! Finally, I'll go up to the roof and escape."
"Not if I can stop you," said Klaus.
"Ha!" laughed Olaf. "How could you, a mere child, expect to stop an intelligent adult like myself? Ha! Nemesis indeed. Ha!"
"Hmmm!" said Justice Strauss.
Klaus tried to get to the laundry room door ahead of Olaf, but the villain was alert enough to block his way.
"I know all the phrases for the Vernacularly Fastened Door," said Olaf. "The first was 'allergic to peppermints'. A-L-E-R-J-I-C-K...".
Klaus said nothing. This was exactly what he had hoped. Olaf began to type, but with the first wrong letter the Vernacularly Fastened Door gave a loud buzz and the keyboard stopped responding.
"That cursed Dewey gave me the wrong phrases!" Olaf exclaimed.
"He didn't," said Klaus. "That was the correct medical condition. You just spelled 'allergic' wrong."
"Spelling doesn't count," said Olaf. "And if it does, why didn't you say something before, you walking dictionary?"
"How could I, a mere child, expect to correct the spelling of an intelligent adult?" said Klaus with a mocking gleam in his eye.
"I'm getting a second opinion from my hostage," said Olaf. He ripped the tape off of Justice Strauss' mouth slowly, to increase her suffering.
"You've lost," said Justice Strauss. "Dewey told me about this kind of lock. If you type in the wrong thing it jams and it won't reset for 24 hours."
"I haven't lost yet," hissed Olaf. "I'll expose everyone in the hotel to the Medusoid Mycelium, and the authorities too, when they come in to investigate. Ha! That will buy me the time to force someone to give me the right spellings."
They entered the elevator and Olaf pressed the button for the roof. Klaus tried to use the Preludio trick, but he only managed to press the first three buttons before Olaf caught on and shoved him roughly away from the controls.
The elevator door opened on the lobby. "Everyone get out of the hotel!" Klaus shouted. "Count Olaf is going to expose you all to poisonous fungi!"
"That's just another lie by the Baudelaires to panic you," Olaf called. "Stay where you are."
"Fungi?" said the man with a beard but no hair. "We expected you might pull a trick like that, Olaf. That's why we provided ourselves with the means to dilute it." He produced a small bottle of horseradish from his pocket.
"What are you saying to Olaf?" asked the blindfolded and confused Jerome Squalor.
"I meant, there's Olaf, in the elevator -- go capture him," said the man with a beard but no hair.
The doors shut and the elevator went up another floor.
"I knew they might turn on me," said Olaf, ignoring the fact that he had turned on the judges first. "All my associates have failed me."
On the second floor they saw Esmé and Carmelita Spats, still blindfolded. Klaus called out a warning and Olaf called out reassurances again, but the ex-girlfriend had trouble believing either one. On the third floor they encountered Mr. Poe, but he refused to leave until the case against the bank robber was over.
From there the elevator headed straight to the roof. Klaus could only hope that he had bought Sunny enough time to get rid of the deadly mushrooms. And he could only worry about what Olaf would do if she had...