What Will We Do Now?
The poet John Donne once wrote, "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! tolled the bell of the Hotel Denouement clock.
Sunny and Klaus felt diminished, and not by the death of just "any man," but by the death of a sister who was dear to them. They were riding down in an elevator with Dewey Denouement, the man their sister Violet had given her life to save, but they would far rather have had Violet back and let the bell toll for Dewey instead.
"We're managed to destroy Olaf, at least," said Klaus with a sigh, "Though he really destroyed himself by his own ignorance of gravity."
Olaf had tried to launch his boat from the roof of the nine-story building. Had Violet been there, she might have suggested an invention to slow his fall. Because Olaf had harpooned Violet early that morning, he suffered a fatal plummet instead. Her death had also diminished him.
"What do now?" asked Sunny.
"I still want to stop the man with a beard and no hair and the woman with hair and no beard," said Klaus. "Their scheming led to this whole situation. They're just as responsible for Violet's death as Olaf was."
"The best thing to do," Dewey said, "Is to lie low in the underwater catalog building until it's safe. Very few people know of it; even my brothers Frank and Ernest don't. I only shared the secret with Kit and with you."
"I'd very much like to use the resources of the catalog against our enemies," said Klaus. "But not to hide."
"How?" asked Sunny.
"Just like we did Olaf. We need to figure out what the two crooked Justices want and how to thwart them," said Klaus.
"Mushrooms," suggested Sunny.
"That's a good point," said Dewey. "They know Olaf went up to get the poison mushrooms and they must have heard the crash. They may decide to look for the Medusoid Mycelium near the wreckage of Olaf's boat."
"That's where you said you dropped the helmet with the Medusoid Mycelium, right Sunny?" Klaus asked. "Into the ocean."
"Lied," said Sunny. "Funnel."
"You dropped the helmet into the funnel that leads to the laundry room?" asked Klaus. "That's not so good. Olaf jammed the Vernacularly Fastened Door when he tried to enter the passwords. He was no better at spelling than he was at physics."
"Sugar bowl?" asked Sunny.
"That's right, the sugar bowl is in there, too," said Klaus. "I hope the diving helmet didn't land on it."
"Actually," said Dewey, "The sugar bowl isn't in there. The lock was just a ruse to make the villains think it was."
"But what about the Mycelium?" asked Klaus. "We can't just leave it in there for the villains to find. And now the lock is jammed for twenty-four hours."
"It's my lock," said Dewey, "Kit modified it especially for me and I know how to unjam it."
The elevator had reached the basement, which was still empty. Apparently none of the blindfolded people searching the hotel for the Baudelaires had thought to come down here yet.
Dewey walked to the door of Room 025 with gawky strides of his long, oddly-bent legs. He pressed his fingers to the sides of the lock around the door-knob and it hummed to life again.
"There, now all we have to do is type in the password phrases correctly," he said. He was just about to do this when they heard the chime of the elevator.
They quickly ducked into the room across the hall, Room 024, which is an unassigned code in the Dewey Decimal system and therefore an empty room in the Hotel Denouement.
"I don't think we should come down here now," said a hoarse voice. "We need to stay up there and misdirect people."
"We have to find out if Olaf got the sugar bowl," said a deep, deep voice. "I couldn't tell if he was holding it behind his back or not."
The two people, known to the Baudelaires by their voices as the man with a beard and no hair and the woman with hair and no beard, approached the laundry-room door.
"It's still locked," said the man with a beard and no hair in disgust. "Olaf must have forgotten the phrases and funked it."
"Lucky for us that we sneaked Olaf out of the closet last night, got him drunk, and tricked him into telling us the phrases," said the woman with hair and no beard. She expertly typed them in and the door swung open. Both of them rushed into the room.
"Medusoid Mycelium!" the villainous man cried, "Olaf's diving helmet has cracked open and spores have escaped!"
"It grows in damp, enclosed places, like a damp, steamy laundry room!" said the evil woman. "Let's get out of here!"
But before they could do that, Klaus rushed across the hall and slammed the door shut. He pushed the Vernacularly Fastened Door device back onto the doorknob to relock it, and then typed incorrect letters to jam the lock.
The villainous pair pounded on the door. "Let us out!" shouted the woman with hair and no beard. There was a bit of a cough in her deep, deep voice.
"The door is jammed for 24 hours," Klaus called to them. "I know you have a small bottle of horseradish, but is it enough for both of you for that long?"
There was the sound of a scuffle behind the door, and then the man with a beard but no hair yelled at the woman, "You fool! You've broken the bottle!" There was a cough in his voice also.
Dewey and the two Baudelaires headed to Room 020, Library Science, where the secret passage to the underwater catalog was hidden.
"Ruth less," said Sunny, wondering if they were getting to be more like villains themselves with each new desperate act.
"It's only justice," said Klaus.
"Any man's death diminishes me," said Dewey. "But those two diminish me considerably less than some I could name."
"Violet," Sunny said sadly.
They entered the underwater catalog, a hotel-sized building beneath the pond filled with all the evidence Dewey had gathered as his life's work.
"Every room is full of filing cabinets of V.F.D. secrets and evidence, all organized by the Dewey decimal system," Dewey Denouement said proudly.
Klaus rubbed his hands together, his eyes shining. "I know what we do now," he said. "Read!"