I apologize again for the ENORMOUS delay. I had a very difficult time getting started, but once I actually did, it came out a lot better than I was expecting. The next chapter should (theoretically) come pretty soon, because its outline is already complete... I originally envisioned it as part of this chapter. (I'm quite glad it's long enough to be separate, though.)
After lunch the next day, as Matt headed upstairs to play video games in his room, the Baudelaires and Mello strode eagerly into the library.
"All right," Mello said as they stepped in. "So we're looking for crimes committed by a man with only one eybrow, a scraggly chin, and a tattoo of an eye on his left ankle, right?"
"That's right," Violet agreed with a nod. "And he also has several accomplices who are just as horrible and frightening."
"There's a bald man with a long nose, a man with two hooks in place of hands, and two women with faces powdered ghastly white," Klaus explained.
"Rojck," added Sunny.
For Mello's sake, Violet translated, "And a person who looks like neither a man nor a woman."
"Charming," Mello commented. "All right, got it. Do we know anything else useful?"
"We already know at least one other crime that Olaf has committed," Klaus replied. "He kidnapped our friends, the Quagmire triplets."
Mello nodded and thought for a moment. "Got it. So here's what we do. Vanessa, three shelves down we have our books on the theatre. Why don't you find a book of playwright biographies and see if you can find anything about that Al Funcoot guy? He sounds kind of suspicious, and if he knows Count Olaf personally we may be able to get to Olaf through him. Kristian, on this shelf right here you should find a book called Modern Unsolved Crimes. See if any of the warrants match this Olaf guy, or if any of the crimes seem like he might have committed them. Sammi, you can stay with one of your siblings; I'm going to go online and check up on recent warrants for his arrest. Sound good?"
The Baudelaires glanced at each other, surprised that Mello was taking charge so quickly, but his plan seemed like a good one, so they nodded and went to work.
Violet went to the theatre section, pulled out several books of playwrights, and sat down at a table. To her surprise, there was actually a large section on Al Funcoot in the first book she opened, so she started reading it right away.
Klaus found Modern Unsolved Crimes and brought it to where Violet sat, Sunny trailing behind him. It was a very thick book, and it looked as though it was used surprisingly often: the spine was worn down, some pages were slightly ripped, and there was some sort of shorthand in the margins. Ignoring all this, though, Klaus turned to the first page and began to read.
At 2:40, Mello came over to their table. "Find anything?" he asked eagerly.
Violet looked up from the third book she had chosen. "Well, I found several small biographies of Al Funcoot," she answered. "Very little is known about his background, and there were no photographs of him, but it seems he's produced several plays, most of them for an acting troupe called Cal Founto. His plays include The Most Handsome Man in the World, Why, I Believe I've Become Even More Handsome, One Last Warning to Those Who Try to Stand in My Way, and of course, The Marvelous Marriage. Strangely, though, Marvelous Marriage wasn't mentioned in any of the biographies."
"Cal Founto, you said?" Mello questioned, thinking hard. Violet nodded, and Mello pursed his lips. "And Al Funcoot… hmm."
"Wha?" Sunny asked.
Mello shook his head, seeming to disregard whatever he'd been thinking about. "Never mind," he replied. "How were the reviews on his plays?"
Violet turned a page and skimmed it. "It received mixed reviews," she said. "For example, One Last Warning to Those Who Try to Stand in My Way, a musical, received one review calling its songs 'annoying ditties,' but another reviewer from the same newspaper wrote that she was 'enraptured' the whole evening."
"Huh." Mello made a mental note of the information (a phrase which here means "ignored it completely") and turned to Klaus. "How about you, Kristian? How's it going with MUC?"
"It's very interesting," Klaus replied, his eyes shining behind his glasses. "Did you know that in 1986, a group of technologically experienced robbers robbed three banks of $100,000 each, using the exact same tactics each time? Yet they've never been caught, even though police know exactly what each person looks like."
"I know, I've read it," Mello replied, a hint of impatience in his voice. "But what about Olaf's crimes?"
"I didn't get very far because all of the crimes were so interesting, but I did manage to find two that sounded like him. The first was an inheritance crime." Klaus turned to a page he had marked and read: "In 1980, shortly after being adopted by a man calling himself Treffius, the three Columbus children disappeared without a trace. Treffius, supposedly their third cousin, four times removed, claimed the enormous inheritance their parents had left behind, and then he vanished as well. When police tried to contact the executor of the Columbus estate for comment, they couldn't find him either."
"How horrible!" Violet exclaimed, shivering.
"Watamo," Sunny whimpered, probably meaning something like, "That's exactly what he wants to do to us, too."
"I know," Klaus said, his face grim. "And the second crime I found isn't any more pleasant to read about, but nevertheless, it's very interesting: 'In 1975, a series of building fires destroyed several seemingly unconnected buildings in a radius of about ten miles. Though local detectives claimed that there was no reason to suspect arson, a warrant was issued for a man with only one eyebrow and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle.'"
"Olaf!" Sunny cried.
"And that's not all," Klaus said, his eyes wide and intent. "Listen to this: 'Upon further investigation, it was found that the buildings were, in fact, connected: they were all at one time the headquarters for the mysterious organization, V.F.D.'"
His sisters gasped; Mello looked nonplussed, a word which here means "confused." "V.F.D.? What does that stand for?"
"We don't know," Violet answered. "It's part of a horrible secret that the Quagmires shouted to us as Olaf kidnapped them."
"I tried looking up the abbreviation in one of the books here," Klaus added, "but I couldn't find it. It doesn't mean anything to you?"
Mello shook his head. "No, but it sounds crucial," he commented, making a mental of this information (a phrase which here means "carefully committing it to memory"). "I'll make V.F.D. my focus next time."
"Kamit?" Sunny asked Mello.
Klaus translated, "My sister means to ask if you found anything, Mello."
Mello shrugged. "Not really," he answered offhandedly. "Nothing that would be of use to you."
"That's too bad," Violet said. "Thank you for helping us."
"No problem," Mello replied. "Same time tomorrow?"
The Baudelaires nodded.
"Great! See you later. I'd better get to studying."
And, with that, the blond left.
By now, I'm sure you can guess where Mello was headed as Violet, Klaus, and Sunny chose books on inventions, city planning, and rocks, respectively, and as Near, who had been playing among the shelves and eavesdropping, crept to a computer to research the V.F.D. I'm sorry to say, though, that the poor Baudelaires had no idea. They had no way of knowing that Mello was helping them not out of kindness but out of a characteristic desire to be the best. In fact, they would never know his full motives, and even when they discovered the true reason Wammy's House had taken them in, they would not realize how far over their heads we were. We would remain obscure, as we should be, and they would be miserable, as they so often are.
-----Minutes later
"'Al Funcoot,' the name of the playwright of The Marvelous Marriage, is an anagram for 'Count Olaf,'" Mello told the computer screen. "So is 'Cal Founto,' the name of the troupe which most often performs his plays."
"You're right. How interesting," said L's synthesized voice. Mello couldn't tell whether he meant it or whether he was just saying that.
"He wrote a few other plays, too: The Most Handsome Man in the World, Why, I Believe I've Become Even More Handsome, and One Last Warning to Those Who Try to Stand in My Way." Mello rolled his eyes. "Awfully full of himself, isn't he?"
"Place all your valuables on the stage or something dreadful might happen to you," said the synthesized voice suddenly.
Mello tried and failed to interpret this cryptic remark. "…What?"
"It appears to be the closing number of One Last Warning."
"…What a stupid man," Mello said with an awed shake of his head.
"That remains to be seen. Did you find out anything else?"
Mello assumed an air of recitation. "Apparently, the Baudelaires aren't the only orphans he's gone after—in 1980, he adopted and killed the Columbus children for their inheritance. It's likely that he killed the executor of their estate as well. Furthermore, there's a warrant for him in a 1975 series of arsons. The buildings he allegedly burnt down were all past headquarters of the organization V.F.D."
"Yes, I've heard of the V.F.D.," L said. "Interesting…"
"More recently," Mello continued, "Olaf is wanted for several more counts of arson, three counts of robbery, two of hit-and-run, and one of general rudeness, which is apparently a crime in east Tedia."
"I see."
L did not continue, but nor did he dismiss Mello, so the boy decided to ask something he'd been wondering.
"L, from what I've learned so far, it seems that the trickiest part about this Olaf guy is not actually incriminating him, but rather getting him into a position to be incriminated—catching him."
"Yes, I agree," the synthesized voice said.
"So that's why those three are…?"
"Yes."
"I wouldn't want to be them when they find that out," Mello commented.
"They won't mind. Because I am going to catch Count Olaf."
Mello nodded. "True enough."
"You may go."
"I'll be back later with more."