Who Could That Be at This Hour?. Lemony Snicket
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EGMONT
Who Could That Be at This Hour? First published in Great Britain 2012 by Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building 1 Nicholas Road London W11 4AN
Text copyright © 2012 Lemony Snicket Art copyright © 2012 Seth
ALL THE WRONG QUESTIONS: Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket reprinted by arrangement with Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency.
Art by Seth reprinted by arrangement with Little, Brown and Company Hachette Book Group / 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017.
The moral rights of the author and artist have been asserted.
978 1 4052 5621 6 978 1 7803 1130 2 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed and bound in Italy
47911/1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
EGMONT LUCKY COIN
Our story began over a century ago, when seventeen-year-old Egmont Harald Petersen found a coin in the street.
He was on his way to buy a flyswatter, a small hand-operated printing machine that he then set up in his tiny apartment.
The coin brought him such good luck that today Egmont has offices in over 30 countries around the world. And that lucky coin is still kept at the company’s head offices in Denmark.
TO: Walleye
FROM: LS
FILE UNDER: Stain’d-by-the-Sea,
accounts of; theft, investigations of; Hangfire; hawsers; ink;
double-crossings; et cetera
1/4
cc: VFDhq
CHAPTER ONE
There was a town, and there was a girl, and there was a theft. I was living in the town, and I was hired to investigate the theft, and I thought the girl had nothing to do with it. I was almost thirteen and I was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. I should have asked the question “Why would someone say something was stolen when it was never theirs to begin with?” Instead, I asked the wrong question—four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the first.
The Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery Shop is the sort of place where the floors always feel dirty, even when they are clean. They were not clean on the day in question. The food at the Hemlock is too awful to eat, particularly the eggs, which are probably the worst eggs in the entire city, including those on exhibit at
the Museum of Bad Breakfast, where visitors can learn just how badly eggs can be prepared. The Hemlock sells paper and pens that are damaged and useless, but the tea is drinkable, and the place is located across the street from the train station, so it is an acceptable place to sit with one’s parents before boarding a train for a new life. I was wearing the suit I’d been given as a graduation present. It had hung in my closet for weeks, like an empty person. I felt glum and thirsty. When the tea arrived, for a moment the steam was all I could see. I’d said good-bye to someone very quickly and was wishing I’d taken longer. I told myself that
it didn’t matter and that certainly it was no time to frown around town. You have work to do, Snicket, I told myself. There is no time for moping.
You’ll see her soon enough in any case, I thought, incorrectly.
Then the steam cleared, and I looked at the people who were with me. It is curious to look at one’s family and try to imagine how they look to strangers. I saw a large-shouldered man in a brown, linty suit that looked like it made him uncomfortable, and a woman drumming her fingernails on the table, over and over, the sound like a tiny horse’s galloping. She happened to have a flower in her hair. They were both smiling, particularly the man.
“You have plenty of time before your train, son,” he said. “Would you like to order something to eat? Eggs?”
“No, thank you,” I said.
“We’re both so proud of our little boy,” said
the woman, who perhaps would have looked nervous to someone who was looking closely at her. Or perhaps not. She stopped drumming her fingers on the table and ran them through my hair. Soon I would need a haircut. “You must be all a-tingle with excitement.”
“I guess so,” I said, but I did not feel a-tingle. I did not feel a-anything.
“Put your napkin in your lap,” she told me.
“I did.”
“Well, then, drink your tea,” she said, and another woman came into the Hemlock. She did not look at me or my family or anywhere at all. She brushed by my table, very tall, with a very great deal of very wild hair. Her shoes made noise on the floor. She stopped at a rack of envelopes and grabbed the first one she saw, tossing a coin to the woman behind the counter, who caught it almost without looking, and then she was back out the door. With all the tea on all the tables, it looked like one of her pockets was
steaming. I was the only one who had noticed her. She did not look back.
There are two good reasons to put your napkin in your lap. One is that food might spill in your lap, and it is better to stain the napkin than your clothing. The other is that it can serve as a perfect hiding place. Practically nobody is nosy enough to take the napkin off a lap to see what is hidden there. I sighed deeply and stared down at my lap, as if I were lost in thought, and then quickly and quietly I unfolded and read the note the woman had dropped there.
CLIMB OUT THE WINDOW IN THE BATHROOM AND MEET ME IN THE ALLEY BEHIND THIS SHOP. I WILL BE WAITING IN THE GREEN ROADSTER. YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES. —S
“Roadster,” I knew, was a fancy word for “car,” and I couldn’t help but wonder what kind
of person would take the time to write “roadster” when the word “car” would do. I also couldn’t help but wonder what sort of person would sign a secret note, even if they only signed the letter S. A secret note is secret. There is no reason to sign it.
“Are you OK, son?”
“I need to excuse myself,” I said, and stood up. I put the napkin down on the table but kept the note crumpled up in my hand.
“Drink your tea.”
“Mother,” I said.
“Let