The Baudelaires nodded in solemn agreement. "What was the second thing?" Violet asked.
Quigley was silent for a moment, and he reached down to the ground and scooped up a handful of ashes, letting them fall from his gloved hands. "I smelled smoke," he said, "and when I opened the door of the Reptile Room, I saw that someone had thrown a torch through the glass of the ceiling, starting a fire in the library. Within minutes, the entire house was in flames."
"Oh," Violet said quietly. "Oh" is a word which usually means something along the lines of, "I heard you, and I'm not particularly interested," but in this case, of course, the eldest Baudelaire meant something entirely different, and it is something that is difficult to define. She meant "I am sad to hear that Uncle Monty's house burned down," but that is not all. By "Oh," Violet was also trying to describe her sadness about all of the fires that had brought Quigley and Klaus and herself here to the Mortmain Mountains, to huddle in a circle and try to solve the mystery that surrounded them. When Violet said "Oh," she was not only thinking of the fire in the Reptile Room, but the fires that had destroyed the Baudelaire home, and the Quagmire home, and Heimlich Hospital, and Caligari Carnival, and the V.F.D. headquarters, where the smell of smoke still lingered around where the children were sitting. Thinking of all those fires made Violet feel as if the entire world were going up in flames, and that she and her siblings and all the other decent people in the world might never find a place that was truly safe.
"Another fire," Klaus murmured, and Violet knew he was thinking the same thing. "Where could you go, Quigley?"
"The only place I could think of was Paltryville," Quigley said. "The last time I saw Jacques he'd said he was going there. I thought if I went there I might find him again, and see if he could help me rescue Duncan and Isadora. Dr. Montgomery's atlas showed me how to get there, but I had to go on foot, because I was afraid that anyone who might offer me a ride would be an enemy. It was a long time before I finally arrived, but as soon as I stepped into town I saw a large building that matched the tattoo on Jacques Snicket's ankle. I thought it might be a safe place to go."
"Dr. Orwell's office!" Klaus cried. "That's not a safe place to go!"
"Klaus was hypnotized there," Violet explained, "and Count Olaf was disguised as
— "
"As a receptionist," Quigley finished. "I know. His fake nameplate was still on the desk. The office was deserted, but I could tell that Jacques had been there, because there were some notes in his handwriting that he'd left on the desk. With those notes, and the information I'd read in Dr. Montgomery's library, I learned about the V.F.D. headquarters. So instead of waiting for Jacques again, I set out to find the organization. I thought they were my best hope of rescuing my siblings."
"So you set off to the Mortmain Mountains by yourself?" Violet asked.
"Not quite by myself," Quigley said. "I had this backpack that Jacques left behind, with the Verdant Flammable Devices and a few other items, and I had my commonplace book. And eventually, I ran into the Snow Scouts, and realized that hiding among them would be the quickest way to reach Mount Fraught." He turned a page in his commonplace book and examined his notes. "Remarkable Phenomena of the Mortmain Mountains, which I read in Dr Montgomery's library, had a hidden chapter that told me all about the Vertical Flame Diversion and the Vernacularly Fastened Door."
Klaus looked over Quigley's shoulder to read his notes. "I should have read that book when I had the chance," he said, shaking his head. "If we had known about
V.F.D. when we were living with Uncle Monty, we might have avoided all the trouble that followed."
"When we were living with Uncle Monty," Violet reminded him, "we were too busy trying to escape Count Olaf's clutches to do any additional research."
"I've had plenty of time to do research," Quigley said, "but I still haven't found all the answers I'm looking for. I still haven't found Duncan and Isadora, and I still don't know where Jacques Snicket is."
"He's dead," Klaus said, very quietly. "Count Olaf murdered him."
"I thought you might say that," Quigley said. "I knew something was very wrong when he didn't return. But what about my siblings? Do you know what happened to them?"
"They're safe, Quigley," Violet said. "We think they're safe. We rescued them from Olaf's clutches, and they escaped with a man named Hector."
"Escaped?" Quigley repeated. "Where did they go?"
"We don't know," Klaus admitted. "Hector built a self-sustaining hot air mobile home. It was like a flying house, kept in the air by a bunch of balloons, and Hector said it could stay up in the sky forever."
"We tried to climb aboard," Violet said, "but Count Olaf managed to stop us."
"So you don't know where they are?" Quigley asked.
"I'm afraid not," Violet said, and patted his hand. "But Duncan and Isadora are intrepid people, Quigley. They survived for quite some time in Olaf's clutches, taking notes on his schemes and trying to pass on the information to us."
"Violet's right," Klaus said. "I'm sure that wherever they are, they're continuing their research. Eventually, they'll find out you're alive, and they'll come looking for you, just like you went looking for them."
The two Baudelaires looked at one another and shivered. They had been talking about Quigley's family, of course, but they felt as if they were talking about their own. "I'm sure that if your parents are alive, they're looking for you, too," Quigley said, as if he'd read their minds. "And Sunny, too. Do you know where she is?"
"Someplace nearby," Violet said. "She's with Count Olaf, and Olaf wanted to find the headquarters, too."
"Maybe Olaf has already been here," Quigley said, looking around at the wreckage. "Maybe he's the one who burned this place down."
"I don't think so," Klaus said. "He wouldn't have had time to burn this whole place down. We were right on his trail. Plus, I don't think this place burned down all at once."
"Why not?" Quigley said.
"It's too big," Klaus replied. "If the whole headquarters were burning, the sky would be covered in smoke."
"That's true," Violet said. "That much smoke would arouse too much suspicion."
"Where there's smoke," Quigley said, "there's fire."
Violet and Klaus turned to their friend to agree, but Quigley was not looking at the two Baudelaires. He was looking past them, toward the frozen pool and the two frozen tributaries, where the enormous windows of the V.F.D. kitchen had once stood, and where I once chopped broccoli while the woman I loved mixed up a spicy peanut sauce to go with it, and he was pointing up toward the sky, where my associates and I used to watch the volunteer eagles who could spot smoke from a very great distance.
That afternoon, there were no eagles in the skies over the Mortmain Mountains, but as Violet and Klaus stood up and looked in the direction Quigley was pointing, there was something in the sky that caught their attention. Because when Quigley Quagmire said, "Where there's smoke, there's fire," he was not referring to Klaus's theory about the destruction of V.F.D. headquarters. He was talking about the sight of green smoke, wafting up into the sky from the peak of Mount Fraught, at the top of the slippery slope.
Chapter Nine
The two elder Baudelaires stood for a moment with Quigley, gazing up at the small plume, a word which here means "mysterious cloud of green smoke." After the long, strange story he had told them about surviving the fire and what he had learned about V.F.D., they could scarcely believe that they were confronting another mystery.
"It's a Verdant Flammable Device," Quigley said. "There's someone at the top of the waterfall, sending a signal."
"Yes," Violet said, "but who?"
"Maybe it's a volunteer, who escaped from the fire," Klaus said. "They're signaling to see if there are any other volunteers nearby."
"Or it could be a trap," Quigley said. "They could be luring volunteers up to the peak in order to ambush them. Remember, the codes of V.F.D. are used by both sides of the schism."
"It
hardly seems like a code," Violet said. "We know that someone is communicating, but we don't have the faintest idea who they are, or what they're saying."
"This is what it must be like," Klaus said thoughtfully, "when Sunny talks to people who don't know her very well."
At the mention of Sunny's name, the Baudelaires were reminded of how much they missed her. "Whether it's a volunteer or a trap," Violet said, "it might be our only chance to find our sister."