The Penultimate Peril - Snicket Lemony (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные версии .TXT) 📗

"Certainly," Klaus said. "It's just like you said, Count Olaf. Every noble person has failed us. Why should we protect the sugar bowl?"

"Klaus!" Violet and Sunny cried, in simultaneous astonishment.

"No!" Justice Strauss cried, in solitary amazement.

Count Olaf looked a little puzzled again, but then shrugged his dusty shoulders. "O.K.," he said, "tell me what medical condition you and your orphan siblings share."

"We're allergic to peppermints," Klaus said, and quickly typed A-L-L-E-R-G-I-C-T-O-P-E-P-P-E-R-M-I-N-T-S into the lock. Immediately, there was a muted clicking sound from the typewriter keyboard.

"It's warming up," Count Olaf said, in a delighted wheeze. "Get out of the way, four-eyes! The second phrase is the weapon that left me an orphan, and I can type that one in myself. P-O-Y-Z-"

"Wait!" Klaus said, before Olaf could touch the keyboard. "That can't be right. Those letters don't spell anything."

"Spelling doesn't count," said the count.

"Yes, it does," Klaus said. "Tell me what the weapon is that left you an orphan, and I'll type it in for you."

Count Olaf gave Klaus a slow smile that made the Baudelaires shudder. "Certainly I'll tell you," he said. "It was poison darts."

Klaus looked at his sisters, and then in grim silence typed P-O-I-S-O-N-D-A-R-T-S into the lock, which began to buzz quietly. Count Olaf's eyes shone brightly as he stared at the wires of the lock, which began to shake as they stretched around the hinges of the laundry room door.

"It's working," he said, and ran his tongueover his filthy teeth. "The sugar bowl is so close I can taste it!"

Klaus took his commonplace book from his pocket, and read his notes intently for a moment. Then he turned to Justice Strauss. "Give me that book, please," he said, pointing to Jerome Squalor's book. "The third phrase is the famous unfathomable question in the best-known novel by Richard Wright. Richard Wright was an American novelist of the realist school whose writings illuminated the disparities in race relations. It is likely his work is quoted in a comprehensive history of injustice."

"You can't read that entire book!" Count Olaf said. "The crowd will find us before you finish the first chapter!"

"I'll look in the index," Klaus said, "just like I did at Aunt Josephine's, when we decoded her note and found her hiding place."

"I always wondered how you did that," Olaf said, sounding almost as if he admired the middle Baudelaire's research skills. Klaus paged to the back of the book, where the index can usually be found. An index, as I'm sure you know, is a list of everything a book contains, and where each item can be found.

"Wright, Richard," Klaus read aloud. "Unfathomable question in Native Son, page 581."

"That's the five hundred and eighty-first page," Count Olaf explained for no one's benefit, a phrase which here means "even though that was clear to everyone in the hallway."

Klaus flipped hurriedly to the proper page and scanned it quickly, his eyes blinking behind his glasses. "I found it," he said quietly. "It's quite an interesting question, actually."

"No one cares about interesting questions!" Olaf said. "Type it in this instant!"

Klaus smiled, and began typing furiously into the typewriter keyboard. His sisters stepped forward, and each of them put a hand on their brother's shoulder.

"Why do this?" Sunny asked.

"Sunny's right," Violet said. "Why are you helping Olaf get into the laundry room?"

The middle Baudelaire typed the last word into the keyboard, which was "T-O-P-P-L-I-N-G," and then looked at his sisters. "Because the sugar bowl isn't there," he said, and pushed open the door.

"What do you mean?" Count Olaf demanded. "Of course the sugar bowl is in there!"

"I'm afraid Olaf is right," Justice Strauss said. "You heard what Dewey said. When the crows were shot with the harpoon gun, they fell onto the birdpaper and dropped the sugar bowl into the funnel."

"So it would appear," Klaus said slyly.

"Enough nonsense!" Count Olaf shouted, waving his harpoon gun in the air and stomping into the laundry room. In just a few moments, however, it was clear that the middle Baudelaire had spoken the truth. The laundry room of the Hotel Denouement was very small, just large enough to hold a few washing and drying machines, some piles of dirty sheets, and a few plastic jugs of what were presumably some extremely flammable chemicals, just as Dewey had said. A metal tube hung over one corner of the ceiling, allowing steam from the machines to float up the tube and outside, but there was no sign that a sugar bowl had fallen through the funnel and dropped out the metal tube to the wooden floor of the laundry room. With a hoarse, angry roar, Count Olaf opened the doors of the washing and drying machines and slammed them closed, and then picked up the piles of dirty sheets and sent them tumbling onto the floor.

"Where is it?" he snarled, drops of spit flying from his furious mouth. "Where's the sugar bowl?"

"It's a secret," Klaus said. "A secret that died with Dewey Denouement."

Count Olaf turned to face the Baudelaire orphans, who had never seen him look this frightening. His eyes had never gleamed as brightly, and his smile had never been as peccant, a word which here means "so hungry for evil deeds as to be unhealthy." It was not unlike the face of Dewey had been as he sank into the water, as if the villain's own wickedness was causing him great pain. "He won't be the only volunteer who dies today," he said, in a terrible whisper. "I'll destroy every soul in his hotel, sugar bowl or no sugar bowl. I'll unleash the Medusoid Mycelium, and volunteers and villains alike will perish in agony. My comrades have failed me as often as my enemies, and I'm eager to be rid of them. Then I'll push that boat off the roof, and sail away with-"

"You can't push that boat off the roof," Violet said. "It would never survive the fall, due to the force of gravity."

"I suppose I'll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies," Olaf muttered.

"I'll get that boat off the roof," Violet said calmly, and her siblings looked at her in astonishment. Justice Strauss looked at her in amazement. Even Count Olaf seemed a little puzzled.

"You will?" he asked.

"Certainly," Violet said. "It's just like you said, Count Olaf. Every noble person has failed us. Why shouldn't we help you escape?"

"Violet!" Klaus and Sunny cried, in simultaneous astonishment.

"No!" Justice Strauss cried, in solitary amazement.

Count Olaf still looked puzzled, but gave the eldest Baudelaire a shrug. "O.K.," he said. "What do you need?"

"A few of those dirty sheets," Violet said. "I'll tie them together and make a drag chute, just like I did in the Mortmain Mountains when I stopped the caravan from falling off the mountain."

"I always wondered how you did that," Olaf said, looking at the eldest Baudelaire as if he respected her inventing skills. Violet walked into the laundry room and gathered some sheets into her arms, trying to choose the least dirty of the bunch.

"Let's go to the roof," she said quietly Her siblings stepped forward, and each of them put a hand on their sister's shoulder.

"Why do this?" Sunny asked.

"Sunny's right," Klaus said. "Why are you helping Olaf escape?"

The eldest Baudelaire looked at the sheets in her hand, and then at her siblings. "Because he'll take us with him," she said.

"Why would I do that?" Olaf asked.

"Because you need more than a one-person crew," Violet said slyly, "and we need to leave this hotel without being spotted by the authorities."

"I suppose that's true," Olaf said. "Well, you would have ended up in my clutches in any case. Come along."

"Not yet," Sunny said. "One more thing."

Everyone stared at the youngest Baudelaire, who was wearing an expression so unfathomable that even her siblings could not tell what she was thinking. "One more thing?" Count Olaf repeated, staring down at Sunny. "What could that be?"