The Slippery Slope

here.'

The man with a beard but no hair struck a match, lit the end of the green tube, and offered it to the wicked girlfriend, who grabbed it and held it to her mouth. A bitter smell, like that of burning vegetables, filled the air, and Esmй Squalor began to cough.

'What's the matter?' asked the woman in her deep voice. 'I thought you liked things that are in.'

'I do,' Esmй said, and then coughed quite a bit more. Sunny was reminded of Mr. Poe, who was always coughing into a handkerchief, as Esmй coughed and coughed and finally dropped the green tube to the ground where it spewed out a dark green smoke. 'I love cigarettes,' she explained to the man with a beard but no hair, 'but I prefer to smoke them with a long holder because I don't like the smell or taste and because they're very bad for you.'

'Never mind that now,' Count Olaf said impatiently. 'Let's go into my tent and read the file.' He started to walk toward the tent but stopped and glared at his comrades, who were beginning to follow him. 'The rest of you stay out here,' he said. 'There are secrets in this file that I do not want you to know.'

The two sinister visitors began to laugh, and followed Count Olaf and Esmй into the tent closing the flap behind them. Sunny stood with Hugo, Colette, Kevin, and the two white-faced women and stared after them in silence, waiting for the aura of menace to disappear.

'Who were those people?' asked the hook-handed man, and everyone turned to see that he had returned from his fishing expedition. Four salmon hung from each of his hooks, dripping with the waters of the Stricken Stream.

'I don't know,' said one of the white-faced women, 'but they made me very nervous.'

'If they're friends of Count Olaf's,' Kevin said, 'how bad could they be?'

The members of the troupe looked at one another, but no one answered the ambidextrous person's question. 'What did that man mean when he said 'Where there's smoke there's fire'?' Hugo asked.

'I don't know,' Colette said. A chilly wind blew, and Sunny watched her contort her body in the breeze until it looked almost as curvy as the smoke from the green tube Esmй had dropped.

'Forget those questions,' the hook-handed man said. 'My question is, how are you going to prepare this salmon, orphan?'

Olaf's henchman was looking down at Sunny, but the youngest Baudelaire did not answer for a moment. Sunny was thinking, and her siblings would have been proud of her for the way she was thinking. Klaus would have been proud, because she was thinking about the phrase 'Where there's smoke there's fire,' and what it might mean. And Violet would have been proud, because she was thinking about the salmon that the hook-handed man was holding, and what she might invent that would help her.

Sunny stared at the hook-handed man and thought as hard as she could, and she felt almost as if both siblings were with her, Klaus helping her think about a phrase and Violet helping her think about an invention.

'Answer me, baby,' the hook-handed man growled. 'What are you going to make for us out of this salmon?'

'Lox!' Sunny said, but it was as if all three of the Baudelaires had answered the question.

Chapter Seven

An associate of mine once wrote a novel called Corridors of Power, which told the story of various people discussing how the world has become a corrupt and dangerous place and whether or not there are enough people with the integrity and decency necessary to keep the entire planet from descending into despair. I have not read this novel in several years, because I participate in enough discussions on how the world has become a corrupt and dangerous place and whether or not there are enough people with the integrity and decency necessary to keep the entire planet from descending into despair without reading about it in my leisure time, but nevertheless the phrase 'corridors of power' has come to mean the hushed and often secret places where important matters are discussed. Whether or not they are actual corridors, the corridors of power tend to feel quiet and mysterious. If you have ever walked inside an important building, such as the main branch of a library or the office of a dentist who has agreed to disguise your teeth, then you may have experienced this feeling that accompanies the corridors of power, and Violet and Klaus Baudelaire experienced it as they reached the end of the Vertical Flame Diversion, and followed the mysterious sweatered scout as he climbed out of the secret passageway. Even through their masks, the two siblings could sense that they were in an important place, even though it was nothing more than a dim, curved hallway with a small grate on the ceiling where the morning light was shining through.

'That's where the smoke escapes from the Snow Scouts' fire,' whispered the mysterious scout, pointing up at the ceiling. 'That leads to the very center of the Valley of Four Drafts, so the smoke is scattered to the four winds. V.F.D. doesn't want anyone to see the smoke.'

'Where there's smoke,' Violet said, 'there's fire.'

'Exactly,' the scout said. 'Anyone who saw smoke coming from this high up in the mountains might become suspicious and investigate. In fact, I found a device that works exactly according to this principle.' He reached into his backpack and drew out a small rectangular box filled with small green tubes, exactly like the one that Sunny had seen the man with a beard but no hair give to Esmй Squalor.

'No thank you,' Violet said. 'I don't smoke.'

'I don't, either,' the scout said, 'but these aren't cigarettes. These are Verdant Flammable Devices. Verdant means 'green,' so when you light one, it gives out a dark green smoke, so another volunteer will know where you are.'

Klaus took the box from the scout and squinted at it in the dim light. 'I've seen a box like this before,' he said, 'in my father's desk, when I was looking for a letter opener. I remember thinking it was strange to find them, because he didn't smoke.'

'He must have been hiding them,' Violet said. 'Why was he keeping them a secret?'

'The entire organization is a secret,' the scout said. 'It was very difficult for me to learn the secret location of the headquarters.'

'It was difficult for us, too,' Klaus said. 'We found it in a coded map.'

'I had to draw my own map,' the scout said, and reached into a pocket in his sweater. He turned on the flashlight, and the two Baudelaires could see he was holding a notebook with a dark purple cover.

'What's that?' Violet asked.

'It's a commonplace book,' the scout said. 'Whenever I find something that seems important or interesting, I write it down. That way, all my important information is in one place.'

'I should start one,' Klaus said. 'My pockets are bulging with scraps of paper.'

'From information I read in Dr. Montgomery's book, and a few others,' the scout said, 'I managed to draw a map of where to go from here.' He opened the purple notebook and flipped a few pages until he reached a small but elegant rendering of the cave, the Vertical Flame Diversion, and the hallway in which they were standing now. 'As you can see,' he said, running his finger along the hallway, 'the passageway branches off in two directions.'

'This is a very well-drawn map,' Violet said.

'Thank you,' the scout replied. 'I've been interested in cartography for quite some time. See, if we go to the left, there's a small area used for sled and snowsuit storage, at least according to a newspaper article I found. But if we go right, we'll arrive at the Vernacularly Fastened Door, which should open onto the headquarters' kitchen. We might walk in on the entire organization having breakfast.'

The two Baudelaires looked at one another through their masks, and Violet put a hand on her brother's shoulder. They did not dare to say out loud their hope that one of their parents might be just around the corner. 'Let's go,' Violet whispered.

The scout nodded silently in agreement, and led the Baudelaires down the hallway, which seemed to get colder and colder with every step. By now they were so far from Bruce and the Snow Scouts that there was no need to whisper, but all three children kept quiet as they walked down the dim, curved hallway, hushed by the feeling of the corridors of power. At last they reached a large metal door with a strange device where the doorknob should