Sure enough, the doorman was at his usual post by the door, and was just noticing the three exhausted children sitting on the bottom step.
"Hello there," he said, walking up to them and smiling from beneath the wide brim of his hat. Sticking out of his long sleeves were a small starfish carved out of wood, and a bottle of glue. "I was just going to put up this ocean decoration when I thought I heard someone walking down the stairs."
"We just thought we'd have lunch here in the lobby," Violet said, not wanting to admit that she and her siblings had been listening at doors, "and then hike back up."
"I'm sorry, but that means that you're not allowed back up to the penthouse," the doorman said, and shrugged his shoulders inside his oversized coat. "You'll have to stay here in the lobby. After all, my instructions were very clear: You were not supposed to return to the Squalor penthouse until the guest left. I let you go up last night because Mr. Squalor said that your guest was probably on his way down, but he was wrong, because Gunther never showed up in the lobby."
"You mean Gunther still hasn't left the building?" Violet asked.
"Of course not," the doorman said. "I'm here all day and all night, and I haven't seen him leave. I promise you that Gunther never walked out of this door."
"When do you sleep?" Klaus asked.
"I drink a lot of coffee," the doorman answered.
"It just doesn't make any sense," Violet said.
"Sure it does," the doorman said. "Coffee contains caffeine, which is a chemical stimulant. Stimulants keep people awake."
"I didn't mean the part about the coffee," Violet said. "I meant the part about Gunther. Esmé--that's Mrs. Squalor--is positive that he left the penthouse last night, while we were at the restaurant. But you are equally positive that he didn't leave the building. It's a problem that doesn't seem to have a solution."
"Every problem has a solution," the doorman said. "At least, that's what a close associate of mine says. Sometimes it just takes a long time to find the solution--even if it's right in front of your nose."
The doorman smiled at the Baudelaires, who watched him walk over to the sliding elevator doors. He opened the bottle of glue and made a small globby patch on one of the doors, and then held the wooden starfish against the glue in order to attach it. Gluing things to a door is never a very exciting thing to watch, and after a moment, Violet and Sunny turned their attention back to their lunch and the problem of Gunther's disappearance. Only Klaus kept looking in the direction of the doorman as he continued to decorate the lobby. The middle Baudelaire looked and looked and looked, and kept on looking even when the glue dried and the doorman went back to his post at the door. Klaus kept facing the ocean decoration that was now firmly attached to one of the elevator doors, because he realized now, after a tiring morning of searching the penthouse and an exhausting afternoon of eavesdropping on the stairs, that the doorman had been right. Klaus didn't move his face one bit, because he realized that the solution was, indeed, right in front of his nose.
CHAPTER
Seven
When you know someone a long time, you become accustomed to their idiosyncrasies, which is a fancy word for their unique habits. For instance, Sunny Baudelaire had known her sister, Violet, for quite some time, and was accustomed to Violet's idiosyncrasy of tying her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes whenever she was inventing something. Violet had known Sunny for exactly the same length of time, and was accustomed to Sunny's idiosyncrasy of saying "Freijip?" when she wanted to ask the question "How can you think of elevators at a time like this?" And both the young Baudelaire women were very well acquainted with their brother, Klaus, and were accustomed to his idiosyncrasy of not paying a bit of attention to his surroundings when he was thinking very hard about something, as he was clearly doing as the afternoon wore on. The doorman continued to insist that the Baudelaire orphans could not return to the penthouse, so the three children sat on the bottom step of 667 Dark Avenue's lengthy stairwell, ate food they had brought down with them, and rested their weary legs, which had not felt this sore since Olaf, in a previous disguise, had forced them to run hundreds and hundreds of laps as part of his scheme to steal their fortune. A good thing to do when one is sitting, eating, and resting is to have a conversation, and Violet and Sunny were both eager to converse about Gunther's mysterious appearance and disappearance, and what they might be able to do about it, but Klaus scarcely participated in the discussion. Only when his sisters asked him a direct question, such as "But where in the world could Gunther be?" or "What do you think Gunther is planning?" or "Topoing?" did Klaus mumble a response, and Violet and Sunny soon figured out that Klaus must be thinking very hard about something, so they left him to his idiosyncrasy and talked quietly to each other until the doorman ushered Jerome and Esmé into the lobby.
"Hello, Jerome," Violet said. "Hello, Esmé."
"Tretchev!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "Welcome home!"
Klaus mumbled something.
"What a pleasant surprise to see you all the way down here!" Jerome said. "It'll be easier to climb all those stairs if we have you three charming people for company."
"And you can carry the crates of parsley soda that are stacked outside," Esmé said. "Then I don't have to worry about breaking one of my fingernails."
"We'd be happy to carry big crates up all those stairs," Violet lied, "but the doorman says we're not allowed back in the penthouse."
"Not allowed?" Jerome frowned. "Whatever do you mean?"
"You gave me specific instructions not to let the children back in, Mrs. Squalor," the doorman said. "At least, until Gunther left the building. And he still hasn't left."
"Don't be absurd," Esmé said. "He left the penthouse last night. What kind of doorman are you?"
"Actually, I'm an actor," the doorman said, "but I was still able to follow your instructions."
Esmé gave the doorman a stern look she probably used when giving people financial advice. "Your instructions have changed," she said. "Your new instructions are to let me and my orphans go directly to my seventy-one-bedroom apartment. Got it, buster?"
"Got it," the doorman replied meekly.
"Good," Esmé said, and then turned to the children. "Hurry up, kids," she said. "Violet and what's-his-name can each take a crate of soda, and Jerome will take the rest. I guess the baby won't be very helpful, but that's to be expected. Let's get a move on."
The Baudelaires got a move on, and in a few moments the three children and the two adults were trekking up the sixty-six-floor-long staircase. The youngsters were hoping that Esmé might help carry the heavy crates of soda, but the city's sixth most important financial advisor was much more interested in telling them all about her meeting with the King of Arizona than in buttering up any orphans. "He told me a long list of new things that are in," Esmé squealed. "For one thing, grapefruits. Also bright blue cereal bowls, billboards with photographs of weasels on them, and plenty of other things that I will list for you right now." All the way up to the penthouse, Esmé listed the new in items she had learned about from His Arizona Highness, and the two Baudelaire sisters listened carefully the whole time. They did not listen very carefully to Esmé's very dull speech, of course, but they listened closely at each curve of the staircase, double-checking their eavesdropping to hear if Gunther was indeed behind one of the apartment doors. Neither Violet nor Sunny heard anything suspicious, and they would have asked Klaus, in a low whisper so the Squalors couldn't hear them, if he had heard any sort of Gunther noise, but they could tell from his idiosyncrasy that he was still thinking very hard about something and wasn't listening to the noises in the other apartments any more than he was listening to automobile tires, cross-country skiing, movies with waterfalls in them, and the rest of the in things Esmé was rattling off.
"Oh, and magenta wallpaper!" Esmé said, as the Baudelaires and the Squalors finished a dinner of in foods washed down with parsley soda, which tasted even nastier than it sounds. "And triangul
ar picture frames, and very fancy doilies, and garbage cans with letters of the alphabet stenciled all over them, and--"
"Excuse me," Klaus said, and his sisters jumped a little bit in surprise. It was the first time Klaus had spoken in anything but a mumble since they had been down in the lobby. "I don't mean to interrupt, but my sisters and I are very tired. May we be excused to go to bed?"
"Of course," Jerome said. "You should get plenty of rest for the auction tomorrow. I'll take you to the Veblen Hall at ten-thirty sharp, so--"
"No you won't," Esmé said. "Yellow paper clips are in, Jerome, so as soon as the sun rises, you'll have to go right to the Stationery District and get some. I'll bring the children."
"Well, I don't want to argue," Jerome said, shrugging and giving the children a small smile. "Esmé, don't you want to tuck the children in?"
"Nope," Esmé answered, frowning as she sipped her parsley soda. "Folding blankets over three wriggling children sounds like a lot more trouble than it's worth. See you tomorrow, kids."
"I hope so," Violet said, and yawned. She knew that Klaus was asking to be excused so he could tell her and Sunny what he had been thinking about, but after lying awake the previous night, searching the entire penthouse, and tiptoeing down all those stairs, the eldest Baudelaire was actually quite tired. "Good night, Esmé. Good night, Jerome."
"Good night, children," Jerome said. "And please, if you get up in the middle of the night and have a snack, try not to spill your food. There seem to be a lot of crumbs around the penthouse lately."
The Baudelaire orphans looked at one another and smiled at their shared secret. "Sorry about that," Violet said. "Tomorrow we'll do the vacuuming if you want."
"Vacuum cleaners!" Esmé said. "I knew there was something else he told me was in. Oh, and cotton balls, and anything with chocolate sprinkles on it, and . . ."
The Baudelaires did not want to stick around for any more of Esmé's in list, so they brought their plates into the nearest kitchen, and walked down a hallway decorated with the antlers of various animals, through a sitting room, past five bathrooms, took a left at another kitchen, and eventually made their way to Violet's bedroom.