"Look!" cried Count Olaf, leaning over the edge of the hotel and pointing down. The Baudelaires looked, expecting to see the enormous, calm surface of the pond reflecting the Hotel Denouement back at them like an enormous mirror. But the air was stained with patches of thick, black smoke that poured out of the basement windows as the fire began to spread, and the surface of the pond looked like a series of tiny mirrors, each broken into strange, unfathomable shapes. Here and there, among the smoke and mirrors, the children could see the tiny figures running this way and that, but could not tell if they were the authorities on the ground, or people in the hotel running to escape from the blaze.
Olaf continued to gaze downward, and the Baudelaires could not tell if he looked pleased or disappointed. "Thanks to you orphans," he said, "it's too late to destroy everyone with the Medusoid Mycelium, but at least we got to start a fire."
Justice Strauss was still gazing at the smoke pouring from the windows and rising into the sky, and her expression was equally unfathomable. "Thanks to you orphans," she said quietly to the Baudelaires, "this hotel will be destroyed by fire, but at least we stopped Olaf from releasing the fungus."
"The fire isn't burning very quickly," Olaf said. "Many people will escape."
"The fire isn't burning slowly, either," Justice Strauss said. "Some people won't."
The Baudelaire orphans looked at one another, but before anyone could say anything further, the entire building trembled, and the children had to struggle to keep their balance on the tilted roof. The shiny sunbathing mats tumbled across the salon, and the water in the swimming pool splashed against the side of the large, wooden boat, dampening the figurehead of the octopus attacking a man in a diving suit.
"The fire is weakening the structural foundations of the building," Violet said.
"We have to get out of here," Klaus said.
"Pronto," Sunny said.
Without another word the Baudelaires turned from the adults and strode quickly toward the boat. Shifting the pile of sheets into one hand, Violet took off her concierge hat, reached into her pocket, and found the ribbon Kit Snicket had given her, which she used to tie up her hair. Klaus reached into his pocket and found his commonplace book, which he began to flip through. Sunny did not reach into her pocket, but she scraped her sharp teeth together thoughtfully, as she suspected they might be needed.
Violet stared critically at the boat. "I'll attach the drag chute to the figurehead," she said. "I should be able to tie a Devil's Tongue knot around the helmet of the diver." She paused for a moment. "That's where the Medusoid Mycelium is hidden," she said. "Count Olaf kept it there, where no one would think of looking."
Klaus stared critically at his notes. "I'll angle the sail to catch the wind," he said. "Otherwise, a heavy object like this would fall straight down into the water." He paused for a moment, too. "That's what happened to the sugar bowl," he said. "Dewey Denouement let everyone think it had fallen into the laundry room, so no one would find it in the pond."
"Spatulas as oars," Sunny said, pointing to the implements that Hugo had used to flip over the sunbathers.
"Good idea," Violet agreed and gazed out to the gray, troubled waters of the sea. "Maybe our friends will find us. Hector should be flying this way, with Kit Snicket and the Quagmires."
"And Fiona," Klaus added.
"No," Sunny said.
"What do you mean?" Violet asked, stepping carefully from the edge of the pool onto the side of the boat, where she began to climb a rope ladder up to the figurehead.
"They said they would arrive by Thursday,"Klaus said, helping Sunny climb aboard and then stepping onto the boat himself. The deck was about the size of a large mattress, big enough to hold the Baudelaires and perhaps one or two more passengers. "It's Wednesday afternoon."
"The fire," Sunny said, and pointed at the smoke as it rose toward the sky.
The two older Baudelaires gasped. They had almost forgotten that Kit had told them she would be watching the skies, looking for a signal that would cancel Thursday's gathering.
"That's why you thought of lighting the fire," Violet said, hurriedly tying the sheets around the figurehead. "It's a signal."
"V.F.D. will see it," Klaus said, "and know that all their hopes have gone up in smoke."
Sunny nodded. "The last safe place," she said, "is safe no more."
It was an impressive sentence for the youngest Baudelaire, but a sad one.
"Maybe our friends will find us anyway,"
Violet said. "They might be the last noble people we know."
"If they're truly noble," Klaus said, "they might not want to be our friends."
Violet nodded, and her eyes filled with tears. "You're right," she admitted. "We killed a man."
"Accident," Sunny said firmly.
"And burned down a hotel," Klaus said.
"Signal," Sunny said.
"We had good reasons," Violet said, "but we still did bad things."
"We want to be noble," Klaus said, "but we've had to be treacherous."
"Noble enough," Sunny said, but the building trembled again, as if shaking its head in disagreement. Violet hung on to the figurehead and Klaus and Sunny hung on to each other as the boat bumped against the sides of the swimming pool.
"Help us!" Violet cried to the adults, who were still staring at the rising smoke. "Grab those spatulas, and push the boat to the edge of the roof!"
"Don't boss me around!" Olaf growled, but he followed the judge to a corner of the roof where the spatulas lay, their mirrors reflecting the afternoon sun and the sky as it darkened with smoke. Each adult grabbed one spatula, and poked at the boat the way you might poke at a spider you were trying to get out of your bathtub. Bump! Bump! The sailboat bumped against the edge of the pool, and then jostled its way out of the pool, where it slowly slid, with a loud scraping sound, to the far edge of the roof. The Baudelaires hung on tightly as the front half of the boat kept sliding across the mirrors of the salon, until it was hanging over nothing but the smoky air. The boat tipped this way and that, in a delicate balance between the roof of the hotel and the sea below.