"You're right, Sunny," Violet said, with a sigh. "Let's get started. Klaus, see if you can find the right key for the Library door."
Klaus nodded, and carried Hal's keys over to the door. Not too long ago, when the Baudelaires had been staying with Aunt Josephine by the shores of Lake Lachrymose, Klaus had been in a situation in which he had to match up a key to a locked door very, very quickly, and since then he had been quite good at it. He looked at the lock of the door, which had a very short and narrow keyhole, and then looked at the loop of string, which had one very short and narrow key, and in no time at all the children were re-entering the Library of Records and looking down the dim aisles of file cabinets.
"I'm going to lock the door behind us," Klaus said, "so that nobody will get suspicious if they happen to walk into the anteroom."
"Like Mattathias," said Violet with a shudder. "On the intercom he said that they were stopping the inspections for the day, but I bet he's really still looking."
"Vapey," Sunny said, which meant "Then let's hurry."
"Let's start with the S aisle," Violet said. "For Snicket."
"Right," Klaus said, locking the door with a rattle. The three children found the S aisle and began walking past the file cabinets, reading the labels on them to figure out which one to open.
"Sauce to Saxifrage," Klaus read out loud. "That means that anything that falls alphabetically between the word 'sauce' and the word 'saxifrage' will be in this cabinet. That would be fine if we wanted the Sawmill file."
"Or the Sauna file," Violet said. "Let's move on."
The children moved on, their footsteps echoing off the low ceilings of the room. "Scarab to Scavenger," Klaus said, reading one farther down the aisle. Sunny and Violet shook their heads, and the Baudelaires kept moving.
"Secretary to Sediment," Violet read. "We're still not there."
"Kalm," Sunny said, which meant "I can't read very well, but I think this one says 'Sequel to Serenity.'"
"You're right, Sunny," Klaus said, smiling at his sister. "It's the wrong one."
"Shed to Sheepshank," Violet read.
"Shellac to Sherbet," Klaus read, walking farther down the aisle.
"Shipwreck to Shrimp."
"Sicily to Sideways."
"Skylight to Slob."
"Sludge to Smoke."
"Snack to Snifter."
"Snowball to Sober."
"Sonnet to Spackle."
"Wait!" Klaus cried. "Back up! Snicket is between Snack and Snifter."
"You're right," Violet said, stepping back to find the right cabinet. "I was so distracted by all the strange file names that I forgot what we were looking for. Here it is, Snack to Snifter. Let's hope the file we're looking for is here."
Klaus looked at the lock on the file cabinet, and found the right key on Hal's loop on only the third try. "It should be in the bottom drawer," Klaus said, "close to Snifter. Let's look."
The Baudelaires looked. A snifter is a type of glass, usually meant for holding brandy, although it is also the term for a strong wind. Plenty of words are close to "snifter" in the alphabet, and the children found many of them. There was a file on sniffing, which seemed to have many photographs of noses. There was a file on Snell's Law, which states that a ray of light passing from one uniform medium to another produces an identical ratio between the sine of the angle of incidence and the sine of the angle of refraction, which Klaus already knew. There was a file on the inventor of the sneaker, whom Violet admired very much, and one on snicking, which is something Sunny had done many times with her teeth. But there was not a single scrap of paper marked Snicket. The children sighed in disappointment, and shut the drawer of the file cabinet so Klaus could lock it again.
"Let's try the J aisle, for Jacques," Violet suggested.
"Shh," Sunny said.
"No, Sunny," Klaus said gently. "I don't think the H aisle is a good bet. Why would Hal have filed it under H?"
"Shh," Sunny insisted, pointing at the door, and her siblings knew instantly that they had misunderstood her. Usually when Sunny said "Shh," she meant something along the lines of "I think the H aisle might be a good place to look for the file," but this time she meant something more along the lines of "Be quiet! I think I hear someone walking into the anteroom of the Library of Records." Sure enough, when the Baudelaires listened closely, they could hear the clomping of some odd, teetering footsteps, as if someone were walking on very thin stilts. The footsteps grew closer and closer, and then stopped, and as the three children held their breath, the door to the Library rattled as someone tried to open the door.
"Maybe it's Hal," Violet whispered, "trying to unlock the door with a paper clip."
"Maybe it's Mattathias," Klaus whispered, "looking for us."
"Janitor," Sunny whispered.
"Well, whoever it is," Violet said, "we'd better hurry to the J aisle."
The Baudelaires tiptoed across the low-ceilinged room to the J aisle, and walked down it quickly, reading the labels of the file cabinets.
"Jabberwocky to Jackal."
"Jacket to Jack-o'-Lanterns."
"Nersai."
"That's it!" Klaus whispered. "Jacques will be in Jackline to Jacutinga."
"We hope," Violet said, as the door rattled again. Klaus hurried to find the right key, and the children opened the top drawer to look for Jacques. As Violet knew, jackline is a kind of rope used in sailing, and as Klaus knew, jacutinga is a sort of gold-bearing iron ore found in Brazil, and once again there were plenty of files between these two, but although the children found information on jack-o'-lanterns, Jack Russell terriers, and Jacobean drama, there was no file marked "Jacques."
"Fire!" Klaus whispered, shutting and locking the file cabinet. "Let's head to the F aisle."
"And hurry," Violet said. "It sounds like the person in the anteroom is picking the lock."
It was true. The Baudelaires paused for a moment and heard a muffled scratching from behind the door, as if something long and thin were being stuck in the keyhole to try to unlock the lock. Violet knew, from when she and her siblings lived with Uncle Monty, that a lockpick can often take a long time to work properly, even if it has been made by one of the world's greatest inventors, but the children nonetheless moved to the F aisle as fast as their tiptoes could carry them.
"Fabian to Fact."
"Fainting to Fangs."
"Fatalism to Faulkner."
"Fear to Fermat."
"Ficus to Filth."
"Fin de Siécle to Fissle--here it is!"
Once more, the Baudelaires hurried to find the proper key, and then the proper drawer and then the proper file. "Fin de siéecle" is a term for a time in history when a century is drawing to a close, and "fissle" is a fancy word for a rustling noise, like the one that continued to come from behind the locked door as the children looked frantically for Fire. But the papers went right from Finland to Firmament, without a single word on Fire in between.
"What will we do?" Violet asked, as the door began to rattle again. "Where else could the file be?"
"Let's try to think," Klaus said. "What did Hal say about the file? We know it has to do with Jacques Snicket, and with fire."
"Prem!" Sunny said, which meant "But we looked under Snicket, Jacques, and Fire already."
"There must be something else," Violet said. "We have to find this file. It has crucial information about Jacques Snicket and V.F.D."
"And about us," Klaus said. "Don't forget that."
The three children looked at one another.
"Baudelaire!" Sunny whispered.
Without another word, the orphans ran to the B aisle, and hurried past Babbitt to Babylon, Bacteria to Ballet, and Bamboo to Baskerville, stopping at Bat Mitzvah to Bavarian Cream. As the door continued to fissle behind them, Klaus tried nine keys in a row before finally opening the cabinet, and there, between the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony for young women, and the delicious filling of certain doughnuts, the children found a folder marked "Baudelaire."