Family Comes First- ASOUE

Chapter 34: Mourning in the Morning

*Duncan's POV*

In the morning, we were dressed and sitting around the kitchen table, anxiously awaiting Mr. Poe's arrival. When he finally did come, we let him look at the note and he seemed not to think anything of it until we told him our theory.

"Forgery?" He repeated. "That's a very serious accusation!"

"Not as serious as murder!" I replied. "Which is exactly what happened to Josephine!"

"Mr. Poe," Violet said, "this 'Captain Sham' is a fraud! He's Count Olaf in another disguise and the note was forged by him to get us into his clutches. And Aunt Josephine met him yesterday afternoon at the town market, so there's no way this is legitimate, right?"

"Even if your story is true, there is an easy way to tell if it's a forgery and that's to compare it to something you know she's written."

"That's-" Klaus began to say, but then actually listened to Mr. Poe. "Actually an excellent idea..."

"In the kitchen," Violet said promptly. "She left her shopping list in the kitchen when we got home from the market."

"Chuni!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "Let's go to the kitchen and get it."

On the counter top in the kitchen was a small piece of paper on which Aunt Josephine had made her list, and Isadora went to retrieve it. Mr. Poe turned on the lights, and Izzie came back into the library, putting the shopping list next to the note to compare.

"I don't think there's any doubt that Aunt Josephine wrote on both these pieces of paper," Mr. Poe said finally.

"But-" Violet began.

"There are no buts about it," Mr. Poe said. "Look at the curvy Vs. Look at the squiggly C's. Look at the oval dots over the I's. I'm no graphologist, but I can certainly tell that these were written by the same person."

"You're right," I said miserably. "We know that Captain Sham is behind this somehow, but Josephine definitely wrote this note."

"And that," Mr. Poe said, "makes it a legal document."

"Does that mean we have to live with Captain Sham?" Violet asked, her eyes wide in fear.

"I'm afraid so," Mr. Poe replied. "Someone's last will and testament is an official statement of the wishes of the deceased. You were placed in Aunt Josephine's care, so she had the right to assign you to a new caretaker before she leaped out the window. It is very shocking, certainly, but it is entirely legal."

"We won't go live with him," Klaus said fiercely.

"He's the worst person on earth," Isadora added.

"He'll do something terrible, I know it," Violet said.

"All he's after is the Baudelaire fortune and the Quagmire Sapphires." I said.

"Evil!" Sunny shrieked.

"I know you don't like this Captain Sham person," Mr. Poe said, "but there's not much I can do about it. I'm afraid the law says that that's where you'll go."

"We'll run away," Klaus blurted out.

'You will do nothing of the kind," Mr. Poe said sternly. "Your parents entrusted me to see that you would be cared for properly, and the Quagmire's accounts were forwarded to me when they moved to live with that evil Count Olaf. You want to honor your parents' wishes, don't you, children?" He asked. Gee, thanks for the guilt trip...

"Well, yes," Violet said, "but-"

"Then please don't make a fuss," Mr. Poe said. "Think of what your poor mothers and fathers would say if they knew you were threatening to run away from your guardian."

Mom and Dad of course, would have been horrified to learn Izzie and I were to be in the care of Captain Sham, and I was sure Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire would have been furious about Violet, Klaus, and Sunny in his care too, but before I could say this to Mr. Poe, he had moved on to other matters. "Now, I think the easiest thing to do would be to meet with Captain Sham and go over some details. Where is his business card? I'll phone him now."

"On the table, in the dining room," I said glumly, recalling where Josephine set it down yesterday afternoon, and Mr. Poe left the kitchen to make the call. We looked at Aunt Josephine's shopping list and the suicide note, sitting in silence for a few minutes.

"I just can't believe it," Violet said. "I was sure we were on the right track with the forgery idea."

"Me too," Klaus said. "Captain Sham has done something here-I know he has-but he's been even sneakier than usual."

"We'd better be smarter than usual, then," Izzie replied, "because we've got to convince Mr. Poe before it's too late."

"Well, Mr. Poe said he had to go over some details," Klaus said. "Perhaps that will take a long time."

"I got ahold of Captain Sham," Mr. Poe said, coming back into the library. "He was shocked to hear of Josephine's death but overjoyed at the prospect of raising you children. We're meeting him in a half hour for brunch at a restaurant in town, and after, we'll go over the details of your adoption. By tonight you should be staying in his house, which is good because there's an approaching hurricane, and this house seems quite unstable. I'm sure you're relieved that this can be sorted out so quickly."

Violet, Sunny, my sister, and I stared at Mr. Poe, too dismayed to speak. Klaus was silent too, but I noticed he was staring hard at Josephine's note. His eyes were focused in concentration behind his glasses as he stared at it. Mr. Poe took his white handkerchief out of his pocket and coughed into it. "Well," Mr. Poe said finally, "You children comb your hair and put your coats on. We don't want to be late. I'll go get my car started."

Mr. Poe left the room and I turned to Klaus. "What?" I asked.

"What do you mean 'What?'" He replied.

"You were rereading Josephine's note for the thousandth time, and you figured something out, I can tell. What is it?"

"It might be nothing," he answered. "I'd need more time with the note to tell."

"We don't have more time," Izzie pointed out. "We meet Captain Sham for brunch in half an hour."

"Then we're going to have to make some more time, somehow," Klaus said determinedly.

"Come on, children!" Mr. Poe called from the kitchen. "Come get your coats and let's go!"

Violet sighed in frustration. "How can we make more time?" Violet asked, walking slowly towards the library door.

"You're the inventor," Klaus answered, hiding the note in a nearby copy of The Explicitly Illustrated Encyclopedia of Verbs for safekeeping.

"But you can't invent things like time," she said. "You can invent things like automatic popcorn poppers. You can invent things like steam-powered window washers. But you can't invent more time. I'm so certain it's impossible that I don't even need to tie up my hair."

We walked past Mr. Poe, taking our coats off the coat rack and buttoning them. I climbed into the backseat of Mr. Poe's little teal car, feeling doomed as I looked out at the horizon where Hurricane Herman was slowly approaching...