Stephano placed his left foot on the bumper of Uncle Monty’s jeep. Looking at the Baudelaire orphans with his shiny, shiny eyes, he began to raise the leg of his stained striped pants. Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Mr.

Poe all kept their eyes on Stephano’s ankle.

The pant leg went up, like a curtain rising to begin a play. But there was no tattoo of an eye to be seen. The Baudelaire orphans stared at a patch of smooth skin, as blank and pale as poor Uncle Monty’s face.

EIGHT

While the jeep sputtered ahead of them, the Baudelaire orphans trudged back toward Uncle Monty’s house, the scent of horseradish in their nostrils and a feeling of frustration in their hearts. It is very unnerving to be proven wrong, particularly when you are really right and the person who is really wrong is the one who is proving you wrong and proving himself, wrongly, right. Right?

“I don’t know how he got rid of his tattoo,”

Klaus said stubbornly to Mr. Poe, who was coughing into his handkerchief, “but that’s definitely Count Olaf.”

“Klaus,” Mr. Poe said, when he had

stopped coughing, “this is getting very tiresome, going over this again and again. We have just seen Stephano’s unblemished ankle. ‘Unblemished’ means—”

“We know what ‘unblemished’ means,”

Klaus said, watching Stephano get out of Uncle Monty’s jeep and walk quickly into the house. “‘Without tattoos.’ But it is Count Olaf. Why can’t you see it?”

“All I can see,” Mr. Poe said, “is what’s in front of me. I see a man with no eyebrows, a beard, and no tattoo, and that’s not Count Olaf. Anyway, even if by some chance this Stephano wishes you harm, you have nothing to fear. It is quite shocking that Dr. Montgomery has died, but we’re not simply going to hand over you and your fortune to his assistant. Why, this man can’t even remember my name!”

Klaus looked at his siblings and sighed. It would be easier, they realized, to argue with the snake-shaped hedge than with Mr. Poe when he had made up his mind. Violet was about to try reasoning with him one more time when a horn honked behind them. The Baudelaires and Mr. Poe got out of the way of the approaching automobile, a small gray car with a very skinny driver. The car stopped in front of the house and the skinny person got out, a tall man in a white coat.

“May we help you?” Mr. Poe called, as he and the children approached.

“I am Dr. Lucafont,” the tall man said, pointing to himself with a big, solid hand. “I received a call that there’s been a terrible accident involving a snake.”

“You’re here already?” Mr. Poe asked. “But Stephano has scarcely had time to call, let alone for you to drive here.”