#0480

the weather in the mountains was bad so we didn’t go to the other side of the state today after all. I’m sad I didn’t get to see my friends, but I do not regret being at home.

“You are morally obligated to take back your gift; if he asks for it back, feel free to throw it as hard you can at him. Don’t feel apologetic about it either if he tries to give you some pitiful look.”

Good evening, @doubleohbehave! I’m honored.

I think it definitely makes more sense to think that the passageway was used by the survivor to escape, rather than by the arsonist to burn down the building.

There were actually quite a few people around the Baudelaire mansion just after the fire: firefighters, of course, but according to the un-Authorized Autobiography Brett Helquist was also on the scene. So the survivor would have been spotted. Besides, there wouldn’t really be a reason for the survivor to hide for so long if he/she was out in the public daylight, and for V.F.D. to take so long figuring out there even was a survivor.

The idea that the survivor used the passageway to escape does address these difficulties. Because the elevator shaft is so high, it’s perfectly possible the survivor got stuck at the bottom of it (we have to account for possible fire injuries). Which would explain the delay. By the time V.F.D. had even inspected the elevator shaft and found the survivor, the Baudelaire orphans were already in Olaf’s custody.

The Snicket file also seems to suggest that, since the sentence about a possible survivor of the Baudelaire fire is written right under a photograph of the Baudelaire parents in front of 667 Dark Avenue. This is evidence that they were probably aware of the secret passage and could have used it.

p.18 They passed the Fickle Fountain… Please see my note to page 62.[The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition, p.18]

p.62 …the Fountain of Victorious Finance…Readers of Book the Seventh will remember that fountains are like top hats in that they provide hollow spaces in which things can be hidden (please see my note to page 6), and I imagine the damp surroundings of a fountain’s innards would be comforting if the person hiding inside had recently survived a fire.[The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition, p.62]