Dear reader,

If you have just picked up this book, it is not too late to put it aside. As with the previous books in the series, the only things you will find in its pages are wretchedness, despair, and hardship, so you have a little time to choose to read something else.

In this story, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire face a dark staircase, a misleading clue, the tragic state of their friends, three mysterious initials, a con artist with a diabolical plan, a secret passageway, and parsley soda.

I have sworn to record the story of the Baudelaire orphans so that the public will know all the terrible things that happened to them, but if you decide to read something else, the only certainty is that you will be spared great horror and immense sadness.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket