Chapter Five Summary

The Baudelaires have many questions for the masked stranger in the sweater as Chapter Five opens, but he warns them not to wake Uncle Bruce, as he has already caused enough trouble for the VFD. The boy shows them that above the campfire, which has died down to embers, there is a long chimney that lets the smoke escape. This chimney is called the Vertical Flame Diversion, he tells them, and it leads to the VFD headquarters. It once had a pole running down through it, but it also has toeholds in the rock that lets a person climb up. The masked boy seems to know a good deal about the past adventures of the Baudelaires, but he again warns them not to talk until they reach the top.

The narrator at this point says that the climb through the smoky...