Whether he survives or not is left unanswered.Īlthough his primary responsibility in the books is to help the Baudelaires, the Baudelaires do not think he is helpful (Lemony Snicket describes him as being as helpful as a jar of mustard). When the hotel is set on fire, Poe is on the third floor.

Bass robs Mulctuary Money Management, Poe is placed in charge of the investigation, which leads him to the Hotel Denouement. When the Baudelaires return to the city to meet up with V.F.D., Poe intervenes on a tip from a 'J.S.' (initials variously used by Jerome Squalor, Justice Strauss, Count Olaf, Esmé Squalor, and possibly others) with the intent of clearing the Baudelaires' names and restoring his role as executor, but the children refuse to accompany him. When the Baudelaires escape the village amidst accusations of murder (and later arson and kidnapping), Poe is one of the few adults to maintain the Baudelaires' innocence and disbelieve the incriminating Daily Punctilio articles published by his sister Eleanora. But Olaf escapes using a secret tunnel beneath the theatre.įollowing these events, Poe successively places the children under the care of Monty Montgomery, Josephine Anwhistle, Sir, Jerome and Esmé Squalor, and finally the Village of Fowl Devotees, acting as their temporary guardian in the interim. The jovial Justice Strauss is tricked into being the judge, and the marriage is, without validity, commenced. He intelligently hides the marriage in a play that he wrote (under an anagrammed pseudonym) and puts in a scene where a couple marries without explanation. However, his psychopathic tendencies are proved after Olaf traps Sunny in a birdcage, with the only way of her freedom being a forced marriage between Olaf and Violet. When the Baudelaires contact Poe at his bank ( Mulctuary Money Management) to report Olaf's condescending behaviour, the banker points out that Olaf is acting in loco parentis, and can raise them with his queer set of rules. But Olaf does not act responsibly, unlike the Baudelaires, forcing them to clean the house in an enslaved way and cook dinner, which was to Olaf’s dismay, because he requested roast beef only after the meal of ‘pasta puttanesca’ was made. As chaperone of the Baudelaire estate, he expounds the will that their parents left, stating that the children 'be raised in the most convenient way possible' a way to interpret that hey should remain within the city border, and arranges for their fake cousin Count Olaf to take custody. Mr Poe greets the children on Briny Beach, with a good manner, in spite of the news that their parents tragically died in a house fire. He is known for his naïvety, his malignant cough, and general negligence in caring for both sets of children, one of the only reasons why the children were stalked by Count Olaf, and why they were put into his care in the first place. Poe is a banker in charge of the Baudelaire and Quagmire fortunes and the Baudelaire orphans' guardianship.

The penultimate peril