Elevator shaft mystery solved.

[R.]

I think I’ve figured out what the deal was with the second elevator, i.e the ersatz one. I think it used to be an elevator, which led both to the secret floor above the penthouse, (probably a VFD meeting place) and the secret passageway to the Baudelaire mansion. The penthouse was probably supposed to be guarded by a member or friend of VFD, such as Jerome. However, when Jerome married Esmé she used the passageway to burn down the Baudelaire mansion and then somehow had the lift removed. The fact that there actually was a floor above would explain why the second elevator had an up button.  Elevators being ‘out’ during TEE was probably a way for Esmé to hide the disappearance of the elevator; Jerome probably didn’t know it was no longer there.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

I investigated this way of thinking for a while. However, I think there is evidence to suggest that Esmé and Jerome's wedding took place just before the events recorded at TMM. I think that because of Jacques' letter to Jerome. I think that innocent Esmé ... At least through this method.

[Dante]

This has long been the standing theory, yes, and it has a number of attractive points. I regard TEE as only making sense as a book if its plot was intended to point to a very tightly-constructed mystery surrounding the destruction of the Baudelaire home, however much those intentions may later have changed. Now, regarding the timing of Esmé and Jerome's wedding, there is evidence in the U.A. ambiguously suggesting that it happened around the time of TMM, and evidence in the U.A. ambiguously suggesting that it happened before TBB. I suggest that this is an irreconcilable problem. How about this, though, Jean Lucio: These details are why the Baudelaires think Count Olaf is guilty?

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Yes !! Thank you for recognizing my theory that much of what Lemony knows about events is because he read what the Baudelaires left behind. Yes, that makes sense. The Baudelaires believed that Olaf was to blame for the fire, and everything they wrote reflected that view. But could you remind me of the evidence that Jerome's marriage took place before TBB? Is it because of that schism? I think I already solved this by stating that Olaf's behavior towards the Baudelaires was also considered by Jacques to be a schism, as Olaf spent many years before that in a kind of truce.

[Dante]

The evidence I refer to is this passage, within the first couple of pages of the Baudelaires meeting the Squalors:

"I wanted to adopt you from the moment I heard about the fire. But, unfortunately, it was impossible."
"Orphans were out then," the woman explained. "Now they're in."

-TEE, p. 27

So, Esmé prevented Jerome from adopting the orphans when he heard about the fire; thus, Esmé was married or at least engaged to Jerome at the time of the fire; thus, their marriage was before or very soon after the fire. There are ways around this, of course, but they all require us to assume the characters are speaking in a deliberately obtuse fashion for no reason.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

One moment, Dante ... I assumed that Jerome had only heard about the fire after his return from the honeymoon. I mean, his letter to Jacques suggests that, doesn't it? So, I believe that at that moment he knew about the fire, and at that moment he knew about the Baudelaires. Esme just said, "but the orphans are out." And so they went to boarding school instead of being adopted. Esmé should already know, evidently of everything that had happened. But she let Jerome believe that she found out about the possibility of adopting them just then.And she continued with the farce at this point. What about that?

[Dante]

I think that is how you would want to go about it, yes - that, by hook or by crook, Esmé kept Jerome out of the loop until she could reasonably claim that orphans were out. But we are not made privy to the timings of any of these events, and the sum total of associated implications begins to look distinctly contradictory.