While the Baudelaires are living with the Squalors in "The Ersatz Elevator", Esmé conspires with Count Olaf while he is still in disguise as the auctioneer Gunther. After the "In Auction", during which Olaf in the disguise of Gunther completes a complicated scheme to "launder" the kidnapping of the remaining Quagmire triplets, he drives away with her in his truck. Although the Baudelaires attempt to warn her of Gunther's true identity, she reveals that she not only knew all along, but that Olaf was her acting teacher.