The Man With a Beard But No Hair

The Man With a Beard But No Hair, (real name unknown) is a major antagonist in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. He appears first in the tenth book, The Slippery Slope.

Origins
Apparently, he was recruited by V.F.D. as a young boy but he found he hated the organization and plotted to destroy it. He had a maths teacher who was interviewed later on by Dewey Denouement.

The Slippery Slope
The Man With a Beard But No Hair makes a dramatic entrance in the tenth book, accompanied by his sinister associate, The Woman With Hair But No Beard. The Man With a Beard But No Hair is mentioned to have done such unspeakably evil acts, that even Lemony Snicket himself fears to mention his real name. It is hinted these acts included burning down the Quagmire, Snicket and Baudelaire homes to steal their fortunes.

The Man With a Beard But No Hair is very intimidating, although friendly in a warped sense to Olaf. He expresses relief Olaf is alive and out of jail. He is so evil he makes even Olaf, a major antagonist, shake nervously. Esme Squalor is shaking when she is with him and all of Olaf's henchmen look at the ground rather than face this man. The man gives Olaf the Snicket file - which is the one thing Olaf wanted aside from the Baudelaire fortune. They go into Olaf's tent to read it before destroying it. The man gives Esme a Verdant Flammable Device to smoke, which is a device for signalling for help, but he believes its a cigarette. He says him and the Woman With Hair But No Beard returned from their latest plan - burning down the V.F.D. headquarters, which is a major shock to the captive Sunny Baudelaire. When noticing her, the man snarls "And what is that?" expressing his distaste for other people.

Later, the Man With a Beard But No Hair returns when Violet and Quigley Quagmire have found Sunny on the mountaintop. The orphans hide under Olaf's car with Sunny and the Man With a Beard But No Hair orders Olaf and Esme to spread the net out for the recruitment plan. The man's presence makes the car go even colder than the mountaintop has a right to be.

When Bruce and the Snow Scouts arrive, the Man With a Beard But No Hair and his female companion lure the Scouts onto the net with false promises of celebration. When the Scouts recite their ridiculous pledge, they fail to notice the man blowing his whistle, and alerting thousands of wretched eagles to swoop down, grasp the net, and hoist all the teenagers and Bruce into the air, capturing them all, including even the Hook-Handed Man.

The Man With a Beard But No Hair is unperturbed that the Baudelaires survived their apparent death after all and he cackles that he won the lions and eagles, mistakenly identifying eagles as mammals, which a frustrated Klaus corrects him with. The man simply orders Olaf to meet him at the Hotel Denouement and him and his female partner are lifted into the air by two eagles gripping their shoulder pads, and travel to the Hotel with the captive Scouts.

In between
The Man With a Beard But No Hair lent some of the Scouts to Olaf to use as slaves in his submarine. Olaf then set out to sea as a pirate in the intervening days, to hunt down Captain Widdershins and his submarine. He caught it, but found only the Baudelaires and Fiona Widdershins.

The Penultimate Peril
The Man With a Beard But No Hair returns as one of the main antagonists of this book. Here, he is a treacherous judge of the High Court which is revealed to be an evil corporate system when the man is identified as a judge, betraying Justice Strauss by telling Olaf where the Baudelaires go. Along with Madame Lulu, the Man With a Beard But No Hair is responsible for giving Olaf his Baudelaire location.

The Man With a Beard But No Hair tries to get the Baudelaires arrested under "contempt of court" which the kids find ridiculous as the man is the one who deserves jail. The man orders everyone to arrest the Baudelaires to spread out in search of them but never take off their blindfolds (as V.F.D. took the phrase "justice is blind" literally) and to bring him anyone they find suspicious.

Later, when Sunny has set the Hotel on fire to alert V.F.D. of their failure, Justice Strauss and the Baudelaires urge everyone to flee because of the fire and the Man With a Beard But No Hair congratulates Olaf on starting a fire. When Jerome Squalor asks what's good about arson, the man hurriedly betrays Olaf by saying he needs to be arrested.

Fate
Its unknown whether the Man With a Beard But No Hair died in the fire in the Hotel or not. Snicket hints he may have survived, as "the noise outside your window at night may be the sound of a bearded man climbing in your window."