The Decagon House Murders (22 page)

Ellery watched the reactions of the other two. Van and Poe looked at each other and signalled their disapproval.

‘But I admit there’s nothing to prove it wasn’t all a one-man show. I wasn’t even badly hurt. And now to the murder of Leroux this morning.’

Ellery gave it some thought.

‘There were some strange features to that murder. Committed outside and beaten to death, no less. Unlike the two earlier murders, there was no fixation with cutting off the hands. This murder was different.’

‘I agree. But even so, any of the three of us could have been the murderer,’ said Poe.

Ellery rubbed his thin chin.

‘That’s true. Let’s keep the examination of Leroux’s murder for later, then. I need more time to think about it.

‘Last is Agatha’s murder. As we just found out, potassium cyanide or sodium cyanide, or something like that had been applied to her lipstick. The only problem is
when and how was the poison put there
?

‘The lipstick should have been in her room the whole time, inside her make-up pouch. Since the day before yesterday, following the murders of Orczy and Carr, Agatha had become extremely cautious and would always lock her door. The murderer wouldn’t have been able to sneak into her room. On the other hand, Agatha did use lipstick every day. She died this morning, so that means her lipstick was poisoned between yesterday afternoon and last night.’

‘Ellery, just one thing.’

‘Yes, Van?’

‘I think the colour of the lipstick Agatha used today is different from yesterday.’

‘What?’

‘The colour she wore this morning was horribly bright. That’s why I even thought they didn’t appear to be the lips of the deceased.’

Van continued:

‘Agatha was using a different shade of pink yesterday and the day before. Rose-pink, I think it’s called.’

‘Aha.’

Ellery tapped on the edge of the table with his fingers.

‘Now that you mention it, she did have two sticks in her pouch, one of them pink.  So I guess the poison was put on the red one earlier. It was put there on the first or second day, when Agatha wasn’t yet on her guard and the murderer could easily sneak into her room. But she didn’t use that lipstick until this morning.’

‘A time bomb,’ Poe said, brushing his beard. ‘And, again, all three of us had the opportunity to pull that off.’

‘That’s what it boils down to. But Poe, if we believe the murderer to be one of us, we can’t go on saying all of us could have done it every time.’

‘So what do you propose?’

‘A vote by majority,’ Ellery said with a calm expression. ‘A joke of course, but let’s hear what each of us has to say. Van, who do you think is the most suspicious?’

‘Poe,’ answered Van surprisingly easily.

‘What?’ The expression on Poe’s face changed, and he put out the cigarette he had just lit in the ashtray.

‘It wasn’t me. But I guess that saying that won’t convince you.’

‘We can’t just take you blindly at your word, of course. I’m of the same opinion as Van: that of us three, you are the most suspicious,’ Ellery said squarely.

Poe was visibly disturbed and asked in an angry voice: ‘Why? Why am I suspicious?’

‘Motive.’

‘Motive? Motive, you say? Why would I want to kill four of my friends? Tell me that, Ellery.’

‘I heard your mother is being treated in a mental hospital,’ replied Ellery coolly. Poe choked back a reply and clenched his fists until the knuckles turned visibly white and started to tremble.

‘It happened several years ago. Your mother was caught attempting to kill a patient in your hospital. Her mind had already become unbalanced, I heard.’

‘Is that true, Ellery?’ Van’s eyes were wide-open in surprise. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘His father hushed it up. Because it would hurt the reputation of the hospital. The patient who was attacked was probably paid off. The lawyer who acted on their behalf is a friend of my father, that’s how I learned about it. The wife of a doctor must be under quite some mental stress. It might be too much for a woman with a weak mind. She might even imagine a patient was stealing her husband away….’

‘Shut up!’ Poe cried out angrily. ‘Don’t you talk about my mother!’

Ellery whistled once and then kept quiet. Poe was still looking down, fists clenched, but finally a little laugh escaped his lips.

‘So you’re saying I might be insane? Rather a simplistic story.’

The expression on his face changed and he glared grimly at both Ellery and Van.

‘Let me tell you this first, both of you have motives too.’

‘Hmm. Please tell us about them.’

‘First you, Van. Your parents were killed by robbers when you were in middle school. Your little sister too. So you might have an issue with us, a group of students who happily write about people being killed.’

Van turned white as Poe spoke, but nevertheless managed to reply.

‘What happened to my family is in the past. And if I’d had a grudge against mystery writers, would I really have entered a mystery fiction club in college?’ Van spoke in a low voice. ‘What’s more, I don’t believe for a moment that mystery fiction praises the killing of people. That’s why I’ve been in the club all the time and even came here with you all.’

‘Who knows?’

Poe changed targets.

‘And next up is Ellery.’

‘And what would my motive be?’

‘You might well have claimed you didn’t mind, but perhaps you had had enough of always being under attack by Carr.’

‘I’d had enough of Carr?’ Ellery looked surprised. ‘Oh, and the other three murders were camouflage. That’s just ridiculous. Too bad, but I didn’t mind Carr enough to consider him a nuisance. I don’t really care for what others think of me. You should know that. Or do you really think I hated Carr enough to want to kill him?’

‘You wouldn’t need much of a motive. Like killing a fly which annoyed you.’

‘So you think I’m that cold-blooded a person?’

‘The phrase “cold-blooded” doesn’t have the right nuance to it, but you are indeed lacking something human. I think you’re a man who could kill someone at whim. Don’t you agree, Van?’

‘Maybe.’ Van nodded with emotionless eyes. A troubled expression appeared on Ellery’s face for one fleeting moment, but it changed into a wry smile and he shrugged.

‘Oh, well, I should probably mind my everyday manners better.’

And then the three fell silent.

The dark and sinister atmosphere of the hall seemed to freeze their minds, not allowing them to break free. The ten white walls around them appeared to be more warped than ever.

They remained like that for a long time.

They could hear the murmur of the wind in the trees. The noise was the signal for a light beating sound on the roof of the building.

‘Oh, it’s raining,’ Ellery murmured, gazing up at the water drops that had started to accumulate on the glass of the skylight.

The noise of the rain became louder as the rain became heavier, more violent, as if to further isolate the three men who were already trapped on the island.

And then Ellery mumbled something and stood up, still looking up at the skylight.

‘What’s the matter?’ Poe asked suspiciously.

‘Ah, no, wait—.’

Ellery hadn’t finished his sentence before he suddenly pushed his chair back, turned around and sprinted to the entrance.

‘The footprints!’

7

It was pouring. The sound of the rain mixed with the waves and reverberated throughout the island, as if composing a melody to send them off to a different time and space.

Ellery ran through the rain, not caring about getting soaked.

He didn’t take the roundabout way through the arc of pine trees, but ran straight for the remains of the Blue Mansion. He would need to run straight through the trees.

He stopped once to look behind him. Making sure Poe and Van were following him, he yelled:

‘Hurry! The rain will destroy the footprints!’ He put on another spurt.

His feet got caught in the undergrowth a couple of times, but he finally made his way through the trees. Arriving in the front garden of the Blue Mansion, he saw that the footprints around the place where Leroux had lain were still intact.

Poe and Van arrived soon after. Ellery pointed at the footprints as he caught his breath.

‘Just memorise everything here as if your lives depended on it.’

They stood there, following the lines of footprints left on the ground with their eyes, while the cold rain pelted them. They desperately tried to memorise the scene in front of them as puddles started to form and rivulets started to erode the prints.

After a while Ellery turned around, brushing away his wet locks of hair.

‘Let’s go back. We’ll catch cold.’

*

After changing their soaked clothes, the three gathered once again around the table in the hall.

‘Would you two mind coming a bit closer? This is important,’ said Ellery as he opened a notebook he had brought from his room and grabbed a pen. Poe and Van hesitated, but got up from their chairs and walked to Ellery’s side.

‘Let’s draw the plan while it’s still fresh on our minds, okay?’

Ellery drew a vertically long rectangle that covered the page of the notebook.

‘This represents the grounds of the Blue Mansion.’

Inside that, Ellery drew an oblong rectangle in the upper half.

‘The remains of the building—the pile of bricks. And this is the staircase that goes down to the rocky area beneath the cliffs.’

He marked the place in the centre of the left side of the large rectangle.

‘The Decagon House is in the lower-right direction. The bottom line here is the row of trees. And Leroux was lying in the front garden, around here.’

Slightly to the right and below the centre, Ellery drew a human figure, representing the corpse. Ellery then looked up at the other two.

‘And now the footsteps. Where were they?’

‘First, there was a line of footprints which went from the entrance to the grounds—the arch of pine trees—to the staircase on the cliffs,’ answered Poe, restlessly brushing his beard.

‘And then three disorderly lines of footprints which went from the entrance to Leroux’s body and back.’

‘Precisely. Like this, I think. Van, this right?’

‘Yes. I think it was like that.’

‘Okay, done.’

Having finished marking the figure, Ellery placed the notebook where all three of them could see it clearly. (See Figure 3.)

‘I discovered Leroux’s body right when I had gone through the arch of pine trees and arrived on the Blue Mansion grounds. You two arrived soon after and we ran straight to the body. Poe and I carried the body, and with Van behind us, we went back to the Decagon House the way we came. Therefore the three chaotic sets that went up to the body and back were made by the three of us, naturally. So if we remove those sets from our investigation….’

Ellery paused and brushed his wet hair back.

‘
Don’t you see anything odd
?’

‘Odd? About these footprints?’ Poe asked, frowning.

‘Yes. The only people who entered the crime scene are Poe, Van and I, and of course the murderer. Including Leroux, there should be five sets of footprints going to the body. And indeed, there are five sets. However—.’

‘Ellery, wait,’ said Poe, glaring at the figure.

‘If we ignore the sets we made when we discovered Leroux’s body, there remains one set going from the entrance to the staircase, two sets going from the staircase to the body and one set from the body to the staircase.’

‘So you see our problem?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think we can safely assume the footsteps from the entrance to the staircase are those of Leroux. One of the sets going from the staircase to the body naturally belongs to Leroux himself. That means the remaining two lines were made by the murderer going to Leroux and back.
But where did the murderer come from
?’

‘The staircase.’

‘Precisely.
But there is nothing but sea down there
. You remember? There were only sheer cliffs on both sides of the rocky area beneath the staircase. The only way to get onto this island is either from that staircase, or from the steps from the inlet with the pier. So how did the murderer make his way to that rocky area? And where did he go from there? He’d have to go all the way around that projecting cliff if he wanted to get back to the inlet. The water is deep, too. He would need to swim in this weather. I wonder what the temperature of the water is.’

Poe got out his cigarette case and groaned softly. Van’s eyes were fixed on the notebook on the table.

‘And?’

‘So the problem is:
why did the murderer do that
? Well?’

Ellery was the only one enjoying these riddles under the tense circumstances.

Van remained silent, slipping both hands inside his down jacket.

‘Hm.’ Poe cleared his throat and spoke.

‘The murderer is one of us three here in this house. So why would he go down to the rocky area to swim back here? Walking would have been easier. He could easily have just trampled on his own footprints to obscure their size and shape. It’s not as though we have a forensics expert around here. So the fact he didn’t do that means he had an important reason to return by sea.’

‘Exactly. And the reason is obvious, I think.’ Ellery nodded in satisfaction and stood up. ‘So let’s get something to eat now. It’s already three o’clock.’

‘Eat?’

Van looked suspicious. ‘How can we eat now, Ellery? Why did the murderer…?’

‘Later, later. No need to get all worked up over the question now. We haven’t eaten since morning.’

Ellery turned round and went to the kitchen.

8

‘Well now.’

Having finished his lunch consisting of emergency rations and a cup of coffee, Ellery began:

‘Our stomachs are full, so let’s finish this problem of ours. Okay?’

‘Of course. Stop making a show of it,’ replied Poe. Van nodded without saying a word.

Ellery’s behaviour had been a source of confusion to the other two ever since he started talking about the footprints. They kept an eye on Ellery during their meal, but he remained calm throughout and they could even catch a glimpse of that smile he always wore on his face.

‘Okay.’

Ellery pushed his cup and plate away and opened the notebook again. The other two came round to his side of the table, each keeping his distance from the other.

‘First, a review of the main points.’

Ellery glanced at the figure of the footprints and began his analysis.

‘We concluded that the only footsteps left by the murderer were the two lines between the body and the staircase. That means the murderer
came and left by sea
. Supposing that the murderer is one of us, let’s try to trace the route he took.

‘He would have left the Decagon House, gone down to the inlet, into the sea, swum to the rocky area and climbed the staircase there to arrive at the Blue Mansion. He would have taken the same route back after the murder. Poe just talked about the necessity of having to go by sea, but is there really such a thing? No matter how much I think about it, it appears to be nothing but nonsense to me. There’s no need to do that, there’s not the slightest glimmer of reality about the whole idea.’

‘But that would mean that the murderer is someone besides us. Someone from the sea—someone from outside the island.’

‘And why shouldn’t that be the case, Poe?’

Ellery closed the notebook.

‘The most logical conclusion we can take, given the circumstances,
is that the murderer is someone besides us
. We might not be able to leave the island, but there are plenty of ways for someone from outside to come to the island. That way, there’s also no need to come up with silly conclusions like someone swimming in the sea.
The murderer used a boat
.’

‘A boat.’

‘Why were both Orczy and Leroux killed in the early morning? Because the best time to get on the island unnoticed is in the middle of the night or in the early morning. What do you think?’

Ellery took out his pack of Salem cigarettes as he watched the expressions of the other two. Realising the pack was empty, he threw it on the table.

‘You want one?’ said Poe and he slid his cigarette case towards Ellery.

‘Poe seems to agree with me.’

Ellery put a cigarette in his mouth and lit a match.

‘And Van?’

‘I think you’re right. Ellery. Poe, could I have one too?’

‘Sure.’

Ellery passed Poe’s cigarette case to Van.

‘But Ellery, if you’re right, why did the murderer make those plates?’ asked Poe.

‘There were not only plates for “The Victims,” but also for “The Detective” and “The Murderer.” That was the real point behind them.’

Ellery, eyes half-closed, blew a cloud of smoke.

‘First of all, it had the effect of making us believe “The Murderer” was someone among us seven. That way, we would be put off guard about the outside world.’

‘And secondly?’

‘I’d say psychological pressure. The last remaining survivors would become suspicious of each other, and might kill each other. The murderer was probably hoping for that. More bodies without having to dirty his own hands. Anyway, the murderer’s final goal is very likely to kill all seven of us.’

‘That’s evil,’ muttered Van as he lit his cigarette.

‘One more thing I think is curious,’ said Poe, pressing a thick thumb to his temple. ‘Why did the murderer go straight back towards the sea after killing Leroux?’

‘What do you mean, why?’ Van asked, as he returned Poe’s cigarette case.

‘The murderer was trying to make it appear like the murders were committed by one of us. So wouldn’t it have made more sense if the murderer had left more footprints, for example between the entrance and the staircase? It would have been simple to do.’

‘He might not have noticed he’d left any footprints.’

‘And he returned just like that to the mainland? When did he stick that plate with “The Third Victim” on the door then?’

‘That’s.…’

Seeing Van couldn’t come up with an answer, Poe turned to Ellery.

‘What’s your view on that, Ellery?’

“I think it was like this,’ said Ellery and he placed his cigarette in the ashtray:

‘It could be, as Van said, that the murderer hadn’t noticed the problem of the footprints. But supposing he had noticed it, he probably would have wanted to leave an extra set of footprints between the entrance and the staircase. The fact he didn’t, means the situation didn’t allow him to do so. I think I can explain it by factoring in the particular circumstances of Leroux’s murder.

‘Leroux was beaten to death. Judging by the wild footsteps that started at the staircase, I think we can deduce that he was being chased by the murderer. My guess is that Leroux saw the murderer and the boat down in the rocky area, probably just as the murderer was preparing to leave the island.

‘Leroux figured out what was going on and ran away. The murderer saw Leroux and ran after him in a hurry. Leroux most likely yelled for help. After catching up with Leroux and beating him to death, the murderer panicked. Someone might have been woken up by Leroux’s cries and could arrive there at any moment. He could hide in the vicinity, but he couldn’t afford to have his boat discovered.

‘The murderer therefore left the footprints as they were, went back down to the rocky area and rowed the boat to the inlet, to see whether he could hear us come looking for Leroux. Fortunately no such thing seemed to be happening. He then went up to the Decagon House and, after checking through the kitchen window whether everybody was really still asleep, he sneaked inside and stuck the plate on Leroux’s door. He gave up on the footprints and left the island. It would have been too dangerous, considering the time of the day as well, to go back to the Blue Mansion once again.’

‘Hmm. So the murderer was here on the island the whole night?’

‘I think he’s been here every night. He arrives on the island by night to watch our movements.’

‘Hiding beneath the kitchen window?’

‘Probably something like that.’

‘And he leaves his boat in the inlet or at the rocky area?’

‘He probably hides it. A small rubber boat can be folded up easily. He could carry it to the grove, or hide it underneath the water with a weight on it.’

‘A rubber boat?’

Poe frowned.

‘Could you get to the mainland with that?’

‘No need to go all the way to the mainland. There’s a perfect hiding place just around the corner.’

‘Cat Island?’

‘Precisely, Cat Island. I think the murderer is camping out there. You could easily row here from that island.’

‘True, that place would suffice.’

‘Let’s reconsider what the murderer did once again.’

Ellery closed the notebook and put it to one side. He produced his deck of blue bicycle cards out of nowhere, put it on the table and played with it as he continued his story.

‘The murderer came here last night from Cat Island. He watched us, hoping for an opportunity to commit his next murder, but he drew a blank and so, this morning, he returned to the rocky area. It was still raining at the time, I think. That’s why there weren’t any footprints of the murderer going from the entrance of the ruins to the staircase.

‘The rain stopped while he was preparing the boat in the rocky area. From then on, footprints would remain intact on the ground. At that point Leroux made his appearance, although I don’t know why he was there at that time.

‘Leroux saw the boat and the murderer. In a panic, the murderer grabbed one of the rocks lying around, chased after Leroux and silenced him. Fearing someone might come running because of Leroux’s cries, he moved his boat to the inlet. He waited a while to see if anyone was out of bed and then sneaked in here to hang the plate up. Something like that.’

Poe’s thumb had not once left his temple. With one elbow on the table, he asked angrily: ‘But Ellery, who is this murderer hiding out on Cat Island?’

‘Nakamura Seiji of course,’ Ellery declared without any hesitation. ‘I’ve been saying that from the start. I wasn’t serious when I said I thought you were a suspect just now.’

‘Suppose I accept the possibility Nakamura Seiji is still alive, for argument’s sake. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t see what motive this Seiji could possibly have for wanting to kill all of us? I can’t think of any. Or are you simply saying he’s mad?’

‘A motive? Of course he has one. A strong one.’

‘What?’

‘What do you mean?’ Poe and Van cried out simultaneously, leaning forward.

Ellery’s hands skilfully gathered the cards he had fanned out on the table. ‘We talked about each other’s motives just now, but Nakamura Seiji has a much more obvious one. I only realised itself myself last night, after I’d gone back to my room.’

‘Really?’

‘What is it, Ellery?’