The Decagon House Murders (20 page)

Even as Ellery put his hand on the doorknob, he could hear Leroux’s and his name being called.

‘What’s the matter?’ answered Ellery as he opened the door.

Van was on all fours in front of Poe’s room. The door to the right, the door of the bathroom, precisely opposite Ellery’s own door, was completely open. Was it Agatha who was lying there face down? Poe stood beside her. He was crouching on one knee.

‘Has Agatha been murdered?’

‘Appears so.’

Poe turned around to Ellery.

‘Van is feeling bad. Help him throw up.’

‘Got it.’

Ellery went to Van, helped him get up and took him to the kitchen.

‘You aren’t poisoned?’

‘No, I just suddenly…when I found Agatha…,’ Van groaned, his head over the sink. Ellery rubbed his back.

‘Drink some water. Your stomach is all empty now. There’s nothing to throw up.’

‘I-I’m alright. I’ll get it myself. You’d better go to the bathroom.’

‘Okay.’

Ellery turned, left the kitchen, and went to Poe in the bathroom.

‘Is she dead, Poe?’

Poe closed his eyes and nodded.

‘Poison again. Prussic acid, I think.’

Poe had turned Agatha’s body face upwards. Her eyes were wide-open. The expression frozen on her slightly open mouth was not one of pain, but of surprise.

Poe put his hands to her eyelids and closed her eyes, which gave her an almost unbelievably peaceful face. She appeared to have just finished putting on her make-up. Her coloured cheeks gave the illusion of life. Her reds lips seemed as if they would start talking at any moment. The faint, sweet smell hanging in the air was what had led Poe to his suspicion.

‘Ah….’

Ellery frowned deeply.

‘So this is the infamous smell of almonds.’

‘Yes. Anyway, let’s carry her to her room.’

Van came stumbling from the kitchen just as Poe reached for the body’s shoulders. He put his back to the wall and looked across the hall with a blood-drained face.

‘Hey, where’s Leroux?’

‘Leroux?’

‘Now you mention him….’

Ellery and Poe noticed the door to Leroux’s room for the first time and cried out simultaneously.

The Third Victim

Attached to the door, the plate with the red letters seemed to be mocking them.

3

‘What the…! So Agatha is the
fourth
victim? Leroux!’

Ellery dashed to the door to Leroux’s room.

‘Leroux, Leroux! No use. Door’s locked. Van, don’t you have a master key or something?’

‘This isn’t a hotel, you know.’

‘Then we’ll have to break it down. Ellery, move.’

‘Wait.’

Ellery stopped Poe with a wave of his hand.

‘The door opens into the hall. It won’t go down easily even if we body slam it. It’s faster to go outside and break the window.’

‘You’re right. Let’s take a chair with us.’

Poe turned to Van.

‘You come too.’

‘Look, you two,’ said Ellery, who was on his way to the front entrance. ‘The rope tied to the doors has been unfastened.’

He pointed to the double doors that led to the entrance hall. The rope they had tied to the handles last night had been untied and was hanging down from one of the handles.

‘Somebody went outside,’ said Poe, picking up a close-by chair.

‘Perhaps it was Leroux.’

‘Who knows what’s going on?’

Ellery shook his head sombrely.

‘Anyway, let’s go. There’s nothing we can do until we’ve taken a look inside his room.’

*

Poe raised the chair and swung it with all his might. After several such blows, the window to Leroux’s room opened.

The shutters had looked sturdy, but they managed to pull them out of the wall, hinges and all, and then break them through the window. After that, it was easy to put their hands through the hole and release the latch. But the handles inside the room had also been tied together with a belt and it took them some effort to untie them.

The window was at the level of Van’s chest, and he was of average height. Poe, the tallest of them, stood on top of the broken chair and went into the room with a nimble dive surprising for someone of such large build. Ellery went next. Van stood beneath the window, both hands holding his stomach in check.

But Leroux was not to be found in his room.

He had gone out and not come back.

*

The air was damp and sticky. It appeared to have rained during the night. The grass at their feet was moist and soft.

Poe and Ellery jumped down from the window, their heavy breathing causing their shoulders to rise and fall.

‘Let’s split up and look for him. I’m afraid he might not be alive anymore, though,’ said Ellery. He crouched with one knee on the ground, patting the bandages around his right ankle.

‘But your ankle…’ Poe started. He’d cut the back of his right hand on some fragments of glass when he’d broken the window.

‘I’m fine. I can even manage to run.’

Ellery stood up and took a look at Van. Van was crouching down on the grass, his body shaking.

‘Van, you stay here at the entrance until we call for you. You need to calm down first.’

Ellery stood up and calmly gave out orders.

‘Poe, you go down to the inlet. I’ll search around here and the Blue Mansion.’

*

After Ellery and Poe had run off, Van stood up sluggishly and walked to the entrance of the Decagon House. The sour, bitter taste of what he had just thrown up was still clinging to his tongue and wouldn’t go away. The need to vomit had receded, but he still felt something stuck in his chest.

The sky was lead-grey. There was no wind and it was not cold, yet the shivering of his body underneath his sweater wouldn’t stop.

Van’s tired feet finally brought him to the front entrance. He sat down on the steps, which were wet from the rain, and curled up, hugging his knees. He took several deep breaths. The feeling in his chest finally went away, but his body kept shuddering occasionally. He stared at the melancholy scenery of shadowy pine trees for a while.

‘Van! Poe!’

He could hear Ellery’s voice from afar. It came from the right, from the direction of the burnt-down Blue Mansion.

Van got up and, while his legs didn’t seem to listen to him, he still managed to make a short run. He saw how Poe came sprinting from the direction of the inlet. The two met at the opening in the line of pine trees surrounding the burn site.

‘Poe, Van, over here.’

The two went through the arch of pine trees and saw, near the centre of the front garden, the figure of a waving Ellery, wearing a cardigan over his pyjamas. He was standing in a spot just hidden from sight from the Decagon House by some trees.

The two quickly ran over to Ellery, but were rendered breathless when they saw what lay at his feet.

‘He’s dead,’ Ellery blurted out, shaking his head.

Leroux was lying on the ground. He was dressed in a yellow shirt, jeans and a denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up. Both arms were sticking out in front of him, as if he were pointing towards the Decagon House. His face, on its side, was half-buried in the black mud. Near his stretched-out right hand lay his beloved round glasses.

‘He was beaten to death. He was probably hit on the head with one of the rocks or bricks lying around here,’ said Ellery, pointing at the red-black spot on the back of Leroux’s head.  An ‘uugh’ escaped from Van’s lips and he put his hand to his mouth. He was struggling to avoid throwing up again.

‘Poe, would you mind examining the body? I know it’s difficult, but please.’

‘Of course.’

Poe kept a hand on his forehead, which was covered by locks of hair, as he bent forward next to the body. He lifted the mud-and blood-covered head slightly and looked into the corpse’s face. Leroux’s round eyes were wide-open in surprise. His tongue was sticking out from the corner of his mouth. It might have been because of fear or because of pain, but the expression on Leroux’s face was incredibly distorted.

‘
Livor mortis
,’ said Poe in a suppressed voice. ‘But the spots go away when I press on them.
Rigor mortis
… Hmm, quite advanced. The stiffening is also affected by the outside temperature, so I can’t say exactly, but, yes, it’s somewhere between five or six hours since he died. So….’

He glanced at his wristwatch.

‘He was probably killed between five or six this morning.’

‘So at dawn,’ Ellery muttered.

‘Let’s carry Leroux back to the Decagon House first. We can’t just leave him here like this,’ said Poe, and he reached out for the shoulders.

‘Ellery, could you carry his legs?’

But Ellery didn’t respond even after being called. He was looking silently at the ground, both hands in the pockets of his cardigan.

‘Hey, Ellery.’

Ellery looked up after this second call by Poe.

‘Footprints…,’ he muttered and he pointed at the ground.

Leroux was lying roughly ten metres from the pine trees standing in the direction of the Decagon House, in the middle of the Blue Mansion garden. The ground at this spot, as well as all of the burn site, was completely black because of the ash. But the rain last night had made the ash-filled ground very soft and footprints had been left here and there.

‘Oh, forget it.’

Ellery crouched and lifted the body’s legs.

‘Let’s go. It’s cold.’

The two turned Leroux’s body over and lifted him up. The sound of rolling waves provided a dirge mourning Leroux’s death.

Van picked up Leroux’s dirty glasses. Holding them to his heart, he followed Ellery and Poe on the way back.

4

Arriving at the Decagon House, they first carried Leroux’s body to his room. They found his room key in his jacket pocket. Although his clothes were all covered in mud, they laid him down on the bed.

Van placed the glasses he had picked up on the night stand.

‘Could you fetch me a basin with some water? And a towel. We should at least clean his face,’ said Ellery to Van, as he covered the body with a blanket. Van nodded silently and left the room. He still walked shakily, but he seemed to have recovered from the shock. Ellery and Poe then went to retrieve Agatha’s body from the bathroom. They carried her to her bed, joined her hands on her chest and straightened her dishevelled hair and clothes.

‘So it was prussic acid….’

Ellery muttered, as he looked at Agatha, who had entered an eternal sleep.

‘As they say, the smell of almonds.’

‘Probably about three hours since she died. So around eight this morning.’

Van returned just as Poe gave his estimate.

‘This was lying in front of the wash stand. It’s probably Agatha’s,’ said Van, as he handed over a black pouch.

‘A make-up pouch?’

Ellery took the pouch in his hands, seemed to think of something and started to search its contents.

‘Van, this pouch: was it closed when you found it?’

‘No, it was open. It was on the floor together with some of the contents.’

‘You put them back? Ah, too late now.’

Foundation. Rouge. Hair brush. Cream. Toner.

‘Got it,’ said Ellery and he pulled out two tubes of lipstick. He pulled the caps off both sticks and compared the colour of each.

‘This one.’

‘Don’t put it too close to your nose, it’s dangerous stuff,’ said Poe, correctly guessing what was going on in Ellery’s head.

‘I know.’

One lipstick was red, the other pink. Ellery carefully took a sniff of the red lipstick, nodded and passed it to Poe.

‘You’re right, Ellery. Appears to be smothered in poison.’

‘Funeral make-up. A white dress for her funeral clothes and poisoned. Like a princess in a fairy tale.’

Ellery took another sad look at Agatha, then suggested they all leave the room. He closed the door silently as he left.

‘Sleep well, Snow White.’

The three went together to Leroux’s room.

They cleaned his face with the water and towel Van had brought. They also cleaned his glasses and placed them on his chest.

‘And he was so determined, our editor-in-chief.’

Ellery closed the door. The ominous plate with the red letters still proclaimed: “The Third Victim.”