The Decagon House Murders (5 page)

Agatha came out of her room. The bright yellow scarf that held her long hair contrasted with her monotone set of a white blouse and black leather pants.

‘I’ve been into this lately. Not obsessed with it, mind you.’

‘Into what? Fortune telling?’

‘You must be joking. Not interested in that.’

As he shuffled the cards on the decagonal table, Ellery said:

‘Card magic tricks of course.’

‘Card magic?’

An intrigued expression appeared on Agatha’s face for a second, but then she nodded knowingly.

‘It is what you would be into, isn’t it?’

‘What I would be into?’

‘Baffling other people.’

‘You make it sound like a bad thing.’

‘That so?’ Agatha laughed. ‘So show me something. I haven’t seen many magic performances.’

‘It’s quite rare for someone into mystery fiction not to be interested in magic tricks as well.’

‘It’s not that I’m not interested. I just haven’t had that many opportunities to see it. So show me.’

‘Okay. Come here and sit down.’

With the sun setting, the hall of the Decagon House had become dimly lit. Agatha sat down on the chair diagonally across the table. Ellery gathered his cards, arranged them on the table and took out another deck of cards from his coat pocket.

‘Here I have two card decks with different backs: one red and one blue. You and I will each use one set of cards. Which will you use?’

‘Blue,’ Agatha answered instantly.

‘All right. You take these cards.’

Ellery passed the blue deck of cards across the table.

‘First make sure there’s nothing funny about them and then shuffle them anyway you like. I’ll shuffle the red cards.’

‘OK. They appear to be ordinary cards. From the United States?’

‘Bicycle Rider Back playing cards. There’s an illustration of an angel riding a bicycle, do you see it? They’re the most popular type of card over there.’

Ellery placed his carefully shuffled deck of cards on the table.

‘Now we’ll exchange decks. You’ll give me the blue deck, and I’ll give you the red. OK. Now take a card out of the deck and memorise it. I’ll take a card from your deck as well and memorise it.’

‘Any card I want, yes?’

‘Yes. Finished? Now place the card back on top of the deck. And now cut the deck once, just like me. Now the bottom half of the deck has been swapped with the upper half. Yep, yep, like that. Now repeat two or three times.’

‘Am I doing this correctly?’

‘You’re doing perfectly. And now we exchange our decks once more.’

The blue deck returned to Agatha’s hands. Ellery stared straight into her eyes and asked: ‘All right? So to summarise what we just did: we each took one card from a shuffled deck, memorised the card, returned it and shuffled the deck again.’

‘Yes.’

‘Now Agatha, please take out the card you’ve memorised from your deck, and place it on the table face down. I’ll take out my card from this deck.’

Two cards, one red, one blue, appeared on top of the table. Ellery took a deep breath and then asked Agatha to turn both cards over.

‘Ah, how did you—!?’

Agatha shrieked in surprise. The cards were of the same suit and number.

‘The four of hearts?’

Ellery laughed contentedly.

‘Neat trick, don’t you agree?’

*

After the sun had set, the antique oil lamp which stood in the middle of the decagonal table was lit. Van had brought it along, knowing there was no electricity there. He had also prepared a number of thick candles in each of the guest rooms.

It was already past seven when they finished their dinner.

‘Ellery, why won’t you explain the magic trick you did just now?’ said Agatha, shaking Ellery’s shoulder. She had just brought coffee for everyone.

‘It’s no use asking me all the time. It’s taboo to reveal magic tricks. That’s where magic differs from mystery fiction. No matter how mysterious the trick, you’ll just be disappointed when you hear how simple it is.’

‘Agatha, did Ellery show you one of his magic tricks?’

‘Ah, you knew of Ellery’s magic too, Leroux?’

‘Know? He’s been using me as a guinea pig this whole month. I had to keep it a secret until he became better at it. He can be rather childish at times.’

‘Leroux!’

‘What did you show her?’

‘One or two simple ones.’

‘So those were simple ones?’ Agatha looked annoyed. ‘Then it’s okay, right? Just tell me.’

‘I can’t tell you just because they were simple. The first one I showed you, in particular, is a very elementary one—even children know it. But magic isn’t just about the trick, it’s about performance and misdirection.’

‘Performance?’

‘Yes. For example—.’

Ellery took his cup in his hand and took a sip of his black coffee.

‘There’s a scene in the movie
Magic
, where Anthony Hopkins, who plays a magician, performs practically the same trick for his former love. But there it wasn’t presented as a normal magic trick, but as an experiment in ESP. The magician seduced the girl by saying that if they were soul mates, they’d choose the same card.’

‘Oh. And you had no intention of seducing me with the same trick?’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’

Ellery shrugged in an exaggerated way and attempted a smile.

‘Alas, at the moment I don’t have the courage to seduce our queen.’

‘That’s a funny way of putting it.’

‘Thanks. By the way…,’ Ellery raised the cup of coffee he was holding and stared at it intently, ‘…to change the subject: regarding that Nakamura Seiji we were talking about this afternoon, did you know he had more than his fair share of obsessions? I felt a shudder when I took a good look at this cup.’

It was a fancy moss green cup, part of the tableware which had been left in the kitchen. It was the shape that was significant. Like the building, this cup, too, had a decagonal shape.

‘He probably had them specially made. This ashtray and the plates we used are the same. Everything is a decagon. Any thoughts, Poe?’

‘None.’

Poe placed his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray.

‘Obviously, it’s eccentric, but you know the rich like to play around like this.’

‘Just the rich playing around, eh?’

Ellery clutched his cup with both hands and peered intently inside. It might have been decagon-shaped, but at that size, it appeared almost perfectly round.

‘Anyway, I feel it was worth coming all the way to this island, even if only for this Decagon House. I almost want to drink a toast to those who died here.’

‘Ellery, the Decagon House might be a hit with everyone, but there’s nothing on the island itself at all. Just dreary pine trees.’

‘You’re mistaken there,’ Poe said to Agatha.

‘There’s a rocky stretch beneath the cliffs west of the ruins and there’s a staircase built there, so we can get all the way down to the sea. I might be able to do some fishing.’

‘Now you mention it, Poe, I believe I noticed you bringing in some fishing gear? With any luck we might be able to eat some freshly caught fish tomorrow.’

Leroux licked his lips.

‘Don’t expect too much of me.’ Poe slowly stroked his beard.

‘Did you see that there are a couple of cherry blossom trees right behind this house? The buds are ripe, so they might bloom in a couple of days.’

‘How wonderful! Let’s hold a cherry blossom viewing party then!’

‘Sounds good.’

‘Cherry blossoms, eh? What is it about cherry blossoms in the spring in Japan? Personally, I think the peach and plum blossoms are much more pleasing to the eye.’

‘That’s just because you never want to be like anyone else, Ellery.’

‘Really? Did you know the exalted ones from this country’s distant past all preferred the plum to the cherry, Leroux?’

‘Really?’

‘Of course. I think I’m correct here. Orczy?’

Orczy shuddered as she was suddenly being addressed. Her face flushed and she nodded slightly.

‘Could you explain, Orczy?’

‘…Yes. In the
Manyōshū
[ii]
, the plum and the amur silver-grass are the plants mentioned in the most poems. There are more than a hundred poems about each of them, but only about forty about the cherry blossom.’

Both Orczy and Leroux were second year students in the faculty of literature. Her major was English literature, but she was also knowledgeable about classical Japanese literature.

‘Well, I never heard about that,’ Agatha said, impressed. As a third year pharmacy student, she knew nothing about the topic.

‘Tell us more, Orczy.’

‘A—alright,’ Orczy answered half-heartedly. ‘During the period the
Manyōshū
was compiled, the trend was to imitate the mainland—China—so it might have been a reflection of Chinese preferences. The number of poems on cherry blossoms only grew after the creation of the
Kokin Wakashū
[iii]
… but many of them were about falling blossoms.’

‘The
Kokin Wakashū
, so that means the
Heian
period, I think?’ Ellery asked.

‘It was during the rule of Emperor Daigo. Early tenth century.…’

‘Could it be because of the pessimistic world view back then that there were a lot of poems on falling flowers?’

‘I wonder. Emperor Daigo was famous for his administration of “fortunate politics.” But the period when cherry blossoms start to fall is also the season when epidemics thrive. They say that cherry blossoms attract illness, so they used to hold the
Hanashizume
festival around the same time every year to ward off illnesses. So it might have been related to that.…’

‘I see.’

‘What’s the matter, Van? You’re so quiet.’

Poe stared at Van, who was sitting next to him, his head hanging down.

‘Not feeling well?’

‘No, my head hurts a little.’

‘You don’t look so good either. And you have a fever.’

Van moved his shoulders around to loosen them up and breathed in deeply.

‘Sorry, but I think I’ll go to bed now.’

‘Yes, that’s probably best.’

‘Okay. Well—.’

Van placed both hands on the table and slowly rose from his seat.

‘You can make as much noise as you want. I don’t mind.’

They said goodnight and Van retreated to his room. His door closed and, for a second, the dimly lit hall fell silent. They heard the metallic click of the door lock being turned.

‘Just like him,’ Carr said. Up until that moment he had been shaking his knees in silence. The whites of his eyes widened, as if he was nervous.

‘Who bothers to lock his door for people he knows? It’s not like he’s some sort of scared girl.’

‘Tonight’s a bright night.’

Pretending not to hear Carr, Poe gazed up towards the decagonal skylight.

‘I think it was full moon two days ago,’ Leroux observed. At that moment a beam of light swiftly crossed the sky. It came from the lighthouse in J—Cape, which reached all the way there.

‘Look, there’s a halo around the moon. That means it’s going to rain tomorrow.’

‘Hahaha, that’s just superstition, Agatha.’

‘That’s rude, Ellery. It’s not just superstition. It becomes like that because of the vapour in the air.’

‘The weather report said it would be clear weather the whole week.’

‘But it’s more scientific than stories about a rabbit on the moon
[iv]
.’

‘A rabbit on the moon….’ Ellery gave a forced laugh.

‘Ever heard the story from the Miyako islands about a man carrying a bucket?’

‘Ah, I know that story.’ Leroux’s youthful face brightened. ‘He was sent to the human world by God, carrying one bucket with the elixir of immortality and one with the elixir of death. But he mixed them up and he gave the snake the elixir of immortality and mankind the elixir of death. As a punishment, the man has to carry the bucket for the eternity.’

‘Quite.’

‘The Khoikhoi have a similar legend,’ Poe said. ‘But it was not a man who was sent here, but a rabbit. The rabbit failed to relay the words of the Moon God and in his anger, the god threw a stick at it. That’s when the rabbit’s lips split in three.’

‘People all over the world come up with similar stories, don’t they?’

Ellery leant his long body on the blue backrest and crossed his arms.

‘People tell the same stories all over the world. The one about the rabbit on the moon is known in China, Central Asia, India.…’