2
The inlet was located on the west coast of the island.
It was flanked on both sides by steep cliffs. To the right, facing the inlet, was a dangerous-looking bare rock surface and this cliff wall,
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almost twenty metres high, continued towards the southern coast of the island. On the east side of the island, where the currents were very
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strong, the cliff wall even reached fifty metres in height. Directly in front of them was a steep incline, almost another cliff wall, with narrow stone steps crawling up it in a zigzag pattern. Dark green shrubs clung to the face here and there. (See Figure 1.)
The boat slowly entered the narrow inlet.
The waves inside were not as fierce as out at sea. The colour of the water was also different: an intense, dark green.
To their left inside the inlet there was a wooden pier; further back, a decrepit, shabby boathouse came into view.
‘So I really don’t have to check up on ya even once?’ the fisherman asked the six as they set foot on the dangerously creaking pier. ‘Don’ think phones work here.’
‘It’s alright, pops,’ Ellery answered. ‘We even have a doctor-in-training here,’ he added, placing his hand on the shoulder of Poe, who was smoking a cigarette while seated on a big knapsack.
The bearded Poe was a fourth year student in the medical faculty.
‘Yes, Ellery’s right,’ Agatha pitched in. ‘It’s not often we have a chance to visit an uninhabited island, and it would ruin the mood if someone kept coming to check up on us.’
‘You have a brave lil’ miss there too, I see.’
The fisherman exposed his strong white teeth as he laughed and undid the rope that was tied to a post of the pier.
‘I’ll come pick ya up Tuesday next week at ten in the morning, then. Be careful.’
‘Thanks, we’ll be careful. Especially of ghosts.’
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At the top of the steep stone steps, the view suddenly widened. An overgrown grass lawn appeared to be the front garden of a small building with white walls and a blue roof, which stood there as if it had been waiting for the students.
The blue double doors right in front of them were probably the front entrance. A few steps led up to the door.
‘So this is the Decagon House.’
Ellery was the first to speak, but, having climbed the long stone staircase, he was out of breath. He dropped his camel-beige travelling bag on the ground and stood gazing up at the sky.
‘Agatha, your thoughts?’
‘Surprisingly lovely place.’
Agatha put her handkerchief to her light-skinned forehead, which was gleaming with perspiration.
‘And I… I think…that.…’
Leroux was also out of breath. His arms were full of luggage, including Agatha’s.
‘I had expected… how to put it?… Something more sinister.’
‘Can’t always have what you want. Let’s go inside. Van should have arrived here before us, but I don’t see him.’
Just as Ellery had caught his breath, picked up his bag and uttered those words, the blue window shutters immediately to the left of the front entrance opened, and a man looked out.
‘Hey, everyone.’
And so Van Dine made his appearance, the seventh member of the group of students who were to sleep and eat on this island, and in this building, for one week. His name was, of course, taken from S.S. Van Dine, the literary father of the great detective Philo Vance.
‘Wait a sec, I’ll come out,’ Van said in his strange, husky voice, and closed the shutters. After a brief pause, he came scurrying out of the front entrance.
‘Sorry I didn’t come to meet to you down at the pier. Caught a cold yesterday. Also have a slight fever, so I was lying down for a while. I was listening for your boat coming, though.’
Van had arrived earlier on the island to prepare everything.
‘A cold? Nothing serious, I hope,’ Leroux asked with a worried look, pushing up his glasses which had slipped down his nose due to perspiration.
‘It’s nothing serious… At least I hope not.’
A shudder went through Van’s slim body, as he laughed uneasily.
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Led by Van, the group entered the Decagon House.
Going through the blue double doors, they entered a large entrance hall—which, they soon realised, only appeared to be large because of an optical illusion. In fact, it was not really that spacious. But because the room’s shape was not rectangular, it appeared larger than it actually was.
On the wall facing them was another set of double doors leading further into the building. Looking closely, they realised the wall was shorter than the one behind them, which meant the entrance hall was shaped like a trapezoid, becoming smaller as they went forward.
Everyone except Van was puzzled by the strange layout of the room, which played with their sense of perspective, but once they had passed through the second set of doors and arrived in the main hall of the building, comprehension dawned. They were standing in a decagonal room, surrounded by ten walls, all of the same width.
To grasp the structure of the so-called Decagon House, it is probably best to imagine a simple floor plan. (See Figure 2.)
The distinctive feature of the Decagon House is, as the name implies, that the outer walls form a decagon—an equilateral decagon. Inside this outer decagon, ten separate blocks are set next to each other, surrounding the inner decagon that makes up the main hall. In other words, an equilateral inner decagon (the main hall) is surrounded by ten equal-sized trapezoidal rooms. The entrance hall they had just passed through was one such room.
‘And? Bizarre, right?’
Van, who had been leading the way, turned to the others.
‘Those double doors over there opposite the entrance lead to the kitchen. To the left of that are the toilet and bathroom. The remaining seven rooms are the guest rooms.’
‘A decagonal building and a decagonal hall.’
As he looked around the interior, Ellery walked towards a big table in the centre of the room. He tapped on it with his fingers.
‘This is decagonal too. What a surprise. Could the murdered Nakamura Seiji have been suffering from monomania?’
‘Perhaps,’ Leroux replied. ‘They say that in the burnt-down main mansion—it was called the Blue Mansion—everything was painted blue, from floor to ceiling, to every single piece of furniture.’
The name of the individual who had moved to the island and built the Blue Mansion about twenty years ago was Nakamura Seiji. And the Decagon House, which is the annex of the main building was, of course, also built by Nakamura Seiji.
‘All the same,’ said Agatha to no one in particular, ‘I wonder whether I’ll be able to tell all these rooms apart.’
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The doors of the entrance and the kitchen opposite were both double doors, and both were decorated with figured glass set in a frame of plain wood. When the doors were closed there was no way to tell them apart. The four walls to each side of the double doors had doors leading to the guest rooms. These plain wooden doors were also difficult to tell apart. There were no furnishings in the main hall that could serve as a guide, so Agatha’s worries were quite natural. ‘You’re right there. I myself got confused about the rooms several times this morning, as well.’ Van cast a wry smile. It could have been the fever that made his eyelids look swollen.
‘How about making some nameplates and hanging them on the doors? Orczy, did you bring your sketchbook?’
Orczy looked up anxiously as her name was called.
She was a small woman. Mindful of her rather plump figure, she was always wearing dark clothes, but that only made her look out of fashion. She was the complete opposite of the brilliant Agatha and was always looking away with timid eyes. But she was very skilful at her hobby: Japanese-style paintings.
‘Yes. I have it with me. Shall I take it out now?’
‘No, later is okay. Take a look at your rooms for now. They’re all the same, so you don’t have to fight over them. I’m already using this room though.’ Van pointed at one of the doors.
‘They gave me the keys, so I’ve left them in the keyholes.’
‘Okay, gotcha,’ Ellery answered energetically.
‘Let’s rest a bit, then go and explore the island.’