The Third Victim
Attached to the door, the plate with the red letters seemed to be mocking them.
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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.’
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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.
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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.’