The second night, he managed to retreat to his room even earlier than the night before. He had words with Carr just as he was making his way out of the hall, but he managed to get out of that.
His body was staggering because of dehydration. Before he put on his wetsuit, he drank all of the water in the jug Agatha had given him to take with the medicine, leaving not a single drop. He was not planning to go to the mainland anymore from the third day on. He needed to restore his water supplies and recover his health as quickly as possible.
The trip from Tsunojima to O—City was even harsher than the night before. How often had he thought about giving up halfway through? Looking back, it was a mystery how all that energy could have been stored inside that starving body.
After returning to his room on the mainland, his first thought had been to restore his reserves of water. Even after Kawaminami and Shimada had arrived and had started a discussion about the case, he still continued to drink several cups of tea.
He had no intention of going to O—City from the next day on, so, after performing his role of armchair detective, he acted dismissively towards their plans. He declared he was withdrawing from their investigation, thus making sure they would not try to reach him again.
The harsh words he had spewed against Shimada did, however, reflect his true feelings. He was truly angry when he discovered they were digging into the circumstances surrounding Chiori’s birth.
Just as on the previous day, he returned to the island before dawn. He went back to his room in the Decagon House, where he calmed his anger in the darkness.
✦ ✦ ✦
4
There were several reasons for choosing Orczy as his first victim.
First of all, it was something like an act of mercy. If she died early, she would never need to know about the consequent fear and panic.
Orczy—she was good friends with Chiori. There was something about that girl, always looking away, that resembled Chiori. She had also probably not actively contributed to the murder of Chiori. She had been an onlooker. But even so, that didn’t mean he would exclude her from his revenge.
Another important reason was the golden ring he had seen around the middle finger of Orczy’s left hand.
He had never before seen Orczy wear a ring around her finger. That is why he noticed it. It was the ring he had once given Chiori for her birthday.
He remembered Orczy’s tear-filled eyes at Chiori’s funeral. She had probably been given the ring as a memento.
If she had been that close friends with Chiori, she might also know that Tsunojima was Chiori’s home. She might even have noticed that he and Chiori had a relationship.
His initials and Chiori’s had been carved on the inside of the ring. “KM & CN.” Even if Orczy had not heard about it from Chiori herself, she might have noticed the engraving in the ring after Chiori’s death. Once the murders on the island had actually started, there was a good chance she would figure out the motive and the identity of the murderer.
That’s why he killed Orczy first. He had no other choice.
He sneaked out of the hall and went straight for Orczy’s room. He’d kept it a secret from the others, but his uncle had given him the master key to all the doors in the Decagon House. He used that to get inside her room. Being careful she wouldn’t awaken, he quickly wrapped the cord around her neck and pulled it with all his strength.
Orczy’s eyes opened wide and almost seemed to pop out. Her mouth contorted. Her face lost colour before his eyes, her strength to fight back ebbed away. And finally she breathed her last. He arranged her body neatly because he simply felt sorry for her.
He tried to remove the ring from her finger. He wanted to keep it as a memento to Chiori, of course, but he was also afraid someone might notice the initials on the ring. But Orczy’s fingers were swollen, perhaps because of the island’s new environment she wasn’t used to, and he could not get the ring off.
As long as the ring wasn’t removed from Orczy’s finger, the initials weren’t visible. But he couldn’t just leave behind this precious memory he shared with Chiori.
He decided to use brute force and take the whole hand.
If he only cut off the middle finger, he’d be calling attention to the ring that had been there. Also, the act of cutting off the left hand would serve as an allusion to what happened in the Blue Mansion last year. He thought that this connection might lead to interesting reactions. In the words of Shimada Kiyoshi, it would suggest the idea of Nakamura Seiji to the gang on the island.
Using the knife he’d prepared as one of his murder weapons, he managed, after a struggle, to cut off the hand from the body. He buried the hand behind the building for the moment. He would dig it up and take off the ring after everything was over.
To suggest the possibility that an outsider had done it, he unlocked both the window and the door. And then, the final touch. He took out the plate with “The First Victim” from the cupboard drawer in the kitchen and glued it to the door.