Stay away from Conan.

Staying in the private room next to Ryuen and others', Kudo Shinichi and others could basically not eavesdrop on what was being talked about in the next room because the sound insulation of the teahouse's private rooms was quite good. They could only vaguely hear the people in the next room interacting with the geisha, and because of the sliding door of the private room, once someone opened the door to go out, the noise of opening the door would be very prominent.

Therefore, during the time when Sakura Masazo was resting until nine o'clock, Kudo Shinichi and others mainly relied on the sound of the private room door opening to observe who went out during the journey, and then waited until after nine o'clock to see what Sakura Masazo would do -

After all, as far as the sound of opening the door is concerned, the sound of the entrance door of this tea house opening is also very prominent. Anyone coming in from outside or going out from inside cannot escape the attention of Kudo Shinichi and others.

Therefore, as long as Sakura Masazō does not leave the teahouse during this period, Kudo Shinichi and others will not take any unnecessary actions and will continue to wait.

In this way, they waited until nine o'clock in the evening. After the teahouse's hostess went out and went to the rest room downstairs to wake up Sakura Masazo who was sleeping, Kudo Shinichi and others waited for a while. Just when they wanted to see if Sakura Masazo would come up, they heard a scream from the hostess. Kudo Shinichi immediately realized that something was wrong. He rushed out of the private room and went downstairs, but saw that the room where Sakura Masazo was supposed to rest was open and there was no one inside. The voice of the hostess came from a room on the floor below, which was considered a basement.

From this, Kudo Shinichi hurried down and came to the basement floor, where he saw the female shopkeeper collapsed outside a room, and Sakura Masazo lying in a pool of blood in the room.

Sakura Masazō was seen lying on his back on the floor in the room with an expression of disbelief on his face. Blood was flowing out of his throat.

In addition, Sakura Masazo's wallet was found opened and thrown on his body.

Seeing this scene, even without checking closely, Kudo Shinichi could feel that the other person was no longer alive.

As a result, Ryuen, Saijo Taiga and others gradually rushed over after hearing the screams. When they saw the scene here, they were also frightened by the scene of Sakura Masazao being killed.

Then, Kudo Shinichi, in the identity of Hattori Heiji, turned his back to everyone and shouted in Kansai accent, "No one come in," and then asked Xiaolan to call the police on duty outside.

Just like that, in almost a moment, Inukai Genichi brought the police to the teahouse and took over the scene. He asked Ryuen, Nishijo Taiga, and the teahouse staff to go to the private room upstairs to wait for questioning, leaving Kudo Shinichi and the others here to conduct a basic investigation of the scene -

"The scene is the teahouse's warehouse. Judging from the mess it has been turned over, it seems that Mr. Sakura Shozo is looking for something here..."

Inukai Genichi made this basic assessment of the situation at the scene.

"The buttons of the suit jacket were torn off. It was probably because the murderer was wearing gloves and couldn't unbutton them one by one, so he chose such a rough method. The purpose should be to take out Mr. Sakura Masazo's wallet... But the wallet was full of cash and it seemed that there was no shortage of cash. It seems that the murderer didn't come here to rob money..."

Kudo Shinichi also took a rough look at the details of Sakura Masazo's body, analyzed it, then stood up and thought for a while, and then asked the police officer to check Mr. Sakura Masazo's right shoulder to see if they could find any bruises or other injuries caused by a heavy blow.

As a result, the situation that Kudo Shinichi mentioned was found on Sakura Masazo's right shoulder. Therefore, Kudo Shinichi couldn't help but analyze the current situation:
"It seems that this incident is probably related to the murder of the members of 'Genji Hotaru'..."

At this point, Kudo Shinichi asked the police to search Mr. Sakura Masazo's antique shop as soon as possible. If his guess was correct, they would be able to find evidence that Sakura Masazo is a member of "Genji Hotaru" in his antique shop.

"As for the murderer..."

Kudo Shinichi recalled the people he had observed in the private room next door tonight who had left Ryuen and his friends' room before nine o'clock. It seemed that everyone had gone out alone for reasons such as going to the bathroom, so -

"Among those people, there may be members of 'Genji Hotaru'..."

In this way, with the advice given by Kudo Shinichi, the police quickly launched a full-scale search and confirmed that Sakura Masazo was indeed "Ise Saburo", one of the three remaining members of "Genji Hotaru". The police also successfully found a photocopy of a strange picture in the "Yokeiki" found in Sakura Masazo's antique shop. This picture was exactly the secret code picture received by Sannoji Temple that could find the lost Buddha statue.

In this regard, there is such clear evidence that the theft of the Buddha statue in Sannoji Temple is directly related to "Genji Hotaru", which can be said to completely connect the two events -

"The white hair was lost when the Buddha statue was stolen. In order to retrieve the white hair, Sakura Shozo cooperated with the murderer to kidnap Kazuha. But now that his identity has been exposed, Sakura Shozo has been killed by the murderer..."

Based on the current situation, Kudo Shinichi can be completely sure that there must be another member of "Genji Hotaru" among the people present. As long as evidence of the other party's crime is found, it will be a natural thing to catch him.

Unfortunately, the subsequent investigation yielded nothing. The police searched everyone's bodies and conducted a comprehensive search of the teahouse and its surroundings, but they did not find the murder weapon.

As a result, the investigation has reached a deadlock.

In addition, the kidnapped Kazuha and Ai must still be in the hands of the murderer. Kudo Shinichi was afraid that if the police forcefully detained the people at the scene and trapped the murderer here, the murderer's accomplices who were guarding the hostages might take action. So after much consideration, Kudo Shinichi asked the police to release them temporarily to prevent the murderer from using the hostages as bargaining chips, which might cause the other hostages to encounter unexpected situations.

Therefore, for the current situation, Kudo Shinichi can only hope that the white hair in Hattori Heiji's hand is still in his and the police's control, which will serve as the most critical breakthrough to solve this matter -

After all, the other party kidnapped for this thing, so he will never stop there. As long as I don't reveal that I already know the murderer's target, after all, through Xiaolan, I have told the murderer that "Hattori Heiji will suspect that he is related to 'Genji Hotaru' because of Ryuen's commissioned investigation", then the murderer will definitely think that Hattori Heiji doesn't know the real truth and take action. (End of this chapter)