Stay away from Conan.

In the restaurant lobby of the Rice Flower Hotel——

At this moment, Kogoro Mouri and a middle-aged man wearing glasses were sitting face to face at a small dining table. They each ordered a cup of coffee and seemed to be chatting about something.

After listening to what the man in front of him said, and seeing that he was looking down with a very sad look on his face, Kogoro Mouri raised the coffee cup in front of him, took a sip, and didn't say much about what the other party had experienced. He decided to mainly talk about the details of the commission. After all, the other party was the client of the case who had asked him to meet here today to discuss the details.

Then, Maori Kogoro said:

"I see... Then, regarding your wife's possible situation..."

"Well, I'll have to ask Mr. Maori to help me investigate this."

Hearing what Maori Kogoro said, the client politely raised his head, looked at Maori Kogoro, and earnestly asked Maori Kogoro for a favor.

However, at this moment, when the client raised his head and finished speaking, he seemed to have seen something, and looked at Maori Kogoro with some doubt, and couldn't help but exclaimed:

"Hey?"

In this way, the client's reaction also made Maori Kogoro curious and puzzled...

……

Rice Flower Hotel, banquet hall on the fourth floor——

"Next, please invite the groom's mentor, the professor of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo, to come on stage and give a speech..."

At this moment, a wedding is being held in this banquet hall. It looks very grand. The entire venue is also filled with guests in suits and ties who are attending the wedding ceremony. Judging from their attire, they do not seem to be ordinary people.

So, just as the host of the wedding was holding the microphone and inviting the groom's teacher to come on stage to give a speech, among the guests, there was a man with slightly gray hair, who looked to be about fifty years old and wearing glasses. He was looking at the ringing phone in his hand, and his face looked a little heavy and ugly.

"Honey, do you still want to answer the phone at this time?"

Seeing the man holding the phone, and the phone was not muted, his wife, who was wearing a high-end kimono, was a little dissatisfied with the man's behavior of wanting to answer the phone:

"All the people present are celebrities from all walks of life. Isn't it a bit rude for you to answer the phone now?"

"I can't help it. It's work..."

Faced with his wife's dissatisfaction, the man expressed this helplessly.

But the wife couldn't help asking:

"But didn't you take a special leave to come here? Work matters won't take a while, right?"

"Can not be done……"

However, the man's attitude was still that he was going to answer the phone, and he explained to his wife:

"The princess of Panasukra is coming soon. As the vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I really can't do anything about this situation... This is an emergency call for work, I can't ignore it. I'll go outside and answer it!"

Having said this, the man didn't say anything more to his wife and insisted on answering the phone.

In response, his wife saw her husband was about to go out to answer the phone, so she said:

"Isn't this not good?"

After all, the other people present, whether they were the newlyweds or the guests, were all people of high status...

However, the man still ignored his wife's reaction and walked directly out of the banquet hall.

Just like that, when he arrived outside the banquet hall, he looked around and made sure that there was no one else in the corridor on this floor. Then he looked very nervous, looked at the ringing phone in his hand, and picked it up - "Sorry, I'm attending a friend's wedding banquet..."

The man sounded very nervous. After answering the call, he apologized to the person on the other end of the phone in a somewhat fearful manner, as if the other party's identity was very important.

"Huh? Going to the bathroom?"

When the person on the other end of the phone asked him to go to the restroom to continue the call, the man was slightly suspicious, but he didn't think much about it. He followed the other party's instructions and went to the restroom on that floor.

"Is it the bathroom on the right?"

Following the instructions on the phone, the man came to the men's restroom.

After entering here, seeing that there was no one here, the man felt a little calmer.

At least no one...

Thinking of this, the man held up his phone and explained to the person on the other end of the line:

"I've followed your instructions and gone to the bathroom...but what are we supposed to do here?"

……

"So your wife disappeared on the eleventh of last month?"

In the restaurant in the hall, although Maori Kogoro was puzzled by the client's expression, he didn't think much about it. He took out his notebook and started to collect some information first. However, while asking and writing, Maori Kogoro saw that the client was still looking at him very strangely, which made Maori Kogoro feel even more strange -

"Um...what's the matter? Do I look...strange?"

After looking around and checking his own clothes, Kogoro Mouri didn't find anything strange about himself. However, the client still looked at him strangely, as if he wanted to say something but didn't. This made Kogoro Mouri unable to help but start asking him the reason.

"Ah... no, it's not..."

Faced with Maori Kogoro's active questioning, the client was a little unsure of what to say and began to explain:

"Actually, from just now on, there were these two children behind Mr. Maori's seat..."

So, the client pointed behind Kogoro Mouri and finally pointed out the point that made him feel uncomfortable.

Immediately, upon hearing this, Kogoro Mouri turned around and saw Mitsuhiko and Genta standing behind his seat, as if they were eavesdropping on his conversation with the client.

When they saw that they were discovered by Mouri Kogoro, Mitsuhiko and Genta couldn't help but smile awkwardly, because they had noticed that Mouri Kogoro's expression was gradually becoming angry, which made Mitsuhiko and Genta realize that they could not make Mouri Kogoro angry anymore.

Originally, because Ayumi discovered that Kogoro Mouri was also in the hotel, and seemed to be meeting with a client, Mitsuhiko and Genta suddenly had an idea. They thought that through Kogoro Mouri, they would be able to find out what case the client was. Then, when they solved the case together, it would be enough to show off to Conan.

So, they chose to sneak over and eavesdrop on the conversation between Maori Kogoro and the client, and the result was...

"You little brats!"

Because he was usually annoyed by Conan, and now that Conan was not around, the other two kids with him also bothered him, so Maori Kogoro angrily asked them to go away... (End of this chapter)