Conan: Death is Watching Me

Chapter 171 The Magic Train Murder Case 3
"Dead Bone Plains! We've arrived at the final stop, Dead Bone Plains!"

"Passengers getting off the bus, please watch your step..."

In the light mist, the futuristic magic train slowly pulled into the terminal station and finally stopped next to the freight train.

It was already afternoon, and Inspector Megure and Shiratori were organizing all the passengers to check their luggage in an attempt to find the missing body of the troupe leader.

Gao Mo did not separate from the main group again, but his focus was different from that of Hattori Heiji and the others.

He was certainly curious about the mystery surrounding the corpse, but he was more concerned about the Hell Puppet Master himself.

Young Master Yurama – [Abolish the Leader]

Mermaid Yuumi – [What's my husband up to?]

Spirit medium Sakuraba—[It seems like something terrible has infiltrated our ranks.]

Joker Sakonji – [Why are the police and detectives here?]

Trainee Magician Satomi Zanma – [Becoming a Full-Time Magician]

Manager Junpei Kirishima – [Performing the greatest magic show of his life]

Shiratori Ninzaburo – [Kido Takamori's identity confirmed]

Heiji Hattori – [Solve the mystery of death magic and find the puppeteer of hell] and [Challenge Kindaichi once again]

Kazuha Toyama – [Confirming their relationship with Heiji]

……

The projected text covered almost all the people involved in the case.

There are far more related characters than ever before.

Gao Mo followed Hattori Heiji, who was inspecting the carriages, without immediately drawing up a task.

Currently, capturing psychological information is more important than selecting tasks.

"Is it really impossible to contact Mr. Kindaichi?" Hattori Heiji couldn't help but ask again.

Despite being a member of the Kido Detective Agency for so long, he had never actually met Kindaichi.

It's not entirely certain that Marugoro from the Mermaid Island incident was Kindaichi.

Especially after the Twilight Mansion incident, Kindaichi seemed to have disappeared, and there was no news of him since.

"It seems he's investigating some tricky case; he said before that he would disappear for a while."

Gao Mo gave a casual reply.

"Don't you have any confidence in solving this case?"

"H-How is this possible?" Hattori Heiji's thick eyebrows furrowed. "Perfect magic can't exist in this world. I can definitely solve the mystery of the vanished corpse! If my feeling is right, the Hell Puppet Master isn't an outsider; he's very likely in the Illusion Magic Guild..."

"Don't always trust your feelings; sometimes feelings can be deceiving."

"Kido-kun, you don't understand. This is a detective's intuition, and it hasn't been wrong yet..."

What about the last diplomatic incident?

"That one is different."

Hattori Heiji lost his temper when he thought about the diplomat incident.

"That was a pure deduction error, it had nothing to do with intuition..."

Scene from Box 7.

After the pile of roses was cleared, there were no hidden corpses or secret mechanisms among them.

Heiji Hattori returned to the scene and scratched his head in deep thought: "We were right outside the door at the time, and the only place we could move the body was through the compartment window... But all the windows on this train could only be opened a crack, barely enough to stick your head out."

As he spoke, Hattori Heiji personally inspected the window and tested it.

"I'm absolutely certain that what I saw was the Mountain God Commander himself, not some kind of mechanical dummy..."

"Hattori-kun," Inspector Megure asked from outside the window, "how's the situation inside?"

“We’ve checked all the luggage that could be used to hide a body,” Hattori Heiji said, shaking his head. “We found nothing.”

"Officer!"

Junpei Kirishima, the manager of the magic troupe, anxiously followed behind Megure, pulling a notebook from his bag.

"Can we finish the inspection sooner? It's really troublesome without the troupe leader... The schedule is very tight, and if this continues, we won't make it for tonight's performance!"

"Now that the Mountain God's leader has been murdered, you still want to put on a magic show?" Megure's attitude was not very good.

“It’s a very important performance,” Junpei Kirishima said, distressed. “I really love this job, and if the performance fails, I’ll be fired… Besides, we’re not even sure if the troupe leader is really in trouble. He might suddenly show up as a policeman…”

"Okay, okay," Inspector Megure said, exasperated. "You guys go to the hotel first, and don't wander around!"

"Yes!"

Gao Mo watched quietly as Kirishima Junpei hurriedly ran away as if he needed to urinate.

Hell Puppet Master...

Through the projected text, he roughly guessed the identity of the Hell Puppet Master.

He initially suspected three people.

First up is Yurama, the most popular nobleman in the magic troupe.

[Abolish the group leader] - The motive for murder is strong.

Although he doesn't seem like the type to go to great lengths to provoke the police—arrogant and aloof, with his thoughts written all over his face—the possibility of him acting cannot be ruled out.

Next up is the psychic medium Sakuraba, a chubby guy who seems more like a nerdy otaku than a magician. He hardly says a word outside of his performances.

Finally, there's the apprentice magician, Satomi Zanma, a cute girl who's treated like a beast of burden as a newcomer. She's about 18 years old, dressed in tight clothing, with a lively and adorable appearance, and a voluptuous figure hidden beneath her clothes.

The idea of ​​becoming a professional magician is perfectly normal.

However, such characters often harbor a demon within.

just now……

Gao Mo's eyes narrowed slightly.

He has another suspect.

This is the seemingly incompetent manager of the magic team.

[To achieve the greatest magic show of one's life], from another perspective, death magic is also a magic show.

This manager also seems to be a magician.

Most importantly, this person and the apprentice magician both joined the Fantasy Magic Troupe later, and because of their positions, they had more opportunities to manipulate things and make arrangements.

Gao Mo frowned slightly.

He had a strange feeling that there were two "hellish puppeteers," one who provoked the police to perform bloody death magic tricks, and the other who commissioned him to investigate a five-year-old cold case.

Heiji Hattori is right; detectives develop a special intuition after handling enough cases.

Most of the time, it can help detectives solve cases, but sometimes it can lead them into mental traps.

To put it simply, it's about accumulating experience.

Experience is not always reliable.

Ultimately, the answer must be based on reason.

Are there really two Hell Puppet Masters?
"Hattori."

Gao Mo focused his gaze and once again opened the palace of thought.

"Did you really see the Mountain God Commander's entire body? Or was it just his head?"

He had already encountered something like dismembering the victim and using a head to represent the corpse in the Mountain Villa Bandaged Man incident.

“No,” Hattori Heiji shook his head after thinking for a moment. “Although the Mountain God Commander was wearing gloves and a magic suit at the time, and only his head could be seen, the body was indeed intact. The most crucial thing now is that the body cannot be found in the car at all, not even the dismembered body parts.”

"is it?"

Gao Mo picked up a piece of broken balloon.

Heiji Hattori had already formed a preconceived notion and completely fallen into the criminal's mental trap. Just like the previous diplomat incident.

This is also a drawback of relying too much on detective intuition.

The things Hattori Heiji thought were impossible actually had obvious problems.

Excluding sensation and the possibility of magic, the key to the body disappearing from the compartment was clearly the window—a train window that was only wide enough for a head to pass through.

There's no doubt about it; the murderer simply used the train window.

At that time, the only part of the actual corpse in the private room was the head.

The murderer used a deception technique to intentionally show everyone a "complete" corpse.

First, they called everyone to come to the private room, then staged a bomb explosion to give everyone the impression that a corpse was inside. Then, within one minute, they quickly disposed of the headless corpse...

“These are the balloons that were floating around the body inside the private room at the time,” Hattori Heiji explained.

The carriage in front of Gao Mo seemed to become a virtual, transparent state.

Roses, burst balloons... the remaining scene was quickly reconstructed, and the blurred parts were further improved through reasoning and conjecture.

"Have you ever wondered why the prisoner would use roses and balloons?" Gao Mo suddenly called out to Hattori Heiji.

"What else could it be?" Hattori Heiji said matter-of-factly. "Don't magic shows like to use fancy decorations to divert attention?"

“Not all decorations are used to distract; some may be part of the magic itself,” Gao Mo said calmly. “Magic is the art of deception, and sometimes it involves conscious hypnosis, which begins even before the actual performance…”

"what?"

Hattori Heiji was stunned for a moment, and his expression suddenly became extremely serious.

Last night's rose show by the mysterious magician, this morning's rose salad, and this private room piled high with roses...

If roses are not just for decoration, did the prisoner start hypnotizing them yesterday?
"How do you know all this?" Hattori Heiji looked at Gao Mo suspiciously.

"Actually, I came here by invitation. They asked me to investigate a case from five years ago and also sent me a lot of magic materials."

Gao Mo explained without changing his expression.

"The client's signature also happens to be that of a Hell Puppet Master."

"The Hell Puppet Master commissioned Kido-kun?" Hattori Heiji was a little confused. "Never mind what's going on with this guy, why did he commission you, Kido-kun?"

Gao Mo is just the boss; he doesn't hold the position of detective.

They generally don't take on cases.

"You've got the wrong person, haven't you?"

"I don't know either, but they specifically asked me to come, and they gave me 300 million right away."

"This is strange..."

Hattori Heiji scratched his head, then suddenly looked startled and turned back to check the private room again.

"I understand! The rose covered in thorns was to prevent us from entering the private room to investigate, and the repeated use of the explosion trick was to deliberately make us think there was a bomb here too..."

At that time, it was just gunpowder smoking; all we heard were sounds of balloons bursting… but why balloons?

After a brief moment of inspiration, Hattori Heiji's thoughts once again stalled.

"..."

Gao Mo felt like Conan watching Kogoro Mouri.

As a high school detective, Heiji Hattori is undoubtedly outstanding, possessing top-tier talent just like Conan.

But this talent doesn't seem to have been fully realized.

It's not that I lack knowledge, but rather that my way of thinking is rather limited.

This is the second time they've fallen into the criminals' psychological trap.

“Brother Kido,” Inspector Megure called from outside, “that’s about enough. We should head to the hotel to check in.”

"Aren't we going to investigate anymore?" Gao Mo didn't remind Hattori Heiji again.

Reminding him again would be going too far; Hattori is not Kogoro Mouri.

"All luggage that could be used to hide a body has been checked. As for the train... the train is about to return, so leave the rest to the Hokkaido police."

Megure was somewhat discouraged.

"Perhaps it really is that group leader who's behind this. We can't keep bothering you. Let's go to the hotel and check the situation first."

"Alright."

Gao Mo turned around and got out of the car.

Death magic...

He has solved the mystery of the disappearing body.

For him now, regardless of whether he is familiar with the case or not, regardless of whether the case has been altered or changed, as long as it is not a crime involving superpowers, and as long as it is still a mystery-based world, solving the puzzle is not difficult.

Not to mention, it's magic crime, which is exactly his area of ​​expertise.

The only problem is intelligence gathering.

The prisoner used the balloon to conceal the truth.

The corpse Hattori and his group saw was actually inflated by balloons; it could be instantly retrieved by popping the balloons—from beginning to end, the other party only took the corpse's head and clothes from the private room.

For a magician, one minute is more than enough.

The balloon fragments left in the private room would not arouse suspicion.

If it's just a head, it wouldn't be too difficult to leave it halfway or even take it off the train.

……

Dead Bones Plain Station.

The members of the magic troupe gathered in a nearly empty side hall. The leader's wife, Yumi, was completely devoid of her usual composure and gentleness; her face was full of impatience and anger, making her look like an old woman.

Why would police officers be in such a remote place?

"I heard everything. It sounded like they were investigating something... Could it be an investigation into us?"

"Hmph, it was closed as an accident 5 years ago, what else is there to investigate?" Xi Hai crossed his legs and lit a cigarette.

"But that Hell Puppet Master... could it really be true? The guild leader might already be..."

“I think he’s just scared,” the young nobleman Yura glanced at the frowning wife of the troupe leader. “Right now I’m the most popular, shouldn’t our magic troupe get a new leader?”

"Yurama! The position of commander isn't based on popularity..."

"Don't forget, only I can perform with the puppets," the young nobleman sneered as he walked out of the room. "You probably don't want to see what happens to the Fantasy Magic Troupe without me, do you?"

"you……"

The woman's expression changed repeatedly.

She was both worried about her husband's life and death, and shocked and furious at the nobleman's sudden display of his sword.

"Ms. Yuumi," the apprentice magician said, panting as she entered the side hall carrying several large bags of luggage, "are these bags being taken directly to the stage?"

"Didn't I tell you? Send the green one to my room!" the woman said angrily. "You're too slow, where's Kirishima?"

"Mr. Kirishima said he's going to inspect the stage..."

"Alright, hurry up and put our luggage away and get us some food, we're starving!"

"Yes……"

The apprentice magician wiped his sweat, glanced at the other magicians who completely ignored him and started chatting, then turned and left with his head down.

She's just a newcomer, not a servant.

Despite being in the magic troupe for so long, these people always kept things from her and never taught her anything.

Asking about the principles of magic even occasionally feels like a threat to kill.

Yet, she doesn't act like a stranger at all when he orders her around.

(End of this chapter)