Conan: Death is Watching Me

Chapter 295 "Kariya Eisuke's Guide to Romance Novels"

"Dudu-"

The bearded young man gave a few perfunctory replies and then pulled out his phone from behind his back.

“The editor called me again. We had just eaten together at a family restaurant in front of the station and then came right back. He can testify for me.”

"Let's double-check the other clues," Inspector Megure said, his head throbbing. "Where is Mrs. Kariya's room?"

Gao Mo put down his novel, glanced around the novelist's room again, then turned to the two maids in the hallway and asked, "Do you know what Mrs. Kariya did and where she went today?"

"My wife has been looking for her phone all day, and she even borrowed ours to make calls. We don't know much else about her."

The two maids recalled.

"By the way, it seems like there were more pranks today than usual."

"mischief?"

"Yes, I don't know where the kid is from, but he always likes to ring the doorbell. When we run out, he's gone. Also, the landline phone always rings once and then hangs up. When we run out to check, we don't see anyone answering the phone, and there's no call log."

"It's really weird."

"Why are you asking these questions?" The man with the mustache returned after pacing around, looking troubled. "This is really troublesome. Several members of the Kariya family who might have committed the crime, including these maids, all have alibis, and we can't find that lover..."

As he spoke, the man with the mustache stared intently at the maid: "Could it be that you've forged evidence?"

"What kind of talk is this?" the maid said angrily. "We've told you everything we know! How can you give false testimony like this?"

"Who knows? It's not impossible that the two of you could have committed murder. Judging from the crime scene, the killer seemed to be two different people."

"Don't think you can talk nonsense just because you're a famous detective!"

The two maids were so angry that they almost hit Xiaozhi with a vacuum cleaner.

“We’ve been busy since evening, how could we possibly be the murderer of my wife?”

"Alright, Mori."

Gao Mo was genuinely afraid that the two fierce maids would get physical, so he quickly pulled back the mustachioed man who was still questioning him.

"give me some more time."

This case may be missing key clues; many parts don't connect.

The first is the novelist's alibi.

If what the maid said is true, then the other party is indeed incapable of committing the crime.

"Gentlemen, are you aware of the case from 12 years ago?"

"Yes, I know," the maid replied, having a fairly good impression of Gao Mo. "The Third Young Master and his fiancée, Miss Suhua, missed the last tram while on a date, and then called to ask if Miss Suhua could stay at our house for the night."
The master angrily refused, saying he would never allow a woman like Miss Suhua, who had an affair, into the house. He threw a tantrum, and then news came that Miss Suhua had been murdered in a phone booth, and the third young master disappeared without a trace.

Gao Mo's eyebrows twitched.

What are the police doing? There's no record of the affair at all.

If he hadn't asked him, we would have missed such an important clue.

“Actually, it’s understandable that the master is angry,” the two maids continued, “because the old lady left because of an affair.”

“No wonder Mrs. Kariya was so scared when she lost her phone,” the man with the mustache stroked his chin. “That makes it even stranger. Didn’t anyone suspect your wife of having an affair? The phone being stolen means someone had suspected it. Mrs. Kariya finally got it back, so why would she go out on a date at this time?”

“So it wasn’t a date,” Conan corrected, tugging at Gao Mo’s sleeve. “Uncle Kindaichi, if it wasn’t a date, and the phone was found in time, why did you specifically drive out?”

"good question."

Gao Mo met Conan's intelligent gaze.

"The answer is simple: Mrs. Kariya encountered something or discovered a secret while looking for her phone that was not suitable to be discussed at home, and the murderer was planning to do it outside."

The man with the mustache glared at Conan: "The problem now is that they all have alibis."

"It's more of an indirect alibi, since the maids didn't see the person in person. If there's some kind of mechanism involved, or if they simply used a stand-in..."

Gao Mo thought about the strangeness of the novelist's work.

"If the culprit is Mrs. Kariya's husband, he certainly wouldn't have kept the curry rice for so long. If it's an old man, even if we recorded the sound of him playing the shakuhachi beforehand, it wouldn't be enough time. This case is very rushed, and it would be difficult to play the narration just as the curry rice was delivered..."

Only Kagaya Shigehide waved and answered when the curry rice was served… Is it possible that he didn't want to speak, but rather couldn't speak?

"Can't make a sound?" The man with the mustache was taken aback.

"Yes, Kagaya Shigehide's novels don't depict pharaohs, but rather the descriptions are very retro, as if they lived more than ten years ago and had never seen the world, isolated from it all, like the third young master who disappeared more than ten years ago."

Gao Mo turned his gaze back to the novelist's room.

"If Mrs. Kariya found her phone by the ringing of the phone, that's even stranger. Most people would try to silence the phone or turn it off, right? But according to you, the phone has been ringing all day."

"It keeps ringing?"

"Yes, the so-called doorbell sound is not a prank, but Mrs. Kariya deliberately set the same sound for her affair."

"Dingle bell! Dingle bell!"

Just then, the doorbell rang in the courtyard, and two maids rushed towards the gate, shouting, "It's this one! Playing pranks so late at night, how outrageous!" Gao Mo didn't go to the gate, but instead led the two maids with the mustache back to the novelist's room.

The novelist's shadow was cast on the paper door. He stood up at the same moment the doorbell rang, as if he had discovered something. He hurriedly left his desk, but stopped just as the door opened.

"What are you doing, Mr. Kagaya Shigehide?"

Gao Mo locked the drawer that was continuously ringing the doorbell.

"I didn't expect you to bring Mrs. Kariya's phone home and still have it on."

"Hmph, I think he's just too scared, afraid that Mrs. Kariya will tell others his secret."

The man with the mustache entered the room with his hands in his pockets, and finally pulled open the drawer that made a sound. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the bloodstained cell phone inside.

Besides the cell phone, there was also a bloodstained murder weapon wrapped in a towel.

"Looks like you're really panicked. You haven't even cleaned up the bloodstains. Is it because the police arrived too quickly?"

"It's not fear. I think he might have considered framing his younger brother at a crucial moment, right, the Third Young Master who's been hiding for 12 years?"

Gao Mo followed him into the room.

"Twelve years ago, although the third young master's fiancée was stabbed and bled a lot, the truly fatal blow was the beating to the head..."

"Nonsense!" A young man with a braid and stubble stepped out of the closet and retorted excitedly, "I didn't wear plain flowers back then!"

"That's for sure, because it was your brother who really killed your fiancée."

"How could that be? My brother protected me for a full 12 years!"

“It’s just using you,” Gao Mo turned to the bearded young man covered in sweat. “Like this time, the reason why we killed Mrs. Kariya in the same way as 12 years ago is to pin the blame on you when we are suspected. If it had been any later, your brother would probably have confessed and committed suicide somewhere.”

Seeing that the bearded youth still showed no sign of admitting his guilt, Gao Mo picked up the novel again and began to read.

"If I'm not mistaken, the man Suhua had an affair with back then was the second young master, right? We just need to call the old man over and ask him. As for hiding her younger brother for 12 years, perhaps this novel has something to do with it."

“I didn’t want to kill anyone, whether it was 12 years ago or today.”

The bearded young man slumped down like a deflated balloon, his entire face covered in cold sweat.

"Twelve years ago, when I went to the phone booth to find Suhua, I discovered she was only injured. I was about to take her to the hospital, but she acted like a devil, saying she wanted to eat me alive for the rest of her life, and all she wanted was money..."

Banko, too, after discovering my secret, showed the same expression as Suhua—that greedy look of wanting to destroy me, to drain me dry!

[Kariya Eisuke's Guide to Romance Novels - 4 stars]

As the footsteps of Inspector Megure and the others approached through the corridor, a new professional book appeared as a projection of notes on the paper door.

Although he got the knowledge he needed, Gao Mo's expression was somewhat subtle.

This abstract world.

On one hand, there's the sweet romance of childhood sweethearts; on the other hand, there are rampant extramarital affairs, supporting countless detectives.

What he couldn't understand the most was that such a strange family had produced a writer of pure love stories.

"Can I take this with me?" Gao Mo glanced at the somewhat distraught Third Young Master.

"Thank you," Kariya Eisuke said in a hoarse voice as he watched his brother being taken away by the police. "This may be my last work. If you don't mind, please take it as a keepsake."

“With your talent, it would be a shame not to continue writing,” Gao Mo paused, “This world is actually quite beautiful.”

If we disregard the numerous murders that have occurred.

"Hey, what did I tell you?" the mustachioed man said smugly. "With us on the case, what case can't we solve? It's only been less than half an hour."

Conan glanced at him and said sarcastically: What's it to you, you old geezer?
……

Kido Detective Agency.

Gao Mo returned to the garden, where he and Ai stared at each other blankly.

"You went out to buy things, and you bought books?" Xiao Ai teased, looking at the novel in Gao Mo's hand. "And a pure romance novel at that?"

"Something came up."

Gao Mo didn't intend to hide it from Xiao Ai; he figured there would be a bunch of news reports about the case being solved soon.

Xiao Ai could guess what he was going to do.

But Sonoko is another story. Sonoko's personality makes it impossible for her to keep secrets. If people knew he was Kindaichi, it would probably spread throughout Teitan High School in no time.

“I know this novel,” Sonoko said excitedly. “I heard it’s going to be adapted into a TV series soon. Ran and I have been looking forward to it for a long time. If Kido-san likes it, we have an autographed copy from the author at home.”

“Uh, that’s unnecessary.” Gao Mo’s eye twitched slightly.

This is the real author's signature.

It's not Kagaya Shigehide, it's the real author, Kagaya Eisuke... although he doesn't think much of the author himself either.

(End of this chapter)