Ms. Moriarty wants to save Beika Town today too.

"There shouldn't be any guests visiting today, right?"

"That stupid-looking old man told me to let him in." He turned around and twirled his thumb toward the door.

Hearing his description, the children smiled unkindly.

"What do you mean by a stupid face?" Dr. Agasa was so angry that he went crazy. "After all, I am a scientist!"

"A scientist!" The man called Master was slightly surprised.

"That's right! My name is Dr. Agasa, and now I'm a somewhat famous scientist!" Dr. Agasa stroked his beard complacently.

Hearing the title of "scientist", the old man became obviously interested. Winnett felt that he was a little happy, and he was stroking his chin and looking at Dr. Agasa.

"So, you should be much smarter than us ordinary people." He murmured, and then spread his hands to express his welcome. "Well, please come in... By the way, do you want to stay here for one night?"

Dr. Agasa was immediately overjoyed, "Thank you so much!"

The servant who received the order was embarrassed. "But, Master! Is it really okay to do this without consulting the first wife?" he asked.

"Just say they are all my friends," the old man said. "That's all you need to say, considering my mother-in-law's current condition."

The servant's expression wasn't much better, and he uttered "Really?" quietly.

Winnett didn't expect the doctor's negotiation to go so smoothly. They followed him into the courtyard. Not only the members of the Junior Detective Team, but even Ai looked around with great interest.

"The decoration of the courtyard should be in a style that you are familiar with," she said.

Because the courtyard is in English style, although not as exquisite as that of the royal family, it is also quite exquisite, and the haystacks are trimmed into a neat shape.

"I have never seen a courtyard," Winnett said with a bit of self-mockery, "I can't see it clearly and I don't remember it."

"Oh."

Ai looked at Winnet meaningfully. Although from a medical point of view, Winnet's eyes could not appreciate the scenery, Ai always felt that Winnet could actually see a lot.

In the past, she would often stumble when she set foot in unfamiliar places, but now this situation has almost disappeared, which makes Xiao Ai think too much.

"There are horses here!"

Ayumi screamed and rushed towards the sculpture in the courtyard.

"Really? There are black ones here!" Yuantai found another black horse.

"But why does it only reach the neck?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"Those horses are called knights," Xiao Ai explained, "and they are chess pieces."

"Chess pieces..."

"It's more than just chess pieces," Conan added, "Look at the grass below, it's laid out like a chessboard."

Winnett also approached the chess pieces and touched them slightly. In her field of vision, there were obviously fewer white pieces than black pieces, almost presenting a situation of being surrounded. It was neither symmetrical nor a game of chess. With such a strange arrangement, she could only think of the code used to decrypt it.

"What are you thinking about?"

"This chessboard seems to have some kind of secret code," she said, touching the chess piece again, "or maybe there's some kind of mechanism, but the chess piece I touched can't move."

Xiao Ai nodded and thought seriously.

"Have you been influenced by Edogawa?"

"Come on, what does this have to do with me..." Conan muttered.

"Is there anyone here who likes chess?" Dr. Agasa asked the servant beside him. Through the conversation just now, they already knew that this person was the gardener of this castle.

"I don't know. I just followed the instructions of my old master, Master Zhenzhao, and trimmed the trees a little every day to preserve the appearance of this place." He said, "This seems to be the last words of the old master when he died fifteen years ago, and Master Zhenzhao has never disobeyed it."

"The master you mentioned in the past..." Dr. Agasa glanced at the master who was talking to the maid, "Who was the one just now?"

"He is Madam's second husband, Master Aman. Master Zhenzhao died of illness six years ago, and Madam was also burned to death in the fire four years ago."

"What fire?"

Mr. Gardener tilted his head and raised his arm. In the direction of his finger there was a slender stone tower, like the place where Rapunzel lived in the fairy tale. However, it was now in ruins, with gray and black burn marks all over the white walls, and a piece of the blue painted roof at the top was missing. He said:

"Look over there... there's a burnt stone tower. That was the madam's former bedroom. That year, the madam came back to this castle after a long absence to celebrate the first madam's birthday. She rushed here in the middle of the night, but the flames had already spread before dawn... It wasn't just the madam, but also her friends who came with her, as well as the butler and servants who had served the first madam for many years. More than a dozen people were engulfed in the fire."

"The only one who escaped this disaster was a servant like me who was hired not long ago. Also, the eldest lady who was sleeping in another bedroom because of a cold... and then there was Master Aman who came here a little earlier than the lady."

After that, he looked at a young man who was stroking a soldier chess piece.

"The one over there is Master Guiren, the only son of Madam and Master Zhenzhao. Although he came back here two or three days before the fire, I heard that he was sent abroad to study since he was a child. That was the first time I saw him... It was also the first time I saw Master Aman."

"Since our wife remarried abroad, he and Master Aman have been living in that country. I don't know why they have been living in this castle since the fire. To outsiders like us, they seem to be possessed by some kind of magic."

"They must have suffered a lot when they came here. After all, you don't even know what they look like," said Dr. Agasa.

"That's not true," the gardener shook his head. "The madam had already sent back the photo of her remarriage, so everyone knows what Master Aman looks like." He pushed open the castle gate and invited them in. "As for the noble young master, take a look."

He pointed to the portrait in the center of the main hall of the castle. It was of a middle-aged man with a square face, squinting eyes and a solemn expression. "He looks exactly like the deceased master. No matter who sees it, they can be considered to be father and son."

Dr. Agasa looked up at the portrait, then looked at the two sides of the photo, where there were two more photos of a man and a woman. He asked, "Who are those portraits on the two sides?"

"That's Master Zhenzhao and Madam. Master Zhenzhao was invited by Madam to be her husband. He is very respectful to the elder master who is also a historian. Our Madam is often jealous of this and used to complain to Master Zhenzhao!"

As he spoke, the sound of a wheelchair was heard behind him.

"She always says that dad is just an intellectual with a lot of crooked ideas, right?" An old lady sitting in a wheelchair interrupted their conversation.

The gardener was terrified and called out the identity of the person -

The eldest wife.

"In fact, the child's father had heard this story many times before. However, he was not angry at all when he heard it. Instead, he was very happy." The old lady recalled with a smile.

The gardener took off his hat and bowed slightly to apologize: "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have reminded the first lady of these past events."

"You don't have to be too nervous. I've long been accustomed to the days without him here." The old lady said, "It's just like the changes in the patterns on banknotes and the size of passports. I was not used to it at first, but after a while, I found it nothing strange." She sighed, "Time is really scary. No matter happiness, anger, sorrow or joy, they will all disappear with time."

Winnet thought that sometimes it gets stronger as time goes by.

"By the way, who are these people?" The old lady glanced at them. "Are they my daughter's friends?"

"Ah... they are the master's friends." The gardener introduced, "I heard that this old man is also a scientist."

"Scientist?" the old lady muttered, and then smiled. "That's great." She said, "Then I must ask you to solve it carefully and see what mystery he buried in this castle."

When Conan heard the word "mystery", he reacted obviously and raised his head a few centimeters.

"Mystery?" Dr. Agasa asked subconsciously.

"I heard that when the master was dying, he once said this: He would give his most precious treasure to anyone who could solve the puzzle of this castle." The gardener explained.

At this time, the old lady looked towards the door. "Oh, my daughter hasn't come back yet," she said. "She was supposed to come back today, wasn't she? She said she would come to celebrate my birthday." Then she turned her wheelchair towards the corridor.

"But... the first wife..."

Without waiting for the gardener to speak, the old lady ordered, "When she comes, ask her to come to my room immediately." Then she left with a happy look on her face.

The gardener saw her like this and sighed, "Alas, she has become like this since the fire."

"I think it must have been a huge shock to her."

After the old lady left, Conan asked the gardener: "Uncle, is there any room where I can see the chess pieces in the yard clearly?"

"The chess pieces in the yard..." the gardener murmured, and then answered, "Yes, I'll take you there."

They followed him up to the second floor. The castle was very tall, and from the second floor window facing the courtyard, one could see the entire chessboard.

"It's really great! These chess pieces are arranged beautifully." Ayumi exclaimed.

"Ah, where is it? I can't see it!" Yuantai squeezed behind the window.

Ayumi, who was squeezed, complained a few words, and then the window next door was pushed open by Mitsuhiko, and Genta ran to the other side excitedly again.

"Aren't you also interested in these chess pieces?" Ai asked, "Why aren't you interested at all now? Wait a minute, maybe the puzzle will be solved by Edogawa."

"Then let him have it."

"Don't you want to show yourself? I don't remember you being such a non-competitive person."

"That's true," Winnett said, "but I can't see clearly from the window. Xiao Ai, can you tell me the position of the chess pieces? If you can help me, I will definitely try my best."

She smiled and took out a notebook from her bosom and handed it to Ai. Winette felt that she was not a competitive person, but it was common to show off in front of a lover. Even animals would show off their strengths when courting a mate. Besides, she didn't like Conan in the first place. It would be a good idea to suppress him in the area where he was best, she thought.

Xiao Ai opened the notebook and found some kind of code written between the lines. It was written in Chinese characters and could not form a valid sentence. She glanced at it, turned to a new page, and drew the distribution of the chess pieces on it.

"Come on, what are you two doing!"

Just as Ai put down her pen, she suddenly heard Ayumi's scream.

……

379 The Answer and the Missing Conan

“It’ll fall!”

The moment she heard Ayumi's voice, Winette rushed out, accurately found the position of the window next to her, and at the critical moment, she pulled back Yuanta, who was hanging on the window and almost falling.

This farce made Xiao Ai feel that Winnet's eyesight had recovered a lot compared to before.

Even if you can accurately capture the positions of the two people by hearing, rushing to the unfamiliar next room should not be so smooth.

"Are you okay?"

Winnett put Yuanta down. The frightened Yuanta and Mitsuhiko finally breathed a sigh of relief. Yuanta murmured in fear, "We are saved." Winnett saw that he was fine and warned him, "Don't lean out of the window, even when you are in a car. This is very dangerous!" She frowned. Seeing Winnett's stern expression, Yuanta obediently said "Okay".

At this time, Conan also rushed over.

Seeing that Yuantai was fine, he breathed a sigh of relief. Then, as if he suddenly realized something, his body shook.

Winnett had the same discovery as him. She was much more sensitive to distance than ordinary people. The two windows were next to the wall, but not right next to each other. There was a long distance between the two rooms, almost equal to the width of the corridor. The load-bearing walls of the castle were on the four sides, and there was no reason to reinforce the wall in the middle.

Secret passage.

It is natural to come to this conclusion.

The arrangement of the chess pieces also creates an additional inducement, making people think that there are special places in the castle.

Genta and Mitsuhiko looked back at the courtyard, while Winette observed Conan. He had already begun knocking on the wall, trying to find the entrance to the secret passage.

Often the entrance is slightly different from the material of the wall, and the feedback sound is also different; the sound below the clock in the room is obviously crisper. The trigger mechanism... Winette guessed that it might have something to do with the hanging clock.

Although she had only come across passages like tunnels, it did not prevent her from having such imagination. Whether in novels or film and television dramas, this type of trigger mechanism is more popular, and in essence it is just a disguised switch.

Winnet knew that once Conan entered the state of reasoning, he would be like a young boy who would not turn back until he hit the wall, so she ignored his actions and returned to the room they had just been in. At this time, Ai was already standing side by side with Ayumi, looking out the window for the situation - and witnessed Genta being dragged back to the room.

"Is Kojima-san okay?" Ai asked, and then immediately added, "From the looks of you, he should be fine."

"It's so scary." Ayumi murmured in fear. Then she looked behind Winnet and said, "Conan..."

"He's next door," Winnett replied, saying that he was solving the puzzle of the castle. "I have to take this opportunity to work hard."

She smiled and looked at Ai, and then she got the notes that recorded the detailed positions of the chess pieces, and the types of chess pieces were also marked on it. Ayumi saw Genta and the others from the window again, so she continued to enjoy the scenery of the courtyard. Ai came over and looked at the tip of Winnet's pen drawing on the paper. Without stopping, she made the chessboard into a chart similar to a line graph, but did not connect the chess pieces in series.

"What's the point of doing this?" she asked.

"Because chess usually uses numbers and letters to represent the chessboard," Winnett explained, "I guess this master may want to use this method to represent a certain word. Judging from the chess pieces you drew, the black and white knights indicate the correct position of the chessboard - that is, the direction of the horse's head. Combining numbers and letters... rearranging numbers from one to eight and letters from A to H can be obtained through the position of the white pieces -"

Winnet paused and wrote the word "EGGHEAD" on the paper.

Seeing that she came to a conclusion so quickly, Ai said, "Not bad. It seems that as long as the riddle is not related to Japanese, Edogawa may not be your opponent... However, the word 'egghead' should be a derogatory term for intellectuals. It is still difficult to come to a conclusion with just this one word. Using your method, Kuroko can't form any useful words at all-"

Halfway through the conversation, Xiao Ai suddenly realized that the pattern of the chess pieces was wrong. If the chess pieces were regarded as pixels, the black pieces on the chessboard formed a pattern of a rotating arrow - rotating counterclockwise.

"It seems that you, Ai, have discovered it too."

Winnet was very happy and proud of Ai's intelligence. While she was happy, Ai also analyzed more, such as the white piece went first and rotated the "egghead".

"I still don't understand what it means." Xiao Ai glanced at Winnett, "Don't keep me in suspense."

"Unknown treasures are more attractive, aren't they? How about I take you to see the treasure tomorrow morning?"

Xiao Ai nodded in relief and said, "Okay, I'll just look forward to it reluctantly... But this is the treasure left by the owner of Henry Castle. Wouldn't it be a bad idea for us to get there first?"

"Don't worry, because this treasure cannot be taken away." Winnet gave a mysterious smile.

"I can't take it away..."

Xiao Ai murmured and stopped asking. Compared with the treasure itself, she liked the unknown expectation of what Winnett prepared for her. As for what the treasure was, her curiosity was not urgent enough.

"By the way, who solved the puzzle first, you or Edogawa?"

Seeing that Winnet was confident, Ai mentioned Conan.

"He," Winnett said after thinking for a moment, "his attention should be on something else now."