Detective Conan: Birth of the Demon Child

Next to the elevator in the department store, there lay the body of a middle-aged man in a brown coat, clutching a torn file folder tightly in his hand, with a bloodstained kitchen knife beside him.

Beep~woo~~Beep~woo~~Beep~woo~~

After receiving the emergency call from the building manager, Inspector Megure immediately led his team to the scene.

Inspector Megure walked to the victim's body, stared at the blood-stained abdomen for a while, and stroked his chin, saying, "A cleaver stabbed into the abdomen, one fatal blow. But to kill someone with a cleaver in a place like this, it must be an impulsive killing!"

With so many customers in the department store, it would be easy for other customers to spot the murderer.

If it weren't for the sudden power outage, the murderer would probably have been exposed long ago. No normal person would choose to kill someone in a place like this.

"Inspector Megure, the murdered man's name is Katsunori Nakajo, and he is 43 years old."

Officer Takagi, who was in charge of collecting information, reported in a serious tone: "According to his business card, he runs a detective agency."

"A detective? But what do these three symbols mean? A circle, a cross, and a triangle?"

Inspector Megure noticed three distinctive symbols written in blood on the torn document bag in the victim's hand, and frowned slightly.

"I think these three symbols must be a message left by the deceased before their death!"

A childish voice suddenly rang out, and Inspector Megure was surprised to find that Conan had appeared out of nowhere.

Inspector Megure asked instinctively, "Conan... what are you doing here?"

"Inspector Megure, we were eating at that coffee shop when we heard someone scream over here, so we all rushed over."

"us?"

Inspector Megure looked in the direction Conan was pointing, and when he saw Suzuki Haruaki and his group, he immediately showed a helpless expression.

Aside from Ms. Jodie, the rest of the victims were all familiar faces at the murder scene, making Inspector Megure increasingly certain that Kogoro Mouri's bad luck was contagious.

Otherwise, there is no way to explain why Ran Mouri and her friends gradually became frequent visitors to crime scenes.

"what?"

Ms. Judy walked over to Inspector Megure's side and looked at the three patterns on the file bag, saying, "I feel like I've seen these three codes somewhere before."

"Really?!"

Upon hearing this, Conan and his friends immediately asked expectantly, "Ms. Jodie, where have you seen these patterns before?"

"Um……"

Ms. Judy pondered for a moment, then suddenly her eyes lit up and she said, "I remember now, there are these three patterns on the remote control of the game console!"

(?--)

Upon hearing this, everyone fell silent.

Inspector Megure and the others had almost forgotten that Ms. Jodie was a die-hard gamer!

The last time Inspector Megure and his team met Ms. Jodie was at the arcade.

Just as Inspector Megure and his team were speechless, a forensic officer suddenly walked over with the victim's phone: "Officer, there was a call record on the victim's phone from thirty minutes ago."

"Thirty minutes ago? Wasn't that right when the incident occurred?"

Upon hearing this, Inspector Megure's expression changed slightly. He quickly took the victim's phone and pressed the redial button.

"Drip drip..."

As Inspector Megure pressed the redial button, a rapid ringtone suddenly sounded among the onlookers.

Inspector Megure and his team looked in the direction the phone was ringing and saw a middle-aged man in a black suit frantically pull out his phone and hurriedly hang up.

"Sir, what is your relationship with the deceased? What did you say to the deceased on the phone thirty minutes ago? Where were you at that time?"

Upon seeing this, Inspector Megure immediately led Inspector Takagi and the others to surround the suspicious middle-aged man.

Chapter 388 The Detective Who Brings His Own Fault

"You...you guys, don't look at me like that. I'm really not the murderer. I'll confess to everything..."

Faced with the scrutinizing gazes of Inspector Megure and his team, the middle-aged man was powerless to resist and hurriedly told them everything he knew.

The middle-aged man in front of me is named Saburo Yamashita, and he is the general manager's secretary at Tsunemoto Company.

Last month, the general manager discovered that the company's reserve fund had been secretly misappropriated. In order to find the culprit, the general manager ordered Saburo Yamashita to investigate the matter secretly.

Therefore, Saburo Yamashita found the detective Katsunori Nakajo and asked him to help find the embezzler.

The building where Suzuki Haruaki and his group were located had floors eight through eleven belonging to Toshomoto Company, so Yamashita Saburo invited Nakajo Katsunori to meet him at a nearby coffee shop.

As per the agreement previously made by Saburo Yamashita and the others, Katsunori Nakajo would hand over the evidence of the crime to him as soon as he found it, and then he would pay the remaining balance to Katsunori Nakajo.

However, what Yamashita Saburo didn't expect was that Nakajo Katsunori not only lacked professional ethics, but was also extremely greedy.

After finding evidence of the criminal's crime, Katsunori Nakajo did not immediately hand it over to Saburo Yamashita. Instead, he went to find the criminal who had embezzled public funds.

When the embezzler learned that his crime had been exposed, he wanted to pay double the price to buy back the evidence of his crime.

The greedy Nakajo Katsunori was still not satisfied. He then called Yamashita Saburo and told him that the criminals were planning to pay double the price to buy out the evidence.

Because Saburo Yamashita had already boasted to his superior that he would definitely catch the embezzler today, he immediately quadrupled the commission fee after receiving Saburo Yamashita's call.

Although Nakajo Katsunori was greedy, he wasn't a fool.

If Katsuyuki Nakajo chooses to make a deal with criminals, he might be able to earn more money in the short term, but in the long run, it would be a very unprofitable thing.

First of all, the money of those criminals is often stolen money, which can easily bring unnecessary trouble to Katsunori Nakajo.

Secondly, choosing to make deals with criminals in order to earn more commissions will only damage Katsunori Nakajo's reputation, and gradually no one will commission him anymore.

Therefore, from the very beginning, Katsunori Nakajo never really wanted to make a deal with the criminal. He just wanted to use the criminal's offer as an excuse to force the client to raise the commission fee!

Unfortunately, Nakajo Katsuyuki forgot one principle: when cornered, a dog will jump over the wall!

Upon learning that the evidence of his crime was in the hands of Katsunori Nakajo, and that he was about to hand it over to Saburo Yamashita, the embezzler ultimately chose to take the risk.

Nakajo Katsunori never expected that the criminal would dare to kill someone in public, and was caught off guard when he was stabbed in the abdomen with a kitchen knife.

Despite Katsunori Nakajo's desperate resistance, the criminal managed to steal the incriminating evidence from the file folder, leaving only a torn file folder behind.

"In that case, the murderer who killed Mr. Nakajo must be the employee who embezzled your company's funds."

After learning the whole story from Saburo Yamashita, Inspector Megure couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Yamashita, do you have any suspects? There shouldn't be too many people in your company who could embezzle company funds, right?"

According to Inspector Megure's thinking, if an employee could embezzle company funds, they must at least be a mid-to-high-level employee, thus eliminating a large number of suspects.

“Well… actually, about a week ago, Mr. Nakajo gave me a list of employees in our company who were suspected of embezzling company funds.”

After finishing his sentence, Saburo Yamashita took out a list from his briefcase and handed it to Inspector Megure: "This is the list he gave me. There are fifty-eight names on it."

"Fifty-eight people?!"

Upon hearing this, Inspector Megure and the others twitched at the corners of their mouths, all showing speechless expressions.

"This detective is such a rip-off!"

Suzuki Haruaki couldn't help but complain, "Fifty-eight suspects? Did he write down the names of all your company's employees on this list?"

Listening to Suzuki Seimei's complaints, Conan and Ran couldn't help but shake their heads.

I have to say, Katsunori Nakajo is really a terrible player!

Perhaps because it was the first time Saburo Yamashita had hired a private detective, he was unfamiliar with the private detective industry and was therefore easily fooled by Katsunori Nakajo.

For example, the list of suspects that Saburo Yamashita presented contained a total of fifty-eight suspects, which looked impressive, but was actually just a way to fool laymen.

Keep in mind that the total number of employees at Changben Company is only a little over three hundred.

Excluding cleaning staff, security personnel, and low-level employees who had no access to the company's reserve funds, there are at most only a few dozen suspects remaining.

Therefore, the list of suspects that Katsunori Nakajo gave to Saburo Yamashita was practically useless; anyone could easily obtain a similar list by conducting an investigation.

If a professional detective like Katsunori Nakajo really wanted to give Saburo Yamashita a list of suspects, the list would not contain more than five people.

Considering that Nakajo Katsunori raised the price after finding evidence of the crime, Suzuki Haruaki has reason to suspect that he deliberately withheld a useful list of suspects from Yamashita Saburo in order to prevent Yamashita Saburo from finding the real criminals, so that he could not raise the price further.

To some extent, Nakajo Katsunori's tragic murder was entirely his own fault.

If Nakajo Katsunori hadn't been planning to extort money, he could have told Yamashita Saburo the criminal's name beforehand when he called him, and then handed over the evidence to Yamashita Saburo when they met.

If Katsutoshi Nakajo had told Saburo Yamashita the criminal's name beforehand, even if the criminal was driven to desperation, he would at most choose to flee the country or simply surrender, rather than risk killing someone.

However, in order to better negotiate a higher price, Nakajo Katsunori not only did not tell anyone the criminal's name, but also only prepared one original copy of the criminal evidence. Wasn't that forcing the criminal to kill him to silence him?

Nakajo Katsunori's tragic death at the hands of the murderer may evoke some sympathy, but it was not entirely unjust.

A detective like Katsunori Nakajo, who lacks professional ethics, will eventually die at the hands of other criminals, even if he doesn't die at their hands this time.

Chapter 389 Don't Write Halfway Through

"Uncle, I advise you to find a reliable detective next time you need help!"

Suzuki Seimei patted Yamashita Saburo's thigh with some sympathy, then turned to Mouri Ran and said, "Ran-neechan, you should have Uncle Mouri's business card, right? Why don't you give one to him? So he won't be deceived by those unscrupulous detectives again."

"it is good."

Upon hearing this, Ran Mouri quickly took out a business card of Kogoro Mouri from her bag and handed it to Saburo Yamashita.

"Moori Kogoro?!"

Saburo Yamashita instinctively took the business card from Ran Mouri, then his eyes widened suddenly and he exclaimed, "Could it be that your father is the famous detective, the Sleeping Kogoro Mouri?"

Ran Mouri said with a proud look, "That's right! My dad is indeed called the Sleeping Kogoro Mouri by other people."

Sonoko sighed in agreement, "It's a pity Uncle didn't come today, otherwise he would have been able to decipher the message left by the deceased in no time."

Hehe~

Upon hearing this, Conan's lips twitched slightly, and he silently rolled his eyes.

That idiot uncle became a famous detective entirely thanks to me, okay?

"Inspector Megure..."

Looking at the list of suspects in Inspector Megure's hand, Officer Takagi's expression also turned grim.