Maori Kogoro began to understand everything

"Eh?" Shitara Renxi's body tensed up and she laughed dryly, "How is this possible?"

"But according to the beginning of their English names, Gensaburo and the others are named defg, followed by h, which means you, Ms. Renxi..."

"It should just be a coincidence, not a deduction..."

Shitele Lianxi prayed secretly.

"Miss," the housekeeper suddenly frowned, "what are we going to do about the Requiem tonight?"

"Requiem?"

"It's a tradition of our Shitara family," Shitara Renxi shook off the distracting thoughts in her mind, "Every time a relative dies, family members will help play the requiem..."

"Last year, it was Mr. Gensaburo who played it. This time, I'm afraid the master and the mistress won't be able to play it given their conditions..." The housekeeper looked at Shitara Renki thoughtfully.

"No!" Shitara Renxi shuddered and waved her hands hurriedly, "I, I can't do it! I..."

Yuga Kyosuke looked at the timid Shitara Renki with amusement, shook his head and said with a smile: "Then let me do it, and it will be a good opportunity for the guests to listen. Yuga Kyosuke's live performance is very rare..."

Mao Li felt Yuga Kyosuke's gaze, nodded slightly and smiled, "Indeed, Mr. Kyosuke didn't play it on the boat the day before yesterday."

"But, Master Xiangfu," the housekeeper said, "most of the musical instruments were stored in the annex and burned. The only ones left are the piano in the lady's room and the one in the storage room..."

"Don't," Yuga Kyosuke said with a wry smile, "Forget about the Stradivarius. My hands will tremble. Besides, Aunt Ayane will be unhappy if I take that violin out."

Upon hearing this, Shitara Renxi said, "Then use my violin. I brought it here when we were practicing before..."

"No," Yuga Kyosuke said as he opened the door. "I'll go get the violin I'm used to playing in the car. Although it's not as good as the famous violins made 300 years ago, it's the only thing my father left me, so the sound quality is still guaranteed..."

Xiaolan looked at Yuga Kyosuke in confusion as he left: "He said Aunt Ayane was unhappy. Wasn't he originally planning to play the piano today?"

"Because the lady seems to have confused her son Jiangren with the zither. The last time the lady saw the young master Jiangren was when he played the zither in front of the master and the lady, so..."

The housekeeper looked at the pendulum clock and the pointer was approaching 12 o'clock.

"Since that day, every night when the clock strikes 12, Madam would take the piano out of the storage room and lock herself in the room to play with it..."

"Touch, caress?"

Xiaolan couldn't help but shiver when she thought of the fat lady who was like a crazy person.

"Does your master know?"

"You should know, because the storage room is right between the master's and the mistress's rooms, and they are connected..."

Maori stood silently by the window, looking down through the window as Yuga Kyosuke returned to the main building with a guitar case.

A famous violin that was unsealed 30 years later, a murder that occurred on the same day every year, the victims all played or had played a Stradivarius, and the first letters of their names were coincidentally in order.

This musical family seems to be hiding some secrets. What happened 30 years ago may not be what Renki Shitara knows...

"when!"

At twelve o'clock midnight, the clock struck on time. Yuga Kyosuke took out his violin, opened the window completely, stood still and held the violin. His originally casual temperament immediately became calm and he caught everyone's attention at once.

"Then please enjoy it," Yuga Kyosuke gently plucked the strings, "This is the second movement of the Requiem K626 composed by the musician Mozart..."

The melodious sound of the violin spread along with the evening breeze, smoothly without any noise. To Maori, no matter what song it was, when played on the violin, it seemed to have a feeling of "sadness" and "coldness". However, playing the Requiem was very suitable for the current environment.

The long and graceful piano music made my pores seem to open up...

Shitara Renxi admired him and said, "Uncle Kyosuke's violin is the first-class graduate of a German music university. In addition, he has absolute pitch. There is no one in Japan with more potential than him..."

"Uh."

Maori thought about it and realized that there were indeed not many people who possessed absolute pitch. It was also new to Hanega Kyosuke that absolute pitch was usually just a legendary ability, not only for musicians but also for detectives.

"Crack!"

Mixed in with the melody, there seemed to be the subtle sounds of moving chairs and opening windows...

Where did the sound come from?

Maori's ears twitched, he glanced at Yuga Kyosuke, then turned around to look at the housekeeper who was pushing a snack cart into the house. Before he could think about it, there was a sudden muffled sound outside. Conan and others who were attracted by the sound looked out the window and exclaimed at the same time.

"Bang!" Accompanied by the violin music of Requiem, a fat figure with round eyes fell past the window and suddenly fell to the ground with a loud bang.

"That was just now?!"

Mao Li's eyes narrowed as he looked at the bloody scene at the basement of the building: "It's old lady Ayane!"

"Grandma?!" Renxi Shitara almost fainted. She turned her head away in fear and burst into tears in the arms of Kyosuke Yuga.

Yuga Kyosuke quickly put down his violin and shouted to the housekeeper, "Call an ambulance!"

Downstairs in the main building, Maori rushed to the scene as soon as possible. Although he only took a look at the second floor, judging from the amount of blood and the way she was injured, there was almost no possibility that the Fat Lady would survive.

In fact, just as he judged, the Fat Lady was completely dead.

Standing next to the corpse, Maori looked up.

Renki Shitara's room is on the second floor. The room on the third floor above seems to be where the Fat Lady fell. The window is open and the lights are still on. Conan seems to have been taken upstairs by the housekeeper and he even stood on tiptoe and stuck his head out of the window.

Maori felt relieved. Conan was familiar with this kind of thing and knew to run to the scene as soon as possible.

"There are no signs of fighting on the body," Maori concentrated on examining the condition of the fat lady's body. "The fatal injury is on the head. Other than fractures, there are no obvious abrasions. We have to wait for the police to arrive for the details..."

"Does that mean he jumped off the building himself?"

Xiaolan said a little scared.

"It's also possible that he was pushed down, but..."

Maori looked at the Fat Lady's bare feet and thought of the sounds of a chair being moved and a window opening that he had heard before the accident.

If I heard correctly, it should all come from the Fat Lady.

It's really strange to hear these noises in the sound of the violin...

Maori put his hands on his chest and looked around the corpse.

There was a small piece of wood and a small pointed object on the clean stone floor, but nothing else.

I picked up the piece of wood with a handkerchief and took a look at it. I found that it looked like a bridge part of a violin, but as for the pointed object, I couldn't tell what it was.

But what was going on? He clearly felt that Yuga Kyosuke was the murderer, but at that time Yuga Kyosuke was just playing the Requiem in front of the window. Was there something strange about the music?

In the Fat Lady's bedroom on the third floor, Maori asked Xiaolan to watch over the body and followed a maid in. Conan was still thinking inside.

The room is very simple. You can see an open window as you enter the door, and the curtains on both sides are fluttering in the wind.

There was a chair under the window, and a pair of slippers next to it.

In front of the bed on the other side, there was a broken violin lying on the ground, the strings were broken, the bridge fell to the side, and even the whole violin was separated, revealing the sound cavity inside.

“Is this a Stradivarius?”

"No," Conan interrupted, "I think this is just a replica. Uncle, look at the signature inside. It says GA. If it was made by Antonio Stradivari, the initials should be AS, right?"

"You know it very well."

Maori's eyes swept over the obvious scratches on the table.

"So, Mrs. Ayane broke the violin herself?"

"That's right," Conan said, holding his chin up. "The room was locked from the inside, and only the housekeeper had the key to open the door. From this point of view, the old lady was the only one in the room at that time..."

Maori walked to a door on the right side of the room, "Is this the door to the storage room?"

"That door is also locked from this side," Conan shook his head. "Although I am reluctant to accept this, it seems that this is an absolute secret room..."

"Conan! Dad!" Xiaolan shouted from outside, "Inspector Megure and the others are here!"

……

Shitara Family Garden.

"First there was a fire, and a few hours later someone committed suicide by jumping from the third floor..." Officer Megure glanced at Maori with his beard trembling, "You really are worthy of being the god of death, Detective Maori..."

"It's just a coincidence, an accident happened to happen."

Mao Li emphasized, "Besides, no matter where you go, you will be involved in criminal cases. This is the fate of a famous detective..."

"That's why I want you to stay at home."

"Inspector Megure, compared to this kind of thing,"

Mao Li nodded to the police officers who were guarding the evidence at the scene and carrying away the body, and approached the scene and asked, "Did you find anything?"

"Nothing much has been discovered, and we are still unsure of the motive behind Ms. Ayane's suicide..."

Maori looked at Inspector Megure in confusion and didn't respond.

It was obvious that the police would rule it suicide, as even he couldn't solve the mystery of the Fat Lady's jumping off the building.

He always felt that Yuga Kyosuke was the most suspicious, not only because of his background, but also because there were some problems in the first fire.

But Yuga Kyosuke risked his life to save the Fat Lady, which didn't seem fake at all. Subjectively, he didn't want this musical genius to be the murderer...

Maori waited for Inspector Megure and his team to investigate with a complicated expression, and soon followed them back to the Fat Lady's room on the third floor, where forensic personnel started collecting evidence at the scene.

"The door here was locked at the time of the crime," Mao Li explained, "and the door of the storage room was also locked from the inside. Only the window was open..."

Officer Megure stood with his hands behind his back and pondered, "There were no signs of a struggle at the scene, and no signs of anyone climbing outside the window..."

"If someone really invades, we can only hang them down from above."

Maori stood by the window for a while, and took advantage of the police's investigation to observe the room again.

The broken Stradivari replica is still there...

"It is indeed a replica," Yuga Kyosuke picked up the broken violin and observed, "There have been many replicas famous for imitating Stradivari, and there are countless makers..."

Officer Megure also noticed this and looked at Yuga Kyosuke in surprise: "Who is this?"

"It was Mr. Kyosuke whom I mentioned," Maori introduced. "At that time, we were all in the room downstairs listening to Mr. Kyosuke playing the Requiem, and then we saw Mrs. Ayane fall out of the window..."

"But I really don't understand," Officer Megure frowned, "Why did he smash the replica? And why did he jump off the building to commit suicide..."

Xiaolan guessed: "Maybe he thought it was the real thing all along, and suddenly found out he was cheated and got angry..."

"That's impossible," the housekeeper interrupted directly, "The master specially took the authentic piece to be appraised, and there is an appraisal mark on it...but the case placed here is real."

Old man Choichiro, who was wearing pajamas, held the violin and said, "The real one is right here, hidden behind the curtain at the head of the bed... That guy Xuanyin really didn't take good care of it."

"Uncle, can you let me take a look?" Yuga Kyosuke took the violin from the old man and looked into the cavity. "The label is indeed Antonio Stradivari's. This one should be authentic. Otherwise, I can play a song and it will be easy to tell the difference after playing it..."

"That's not necessary," Officer Megure wiped his sweat secretly, "I see these violins all look the same, it doesn't matter whether they are authentic or not, it's just that the instruments ..."

"It doesn't matter?"

Maori looked at Officer Megure helplessly, "Inspector, don't you know? The Stradivarius is a famous violin worth hundreds of millions of yen, and the old lady has always regarded this violin as a substitute for her son."

"That's right."

Inspector Megure said with sweat dripping down his face, "So the old lady committed suicide because she took the wrong violin..."

"No!" Conan interrupted anxiously, "I checked the bed when I asked the housekeeper to open the door. There was nothing there. Someone must have secretly replaced the Stradivarius with a replica and put it back after the incident, just after we left this room! Right, Uncle Maori?"

"That's right. Officer Megure, we went downstairs when you guys came. There was no one watching here at that time..."

"In that case, let's investigate the fingerprints on it."

Mr. Choichiro stroked the Stradivari and said, "However, as someone who can enter and leave the storage room freely, the piano is already covered with my fingerprints..."

"I have quite a few too," Yuga Kyosuke looked at Maori and said, "Yesterday at noon, I stayed in this room to tune the Stradivarius in preparation for the birthday party tonight..."

Chapter 152 The Truth

"Here?" Officer Megure asked in surprise.

"Yes, this is next to the storage room, and there's a piano here to help with tuning," Yuga Kyosuke looked at his niece who was still in a low mood, "After tuning, I called Renxi who was going to perform in the evening and gave her the piano..."

Shitara Renki nodded: "That's what happened at the time, so there are my fingerprints on it, because I wanted to hear how the instrument sounded after tuning, so I immediately took it out of the case and played it..."

"What about the others then?"

"I'm the only one here. Uncle Xiangfu is out. Grandma said that it would be fine if we didn't disturb him while he was tuning..."

Shitara Renki turned around and looked at Maori.

"Then at night, after showing it to Mr. Maori and the others, the annex happened to catch fire, so Butler Hongsheng took the Stradivarius back to the storage room..."

Officer Megure glanced at Mr. Choichiro and the others and said, "In this case, the four of you have the opportunity to secretly swap the violins."

"Officer," several forensic personnel reported, "We found the deceased's toe prints on the windowsill and the chair, but there was only one foot on the windowsill. It seems that he jumped directly from the windowsill..."