Maori Kogoro began to understand everything

"He's the criminal who started a series of arson incidents in various places in Tokyo at the beginning of this year," Xiaolan said with some concern, "There have been three incidents so far..."

Kazuha also started to worry: "Why does it seem like something happens every day in Tokyo?"

"No one was hurt in the house that was set on fire,"

Mao Li took a sip of wine and said solemnly, "But the strange thing is that although the method is different each time, a red toy horse with blood-red purple and black all over its body is left at the scene!"

"Red Horse?"

Hattori became more and more interested and said, "No wonder, in the jargon, red horse means arsonist, which means the murderer deliberately placed the red horse at the scene to mock the police?"

"That's not clear. According to the three families, they don't remember buying or getting such a horse. It's probably right that it was left by the arsonist," Mao Li shook his head and sighed, "What red horse? Why didn't such a thing happen when I was a policeman? What a world..."

"I watched the news about the arson case," Conan explained, "but the three cases are not closely related. The three families have nothing in common except that they are all residents of Tokyo. The locations of the three cases are also very scattered. One is in Rishin-cho 1-chome, one is in Toriya-cho 2-chome, and the other is in Okuho-cho 3-chome..."

"Isn't this related?" Hattori said with a smile, "Then it should be 4th chome somewhere. A suspicious figure just happened to appear in Haido 4th chome. Anyway, there is nothing to do these few days. How about we go and take a look tomorrow?"

……

The next day it rained again, and the weather didn't clear up until the afternoon. After the rain stopped in the afternoon, Ai, Conan, and Hattori went to Kaido-cho 3-chome separately from the two girls.

I guess Hattori wanted to compete with Conan, and Ai was just dragged over to make up the numbers...

It was almost 9 o'clock in the evening, and Mao Li had just returned to the office when he received a call from Hattori.

The fourth fire occurred, this time at the Morokado family in Haido 4-chome, where a woman was killed. This was the family that Conan and his team were originally going to investigate.

"Please, you all knew something might have happened over there and you went there to investigate, so how could it turn out like this?" Maori wondered.

"What can I do?" Hattori complained, "When we arrived, the woman suddenly said that she was suspicious and sent us away..."

"You really left?"

"What else could we do? We stayed outside to monitor for a while, but there was nothing suspicious. Who knew that a fire would break out right after we left?"

Hattori looked solemnly at the fire that was still burning fiercely despite the efforts of the firefighters.

"Anyway, this is what happened. I'm a little worried about He Ye and the others. Could you please keep an eye on them, uncle?"

"I see."

Maori hung up the phone. He believed in Conan and Hattori's abilities and believed that they would be able to solve this arson case sooner or later.

……

"Hoohoo."

In Beika-5-chome, a fat man with round glasses and a middle-parted hair was leaning on the side of the street, panting. He was wearing a loose suit and a black leather bag on his shoulder. His fat face looked a little silly, and he looked like a cowardly salesman.

The fat man wiped his sweat and looked at both sides of the street with some despair. He anxiously noticed Maori and Ai walking towards him.

"You, you are Detective Maori?" As if he had grabbed a life-saving straw after encountering a rain in the desert, the fat man rushed to Maori in surprise, "Can you do me a favor? I want to find two girls..."

Mao Li looked at the fat man who suddenly rushed out with a headache: "Sorry, um...are you in a hurry?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Without waiting for Maori to refuse, the fat man hurriedly took out a key chain wrapped in a small box and said, "I will pay the commission fee. Please find the other party quickly. They are two high school girls who bought a lot of things. At around five o'clock, they took the bus from Shibuya to Rizen-cho to go home. They said they lived in Beika Go-chome. I gave them a key chain..."

"Sir," Mao Li interrupted the trembling fat man and asked cautiously, "Why are you looking for two high school students?"

A little after five, a bus from Shibuya back to Beido-machi, shopping, high school girls, Beika-cho 5-chome... It doesn't seem too hard to find, Xiaolan and Kazuha fit the bill...

However, this fat man who suddenly appeared was too suspicious. Is there still such a disgusting uncle now? He actually found him openly. He was very brave.

The fat man paused and looked at Maori as if he was stuck.

"No, no, I'm not a bad person, it's just..."

"Really?" Maori's face became even darker.

At the scene of the fire, after two hours of fighting by firefighters, the fire was finally put out and did not spread. However, the hostess of the Morokaku family, Morokaku Ryoko, lost her life, making the fire seem a little heavy.

Conan and several other police officers found the scene and tried to find out more about the fire.

"Please," Hattori pleaded, "Can you let us go into the fire scene and take a look?"

"No, no, no!"

"Then you can tell us where the fire started..."

"Yes, just a little information..."

"It's really not possible," the police officer said with a bitter face, "No matter what you say, it's not possible."

An older police officer with a full beard saw the dispute and walked over with a cigarette in his mouth: "Hey, kid, could you be Hattori Heiji, the son of Chief Hattori?"

"what?"

Hattori turned around confusedly, "You are..."

"I am the archer of the arson investigation team of the Metropolitan Police Department's First Investigation Division. As for this fire, it must have been arson."

Officer Yuminagi confirmed, "The red horse that appeared at the scene was made from the same model as the previous three arson cases, and it is not available on the market... 1st chome, 2nd chome, 3rd chome, and now 4th chome. That guy set the fires in that order. Now he must be laughing at us police officers. However, unlike the previous ones, this time someone died, so it won't be so easy to resolve."

……

"What? You said you could set a fire?!"

At the Mori Detective Agency, Mori and Xiaolan are interrogating the cowardly middle-aged man Takanori Genda face to face.

“Yes, I’m sorry!” The cowardly middle-aged man lowered his head with tears in his eyes. “I’m really sorry! I just want that key chain back, otherwise… there will definitely be a fire, and I will even set another fire because of that key chain…”

"Well……"

Looking at the fat man who was crying, Xiaolan and Kazuha looked at each other in confusion, and finally looked at Maori together.

"Mr. Genda," Maori picked up the keychain with Guan Yu and Red Hare pendants and asked after a moment of silence, "Are you saying that you made the keychains left at the scene of the previous fires? Why would you do such a thing?"

"I don't know, I really don't know anything!" Xuantian cried and hugged his head, "There is another me in my body. He must have set the fire when I was unconscious. This is Go-chome. If the keychain was here, he would definitely do something else. Please..."

Maori was speechless.

"The keychain cannot be returned to you for the time being, but we have notified the police and they will take you away immediately... Mr. Xuantian, maybe you should go to the hospital..."

"I've been there. I had sleepwalking when I was a child, and it seems to have recurred recently," Xuantian wiped away his tears, "I've gone to see a psychiatrist several times, but it's no use..."

Maori frowned and looked at Genda who had quieted down.

The arsonist was caught so quickly, and he admitted his crime... Although the sleepwalking theory seems a bit unreliable, there is no other explanation for the time being, so we can only leave it to the police to investigate.

Soon the police came to the Maori Detective Agency and took away Genda, and also took away Guan Yu's key chain as evidence.

"Dad," Xiaolan and her partner silently watched the police car go away, feeling a little uncomfortable, "Is that uncle really an arsonist? On the bus coming back today, he saw us carrying a bunch of things and gave up his seat for us. Now he's running here to get his keychain back with great effort..."

"Who knows if he wants to find out the target location of the fire first?" Mao Li retracted his gaze and said, "Well, now that the arsonist has been caught, we should go back..."

In fact, he also had a lot of doubts in his mind.

First of all, why did Genda rush to find Xiaolan and Kazuha at night, and even came to him, a famous detective? His anxious look did not seem fake.

And I just happened to come here after a fire broke out in Haido 4-chome...

I remember the bus route from Shibuya back to Beihua, it seemed to be Shibuya to Beihua to Lizencho...

Rizen-cho?

Maori walked downstairs to the Maori Detective Agency and suddenly stopped.

……

At the Metropolitan Police Department, after making a phone call, Maori followed an old acquaintance, Officer Sato, who happened to pass by, into the building.

"You're going to the arson search team?" Sato asked curiously as he led the way. "I've heard about the arsonist, too. Didn't they say they've caught the criminal?"

"Yes, I called the police and the other party turned himself in, but... I still feel like there are still some issues."

Maori glanced around and occasionally felt that fierce gazes were all staring at him. When he looked in the direction he saw a middle-aged policeman with gritted teeth.

What's going on with these people? Aren't they just getting closer to Officer Sato?

Maori followed Sato somewhat perplexed, and only felt better when he found the arsonist search team.

Hattori and several others followed Officer Yuminaga in the room to discuss the case. There were many evidences on the table.

"Xuantian still can't say anything," Officer Gongchang pointed at several burned red horses and said, "However, these red horses left at the arson scene are indeed the red rabbit horse on the keychain. According to what you said, Xuantian not only visited the victim, but also wandered around before the fire, so..."

Officer Yumio was lost in thought when he suddenly saw Hattori and Conan tampering with the evidence. He quickly shouted, "Hey, I got all this evidence from the laboratory with great difficulty. Be careful!"

Hattori picked up the toy horse from the first case: "This horse still has the Red Hare base, with the word 'rabbit' on it... Why is this horse the only one that was burnt?"

Chapter 158: The Exploited Prisoner

Mao Li just happened to enter the room and took the initiative to ask, "Could it be that the base of the Red Hare was torn off by the arsonist?"

"Uncle?"

Conan and the others were shocked when they heard this, but Officer Yumiya was very calm: "Mori had contact with Genda, so I also found him."

Hattori frowned: "What do you mean by tearing off the base?"

"If they all have bases, they might be discovered to be Red Hare, and it would be easy to suspect Mr. Xuantian who was handing out Guan Yu keychains as promotional gifts everywhere..."

Maori sat down next to him.

"I have already asked Mr. Genda at the antique shop in Haido-cho. There is something very strange. Mr. Genda has been distributing product descriptions and gift key chains near the antique shop since morning. However, due to the bad reviews before, the key chains sent out today have actually been replaced with lucky cats..."

"What's so weird about this?"

Hattori was stunned and said, "Maybe he took the wrong one..."

"That's the problem. The pendant is in a box, so it's not surprising that it gets mixed up. So when I came here just now, I studied the route of Mr. Xuantian's activities today."

Maori spread a bus map out on the table and pointed out the red markings.

"Mr. Genda first distributed key chains in the area around the Morokaku family, right?"

"Well..." Conan nodded carefully, "We did see him handing out key chains and product catalogs to Mrs. Morokaku at the Morokaku's house, and he was kicked out by Mrs. Morokaku..."

"Then around 5pm, Mr. Genda went back to the antique shop to take a look. Later, Xiaolan and the others met Mr. Genda on the bus," Maori continued, "It was around 5pm, and Mr. Genda should have been taking the bus back to his home in Rishon Town..."

"Come to think of it, the bus did pass through Haido, Beihua, and Rizen-cho... but then why did he go to the Morokaku family and set fire to them?"

"Wait," Hattori looked at the route map drawn by Maori, thought for a while, and his expression suddenly changed, "The reason why Mr. Genda went to the Morokaku family again was probably not to set the fire, but because he found that he had sent the wrong keychain and wanted to recycle it... So after the fire happened, he hurried to Go-chome to find Kazuha and the others..."

Officer Yumio frowned, lit a cigarette and said, "He looks very similar to the Xuantian I know... In fact, when the fire first broke out, we also suspected Xuantian at one point, but I don't think he's the kind of person who would set a fire."

"Was it during the first Rizen arson incident?"

"Well, he was among the crowd watching the excitement. He was looking at the flames and talking to himself strangely, muttering about his father..."

Under the gaze of everyone, Gong Chang exhaled a long puff of smoke and fell into memories.

"That guy's father was a firefighter. When he was in elementary school, he was killed in a fire while trying to save people trapped in a sea of ​​fire. So we thought that maybe Genda set the fire because he missed his father. He might have imagined that his father would come rushing over if there was a fire..."

"If his sleepwalking is serious, then his story of setting the fire himself could be true...but why did the police allow the situation to continue?"

"That's because there's really no evidence to be found, and... he's not the type of person who would set fire to someone else's house. He's not that type of person," Gong Chang said, looking tired. He shook his head and stood up to leave the room. "That's impossible. I'll go ask him again."

"Mr. Gongchang..."

Hattori turned his eyes away from the route map and watched Yumachi leave in confusion: "What happened to him?"

"I also think that Mr. Genda is not the arsonist," Mao Li gently picked up the first burnt Akama, "We can't let this end like this."

……

At the Maori Detective Agency, it was almost 11 o'clock. Ai, Ran, and Kazuha had already taken a shower, changed into pajamas, and were ready to go to bed.

"Right? Whenever there's a case, that bastard Heiji never stops talking and forgets everything..."

After brushing her teeth, He Ye let her hair down and started complaining together in Xiaolan's room.

"We agreed to go to Tropical Paradise together tomorrow. Don't you want to come back today?"

"It's so late now," Xiaolan looked out the window worriedly, "Dad and the others always take Conan running around..."

"But," He Ye sat cross-legged on the bed and packed up the shopping bags, "that uncle has already turned himself in, what else is there to investigate?"

"There must be something going on..."

"I don't mind him investigating the case, but," He Ye puffed up his cheeks and picked up a T-shirt, "I even bought him a T-shirt that looks very suitable for him..."

"Okay, okay," Xiaolan said with a smile, "Just show it to him tomorrow."

Kazuha blushed slightly: "What did you buy for Kudo?"

"No, no, I already knitted a sweater for him last time, so this time I only bought some things for Dad, Conan, and Ai..."