Maori Kogoro began to understand everything

That day, Maori had just gone to Gunma Prefecture to do some business. On his way back to Tokyo, he heard that an unidentified body was found in a forest.

Aoiya Ryokan.

Maori, Xiaolan and Haibara checked in to stay, and before they could ask any more questions, they heard the staff talking about the corpse.

An employee was picking wild vegetables in a nearby forest when he accidentally discovered a corpse wearing a red coat that had turned into a pile of bones. He immediately reported the case to the police.

In the past few days, the police have specially called employees to the police station for questioning.

"The boss said he had seen the man in the red coat before," a male employee said privately, "It seems that the man came here around October five years ago and said to the boss, 'I'll give you $100,000. Please keep this briefcase and envelope for me. Even if I die in a year, I will come to get them...' Then he left a letter and a briefcase and left..."

Chapter 165: The Fake Detective and the Real Case

"Is this true?" Several female guests felt their hair stand on end and huddled together in fear.

"Of course it's true," the male employee affirmed, "and the man also said that if he came to pick it up himself, he should give the briefcase to him, and if it was someone else, the letter should be given to that person... I heard that the man told the boss not to forget his red jacket and long hair..."

"How can he come back to get things if he's dead?" The girls trembled when they heard the voice.

"It's hard to say. It's for this reason that the boss has asked a famous detective in Tokyo to investigate and solve this mystery."

"A famous detective in Tokyo?"

"I think his name is Maori Kogoro..."

"Kogoro Mori, the famous detective of the Heisei era?"

"Yes, yes, that's him. The boss said that it would be a great thing for our hotel if we could invite him to solve the puzzle..."

"Just give us the cheapest room with two beds."

After Maori checked in, he casually glanced at the staff who were talking, and went to his hotel room amid the puzzled looks of the guests around him.

"Who is that person? He looks familiar..."

"do not know."

"But will the sleeping Kogoro really come? I've never seen a famous detective like that before."

"I think so. Detectives seem to be interested in this kind of thing, and the boss has paid for it...ah, the boss is back!"

"Uragawa! What are you talking about?! Go clean up the bathroom!"

"Yes!"

There was a burst of shouting and the sound of hurried running along the wooden corridor outside the room, but soon everything returned to calm.

"I didn't receive any commission from here. How could someone pretend to be me?"

Maori looked away and stroked his chin.

Maybe this is another murder case, but I don't know why the body was discovered only now, and someone pretending to be me appeared...

Outside the Aoiya Hotel is the forest intersection, which is said to be a very famous suicide forest, but the situation has improved a lot over the years.

Maori sat by the window and looked outside, his ears filled with the chirping of insects and a strong rural atmosphere. After staying in the big city of Tokyo for too long, it was nice to live in a forest like this occasionally. The air was also very fresh.

Of course, after a while, I will definitely not be able to bear it...

"Oh, great detective, you've arrived!" The boss's voice suddenly came from the hotel lobby. "Really, I didn't even notice... By the way, didn't you say on the phone that three people would come over tonight?"

A man in a suit and a mustache stood in front of the counter. "Because I finished the work on hand earlier, I came here first... Where are the things?"

The hotel owner had a square face, wore small glasses, and had a small tuft of beard under his nose. He took out a suitcase with a smile: "This is the briefcase I mentioned to you. I haven't seen the things inside for five years... Because it has been locked, I can't see it even if I want to..."

"No problem, I'll find a way to deal with the lock." The man with a mustache took the suitcase and was about to leave.

"Well," the innkeeper hesitated, "can you open it here?"

"Don't worry," the man with the mustache snorted and laughed, "Once the puzzle is solved, I, Maori Kogoro, will tell you immediately!"

Maori walked through the corridor and looked towards the lobby, only to see a man with a small moustache helping to sign autographs at the request of hotel staff and guests, looking very welcome.

"Who is he?" Maori asked a female employee next to him who was wearing a yukata work uniform.

"Don't you know? I heard it's the famous detective in Tokyo, Maori Kogoro!" The girl asked curiously, "Who are you? You look like him..."

"I'm Kogoro Doji, the resident worker here," Maori smiled, "I've read the report, and that Kogoro Maori doesn't seem to be like this, right?"

"This is specially invited by the boss, there shouldn't be any problem... and didn't they say the great detective has a mustache?" The girl held the autograph board expectantly, "Okay, hurry up and get an autograph, it's rare to have a great detective come to a place like this."

Maori was speechless.

Is it such a happy thing to meet myself? Besides, the little mustache in front of me is not me at all...

Ai walked over to Maori with her hands behind her back and said, "This person disguised himself as you probably for the suitcase. It seems that things are not simple after all."

"Yes."

Maori silently watched the man with a mustache carrying his suitcase back to the guest room. He didn't know what this man was planning, so he just made note of the room.

"Room 209..."

……

In the evening, Officer Yamamura Cao, who was in charge of this area, came to meet Mao Li, so Mao Li talked to him about the case while drinking: "Officer Yamamura, can you tell me more about the unidentified body this time?"

"Oh, that man," Yamamura Cao said in a daze, "Didn't we ask the employee who found the body just now? He said that the employee found it when he came back from a trip to pick wild vegetables... But then again, the deceased had car keys but no driver's license, cigarettes but no lighters... And he died in the summer, but he was wearing a sweater, which is really strange..."

"The deceased's backpack contained fresh milk and red bean bread, which expired in July four years ago. There was also a receipt from a nearby convenience store in his wallet. In addition, the deceased had a rope around his neck and a broken branch tied with the rope beside him...

"These are obvious. The deceased must have hanged himself and then broke the branch. In the past, people would commit suicide in the forest before summer vacation. There's nothing strange about it."

As he was talking, Shancuncao fell asleep on the dining table, which made Maori very upset.

"That's why it's strange," Mao Li rubbed his brows. "First of all, why is he wearing a sweater in summer? He has cigarettes but no lighter. He has car keys but no driver's license..."

"But if he really is someone who wants to commit suicide, who knows what he will be thinking?"

Xiaolan was obviously influenced by the TV series.

"But wasn't the person who pretended to be me called in by the boss to investigate the man in red? How could a person who came here to store his suitcase five years ago in the autumn commit suicide in the summer of the following year?"

Mao Li lit a cigarette and looked back outside the room. "The key should be the suitcase... But that guy is really slow. It's been so long and he hasn't started reasoning yet..."

Xiaolan complained, "Maybe the fake guy has already run away. Wouldn't it be better to go find him just now?"

"They shouldn't have left," Xiao Ai, who had been staring at the window, said quickly, "It seems that no one has left the hotel yet."

Mao Li thought for a moment and stood up: "There is no other way, I will go and test the fake guy again..."

"No, it's bad!" Just as he said that, there was a sudden shouting and noise in the corridor, and the employee Urakawa ran over in a panic, "Mr. Police! Something terrible has happened!"

"What's wrong?" Nakamura asked confusedly, "Has Mr. Mori's reasoning begun?"

"No," several staff members said anxiously, "Detective Maori seems to have hanged himself in the room!"

……

In Room 209, Mao Li followed everyone through the entrance hall and into the living room, where he found the impostor hanging on the beam between the paper doors of the bedroom, with a belt around his neck. His face was terrifying, and his eyes were staring.

There was an overturned Go board at the feet of the corpse, and the coat was thrown aside. As for the briefcase, it was placed on the table under the chandelier, with a key stuck in the briefcase.

He had just come here and knocked on the door not long ago, and the victim responded at that time. The murder should have happened about half an hour ago...

Maori glanced around, then squatted down at the entrance and touched the tatami thoughtfully. He found some wet marks, as if someone had walked in with wet feet.

It's too strange to want to commit suicide. It's very likely that he committed suicide...

"Ah? He's a fake?" The owner of the hotel nearby and his group already knew Maori's true identity and were quite surprised.

"is this real?"

"That's right," Yamamura So affirmed, "That person is just a fake pretending to be Detective Mori, this one is the real famous detective Mr. Mori Kogoro!!"

"So that's it," the staff members realized belatedly, "No wonder I always felt like I'd seen him somewhere!"

"I'm so sorry, because we haven't met you in person, so..."

"Cough, cough, cough!" Maori put his hands behind his back, straightened his chest and coughed heavily a few times, then turned to the briefcase on the table and said, "Let's take a look at what's in this suitcase first. This guy must have some purpose in pretending to be me."

"That's right."

"The key is still in the keyhole."

Yamamura Cao turned the key and opened the suitcase, and found only a sports newspaper with a sumo report on the front page.

Maori looked at the report on the front page with surprise: "This is a newspaper from September five years ago. I remember that this Akagi Maru won for the first time in 18 years, so the report was very detailed. However, he retired four years ago due to a serious injury... Strange, why is there something like this in the briefcase?"

"There seems to be something in the newspaper?"

When Maori was reading the newspaper, Shancun Cao was attracted by some falling black lines. He pulled them in confusion, and suddenly all the black lines fell out.

"Oh my god! It's hair!"

Shancun held the long hair that fell out of the newspaper in horror. Xiaolan behind him screamed in fear, and he hugged Xiaolan tightly in fear.

"What a fuss," Mao Li said calmly, "It's just that some hair was added to the newspaper."

"B-but these hairs are so long!"

Shancun's voice trembled: "Could this murder be the curse of the red-clothed, long-haired man who died four years ago?"

"Hey, hey," Mao Li said speechlessly, "If curses can really kill people, then the police and detectives will have no jobs, right?"

"That's true. Could it be that the man in red and the little mustache who pretended to be Mr. Maori made a bet five years ago based on the development of Akagi Maru in a year, and then the long-haired man gave the key to the little mustache after depositing the box, saying that his answer was in the briefcase and he would come back to open the box a year later..."

"This is a homicide," Mao Li interrupted Nakamura directly and said to the long-haired man, "someone killed the victim in a hurry within half an hour."

"Eh?"

The Yamamura group all looked towards Maori: "He, he was murdered?"

"Look at these hairs," Maori said, grabbing his long hair, "They are of different lengths, some have been permed and dyed, and they feel wet... I'm afraid they were picked up from the bathhouse and stuffed into newspapers. The evidence is the wet footprints left on the tatami at the door of this room."

"It's true," Yamamura touched the tatami at the door, "Someone else has come in before!"

Maori turned to the hotel clerk and asked, "Who was the first to discover the body?"

"Yes, it's me," the boss said, wiping the sweat off his face. "Because Mr. Maori... this fake guy hasn't made any moves, so I wanted to come and take a look. I didn't expect this to happen..."

Maori continued to ask, "Who has been to the bathhouse during this time?"

"This..." The boss looked embarrassed, "We are not sure either..."

"I've been there," Xiaolan recalled. "Come to think of it, when I went to the bathhouse to take a bath before, there was a sign outside the door saying "Cleaning in Progress"."

"Cleaning? They're cleaning the bathhouse so early here?"

"No, we usually clean at midnight."

The innkeeper looked timidly at Maori, who was wearing a baseball cap and thinking deeply.

Mao Li walked to the body with his hands in his hands, and glanced at the hotel staff: "What happened is that someone deliberately hung a cleaning sign outside the female bathhouse to prevent people from entering, and then picked up a large bunch of long hair from the drain and came back here."

Shancun asked curiously: "But why do you do this?"

"It's probably because they wanted to disrupt the police search," Maori analyzed. "The reason why the tatami was wet shows that the murderer was in a hurry. He might have gone straight into the bathhouse wearing socks, and came back here with wet feet..."

The hotel owner and his friends looked at Mao Li in surprise: "Who is the murderer..."

"The murderer knew where the cleaning cards were kept in a hurry, so it is very likely that he was among the hotel staff."

Mao Li turned to the people in the hotel seriously and said, "It is not certain yet whether there are only newspapers from five years ago in the suitcase, so it is necessary to carefully check everyone's personal belongings."

"Officer Yamamura!" a forensic officer suddenly called out, "We found a cell phone in the victim's coat pocket. There was only one call record in it. Do you want to check it out?"

"Of course." Officer Yamamura took the phone and called back directly.

Mao Li turned around and saw that his phone rang for a while and was successfully answered.

"Hello, Dave? How's that big money opportunity you mentioned going? Let me know if it goes well... Oh, by the way, your landlord called and said that if you don't pay the rent, he won't renew your contract and will kick you out! Are you listening?"

There was a man's voice on the other end of the phone. Before Shancun could ask any questions, he said to himself, "Ah, sorry, a guest is here. Please call back later!"

Shancun opened his mouth wide and held the phone. He looked at Maori and the others with a dry laugh and said, "He, he hung up... But at least we know that the deceased is called Sendao..."

The innkeeper asked suspiciously, "How do you know his name is Sendaf? Doesn't the other party just call him Daff?"

"There's a sticker on the phone," Yamamura pointed to the back of the phone, "Look, here's his last name."

Chapter 166: Alibi from Four Years Ago