Maori Kogoro began to understand everything

Maori looked closely at the center of the wide snowfield in the backyard. In the night, Hamano Toshiya was lying motionless in the snow, and there was not even a footprint around him.

"How is this possible? How did it get through..."

Mao Li hurried downstairs and rushed to Hamano Toshiya before everyone else. After checking Hamano's condition as if to verify, he shouted loudly: "Don't come over! He's dead!"

"what?"

"how come?"

Araki Yoshinori and the others stopped in fear: "Mr. Maori, this..."

Mao Li said in a deep voice: "From now on, no one is allowed to act rashly, let alone destroy the scene!"

"on site?"

"Didn't you see? The body was more than 10 meters away from the villa, but there were only footprints left by me just now. This means this is an impossible crime!"

Maori put Hamano's body down again, stood up seriously and looked at everyone.

"It's been so long since I introduced myself. I'm actually a detective..."

"what!"

Kuroda Naoko suddenly realized, "Could it be that Mr. Maori is the famous Maori Kogoro?"

"Maori Kogoro?"

"No way?"

Araki looked at Maori in surprise: "I thought it was just a coincidence..."

"cough,"

Mao Li cleared his throat. "I am indeed the famous detective you all know, so can you please follow my instructions from now on? Let's gather in the living room first, because the person who killed Mr. Hamano is likely someone here..."

"Eh? Are you saying one of us is the murderer?!"

“I can only say that this possibility is very high.”

Maori led everyone back to the living room of the villa.

"The only thing we know now is that someone strangled Mr. Hamano with a thin rope or something, killed him, and then used some method to move him to the backyard. The crime was committed after Mr. Hamano returned to his room alone."

Mao Li asked, "Can you tell me what you were doing at that time?"

"I was preparing tableware with Miss Kuroda," Doita answered first, "right, Miss Kuroda?"

"Yeah," Kuroda nodded, "but after I finished, I went to the kitchen to help Mr. Sukama."

"help?"

"Mr. Huang asked me to prepare some snacks." Sukan pointed to the dining table with a dull look.

"Well... I happened to be going to the suspension bridge at that time," Mao Li stroked his chin thoughtfully and continued to ask Doi Takeshu, "So you were alone afterwards?"

Doita hurriedly explained, "Ah, I went to the room to get the cookies for the party."

"I went to the room to see Conan," Sonoko continued, "and then I stayed with Xiaolan the whole time."

Xiaolan nodded vigorously: "That's right."

Tanaka Takahisa explained: "As for me, I am responsible for heating the bath water and I am always in the woodshed."

"Where's Mr. Huang?"

"Oh, I went to the wine cellar to get some wine."

"It won't take long to get the wine, will it?"

Mauli asked.

"Because I forgot to change the lock of the wine cellar, I went back to the villa to get the key." Huang Yi said anxiously.

"How long did it take?"

"This one……"

"About eight minutes," Sukama explained helpfully, "Miss Tanaka left the living room to boil water, and it took about eight minutes for Mr. Ara to return from the wine cellar, because I was using the oven at the time."

Mao Li frowned when he heard this: "In this case, there really is no time to do anything else..."

"that,"

Tanaka Takahirae suddenly shuddered, "It's so cold, Detective Maori, can I go to the room and get some clothes to wear?"

"Of course, Ms. Tanaka,"

Mao Li nodded, "But for safety's sake, and to avoid suspicion... Ran, you should go with Miss Tanaka."

Xiaolan stood up immediately after hearing this: "No problem, I'll go see Conan too."

"Let's all come together."

Tanaka Takahisa and Xiaolan went upstairs cautiously, and the people left in the living room fell into silence.

Since the murderer burned the suspension bridge, there is a high possibility that he will kill more people. Everyone is very worried, afraid that they will become the next target.

"A good party turned out to be like this," Kuroda Naoko said uncomfortably, "Does the murderer want to kill us all?"

Huang Yize comforted him: "Everyone should be fine if they stay together. We'll see if we can get in touch with the outside world tomorrow."

"It's all my fault," Sonoko sat alone on the side, tightly clutching her fingers, "I killed Mr. Hamano because I chose him to perform the side show, and he..."

"What are you talking about?"

Mao Li looked at the crying Sonoko and said unhappily, "It has nothing to do with you. It's just a magic trick... and you just happened to be used by Mr. Hamano to perform the magic trick."

"Eh?"

“What really matters to me is…”

Mao Li stood up and picked up the note next to the phone, frowning, "Mr. Hamano seemed surprised that he was chosen. It seems that Doi Ta was originally responsible for the entertainment program... Why did the magic fail? What happened in the middle, and the technique of this magic..."

Maori regretted that he did not accompany Kudo Yukiko and Kisaki Eri when they went to see the magic show together - you know, Kudo Yukiko is an insider in the magic circle and must know a lot of magic secrets.

However, just as Maori was thinking this -

"Magic is easy if there's a second person."

Huihara's voice suddenly sounded in his ears.

"Xiao Ai?"

Mao Li was a little confused, "Aren't you sleeping?"

"It's so noisy here, and someone got killed, how can I sleep?"

Huibara glanced at Maori and continued to analyze, "Let's talk about that magic. If it was Mr. Hamano and Ms. Tanaka who were cooperating from the beginning, wouldn't it be very clear?"

"Are you saying that Ms. Tanaka is a shill?"

Mao Li was startled and suddenly thought of something. He looked at the note paper in his hand again and found that there were some very faint pen marks on the blank back of some of the papers.

"Is it possible that the pen could not write at that time?"

Maori recalled the previous situation. At that time, Hamano deliberately blindfolded Sonoko and intended to let Sonoko move to the side to avoid the crowd.

His attention was all on Hamano at the time, but the one who actually made the move was Tanaka Takahisa, who must have swapped the pens in the middle of the process.

If I'm not mistaken, the back of the note I gave to Sonoko might have been marked in advance...

In other words, the "failure" of the magic was most likely caused by Tanaka Takahisa.

Is Tanaka Takahisa the murderer?

Maori stroked his chin.

"What's wrong?" Yuanzi asked curiously.

"nothing,"

Mao Li waved his hand, "I'm a little worried about Xiaolan and the others, let's go up and take a look..."

Bah!

Suddenly, there was a loud sound of glass breaking, which scared everyone.

"what happened?"

"It seems like some glass is broken!"

……

In the bathroom of the villa, the boiled water was still steaming, the floor was covered with broken glass, the outward-facing window was broken, and a crossbow arrow was stuck in the cracked mirror opposite.

Maori looked at the crossbow arrows and his eyes fell on the broken glass window.

Everyone was in the villa, which meant that the person who shot the arrow was someone from outside. But why did they shoot arrows into the empty bathroom for no reason? Was it to create the illusion that the murderer was someone from outside?

"what happened?"

Xiaolan and others hurried down from upstairs, and their faces changed again and again after seeing the situation in the bathroom.

"Dad! Not only did the murderer attack Miss Tanaka, he also shot arrows towards the bathroom!"

"Assault on Miss Tanaka?"

Maori looked at Xiaolan in confusion.

"Yes," Xiaolan said with lingering fear, "Just now when we were accompanying Miss Tanaka back to her room, an arrow shot in from the window and almost hit Miss Tanaka."

"is it?"

Mao Li turned to Tanaka Takahisa who had arrived shortly after: "So the murderer first shot an arrow into Miss Tanaka's room upstairs, and then shot an arrow into the bathroom? Isn't that too strange? Such an action..."

"Strange or not, that guy really pissed me off!"

Tanaka Takahisa didn't even make eye contact with Mori. After looking at the bathroom, she suddenly ran out angrily.

"Wait, Ms. Tanaka!"

"It's too dangerous out there!"

In the backyard of the villa, Tanaka Takahisa ran out of the back door and went straight to the woods opposite the bathroom. Everyone hurriedly followed her.

"Ms. Tanaka!"

"Come out!" Tanaka ran to the edge of the woods and shouted, "What's the point of hiding in fear? Get out here if you have the guts!"

Mao Li finally walked out of the villa and silently looked at the shouting Tanaka Takahisa.

"What's wrong, uncle?"

Huiyuan followed beside him and smiled softly, "Are you soft-hearted because she's such a beautiful woman? Be careful or I'll tell Auntie Xiaolan and Eri~"

"Who do you think I am?"

Maori shrugged, "The boat..."

"Boat?"

"I mean follow me."

Haibara looked at Maori and tilted her head in confusion, but finally she put her hands behind her back and followed him towards the group at the edge of the woods.

The light in the woods was not very good, but you could still see messy footprints all over the snow. Conan and the others were completely attracted by the footprints.

"Is there really someone else hiding here?"

Xiaolan rushed forward to support Tanaka Takahisa who accidentally fell, "Ms. Tanaka, are you okay?"

"Why?" Tanaka Takahirae said in agony, "Why did we encounter such bad luck? Why?"

"Ms. Tanaka..."

Maori's eyes never left Tanaka Takahisa, and although the woman's movements were very secretive, he still saw with his own eyes that she threw a miniature crossbow to the other side of the snow and seemed to have pulled something out from a tree trunk.

"This is?"