Maori Kogoro began to understand everything

Standing under a tree with fallen snow, a small hole on the trunk appeared in Maori's sight.

"Hey, come and take a look!"

Sonoko found the crossbow and quickly shouted.

"Isn't this a crossbow?"

"There are still a lot of arrows here!"

"Does that mean the murderer is from outside?"

Maori squatted by the tree and watched for a while, then stood up and said to everyone, "Although everyone was inside the villa when the murderer shot the arrow, and the murder weapon has now been found here, it is very likely that someone deliberately used a sleight of hand... In short, nothing is certain now, and the identity of the murderer needs further investigation."

"But whether it was when Mr. Hamano was killed or just now, we have alibis," Araki asked curiously, "If the murderer is among us, how did he do it?"

Mao Li groaned and said, "It must be a magic trick. The murderer performed an impossible magic trick in front of us."

"magic?"

Everyone was shocked.

Mao Li did not dwell on this topic too much, but said: "I want to confirm everyone's alibi. By the way, until the murderer is caught, I'll give the crossbow to Xiaolan for safekeeping."

……

Outside the bathroom, next to the woodshed, not far from the woods, there was a simple shed with wood inside and a door leading to the bathroom.

"There doesn't seem to be much snow on the awning..."

"Of course. It all melted when the water was boiled."

Conan was obviously also interested in the alibi. Before Maori could speak, he asked curiously, pointing to the window on the awning and asked, "Which window is that?"

"The window at the end of the corridor on the second floor..."

"So," Mao Li said as he stood by the woodshed, "Ms. Tanaka can still climb up to the second floor through the awning even if she is here."

"It's not like I'm the only one who can climb up there," Tanaka Takahisa looked at the others and said, "I went to the bathroom a few times to see how the water was running. Anyone could have gone up there when I wasn't there. Besides, I was boiling water while Hamano was in the building. It took me about eight minutes to get and boil the water, so I didn't have time to do anything else..."

"What if the water was boiled at the beginning?" Maori interrupted suddenly.

"What?" Tanaka Takahisa was stunned.

"Anyway, let's go back to the living room and wait."

Mao Li did not continue to ask, but said to everyone, and then whispered to Xiaolan, "The crossbow may have the murderer's fingerprints on it. Don't let others touch it. Also, don't let them act alone, even to go to the toilet..."

Xiaolan nodded seriously, and Maori asked Haibara to monitor everyone.

Although he has basically identified the murderer and has evidence, there are still too many unclear points.

It would be quite irresponsible to draw such a conclusion while being half-conscious and half-confused.

"Uncle," Conan followed Maori, "Do you know who the murderer is?"

"It's been roughly confirmed, but there are still a few tricks that I don't understand. How did she let the arrow shoot into the house from outside... and the mystery of Hamano's death..."

Mauli walked outside the broken window of the bathroom.

It's so cold and cold to encounter a case in such a deep mountain. There's really no place to complain. However, ever since Kudo Shinichi became Izanami's son Edogawa Conan, he has gotten used to it - thinking from another perspective, perhaps the case is really calling for him, the famous detective.

"That's Miss Tanaka's room upstairs," Conan reminded. "After being attacked, Miss Tanaka immediately ran to the balcony, and then there was a sound of breaking glass downstairs..."

Maori asked, "Do you think Ms. Tanaka is the kind of person who doesn't know what's good for her? She ran to the balcony even though someone was shooting arrows outside, and finally rushed to the woods where the murderer might be."

"It's really strange," Conan thought, "Uncle, do you mean that she did those things on purpose?"

"She went to the woods to get rid of the crossbow..."

Maori rubbed his hands, paused, turned around and walked into the bathroom from the woodshed. The broken glass shards remained as they were, and the arrow was still stuck in the bathroom mirror.

Now we know the method used by Tanaka Takahisa. The key is how to shoot arrows from upstairs into the bathroom. The window faces the woods, so the position of the arrow should also be in the woods...

Taking out the small notebook to look through the clues of the entire case, Maori re-filtered all the clues in his mind.

When he found Hamano's body, he noticed tiny marks on the balcony handrail, which seemed to be caused by a thin thread such as a kite string. The murderer had obviously done experiments beforehand.

Then there is the woods near the woodshed in the backyard, and the tree trunk with a round hole. Based on Tanaka Takahisa's suspicious behavior, there may have been an arrow stuck there.

Why is there an arrow on the tree, and why is Tanaka so eager to pull it out...

If one wanted to get Hamano's body to the middle of the snow in the backyard without leaving any traces, hang gliding would undoubtedly be the most convenient way, and there seemed to be a thief who liked to hang glide here.

That's right, Maori has already noticed that the name of the strange fat man, "Doi Takeshu", can be spelled and rearranged to become "Kaito Kidd".

However, from Maori's subjective judgment, it is unlikely that Kid committed the crime this time. First, the Kaito Kid he knows never kills people. Second, if the other party really committed the crime, he would not leave so many clues...

……

In the living room of the villa, after Sukama poured a cup of sugar water from the kitchen, he and everyone else were called by Maori to the woods in the backyard.

Seeing Hamano Toshiya's body still lying in the snow, everyone felt even colder.

"Mr. Hamano is so pitiful, being left in the snow like this..." Sonoko said, hugging her arms.

"Hey, I say," Tanaka Takahisa frowned and shouted to Mao Li, "Why did you call us here? Are you still suspicious of us?"

Mao Li stopped and said, "You will know it soon. Now I want to show you a magic trick."

"Magic? What are you talking about? You're still in the mood to perform magic at this time..."

"Conan," Maori ignored everyone and just said to Conan and Doi Takeshu, "Now take your crossbow and go to Mr. Lou Hamano's room with Mr. Doi Takeshu."

"no problem!"

Conan followed Mori's instructions and returned to the villa with Doi Takeki, and then took his position on the balcony of Mr. Hamano's room.

"are you ready?"

Maori shouted from below.

"Ready!"

Conan responded as he walked to the balcony, with several long ropes and two arrows with holes and circles tied to the ends at his disposal.

"what is this?"

Everyone was confused for a while.

"Of course it is a necessary tool for this magic trick."

Maori saw Conan getting ready and continued to shout, "Conan, now give the crossbow to Mr. Doita."

"Me?" Doita was stunned for a moment, then took the crossbow from Conan with a complicated expression.

After a while, two arrows were shot from the balcony to the tree trunks on both sides of the backyard. The thin rope formed a triangular sail shape with both sides open above the snow. Then a bundle of quilts almost the same size as the corpse slid out of the balcony along the thin rope in the middle and slid directly to the location of Hamano's body.

Without waiting for Conan to remind him, Doita took an arrow and a pair of scissors, tied the middle rope to the arrow, raised his hand and shot the arrow into the air while cutting the other ropes. Suddenly, all the thin ropes disappeared into the depths of the forest with the arrow. Only the bundle of quilts and the tampered arrows on the tree trunks on both sides were left in the backyard.

"This……"

Araki Yoshinori and others were so shocked when they saw this magical trick with their own eyes that they were speechless. Tanaka Takahisa couldn't help but tremble slightly.

"Even if this method succeeds, so what?" Tanaka Takahirae gritted his teeth and said, "These arrows are still on the tree..."

"So you burned the suspension bridge not to trap us, but to retrieve the arrows before the police arrived," Mao Li turned to Tanaka Takahirae, "Am I right, Ms. Tanaka?"

Tanaka Takahisa's eyes suddenly shrank, and he laughed dryly: "Come on, you also know that I was attacked by a murderer, right? How could I shoot an arrow at myself from outside the villa..."

"You can still do it if you want to," Mao Li interrupted, "because the arrow was not shot from outside the villa. The crossbow was in your hand at the time, right?"

"W-what?"

"I asked Conan. They were all waiting at the door at that time, and you were the only one searching with your back to the door. I think you must have designed some mechanism on the balcony to break the glass, and at the same time shot an arrow at the wall behind you. In that case, of course no one would expect the arrow to be shot from the outside."

Mao Li paused, and then continued, "Plus, since you ran to the balcony at that time, no one would suspect you in such a hurry. As for the broken bathroom window downstairs, it should have been broken by a similar mechanism, right? At least that window was definitely not shot through by an arrow."

"But," Sonoko wondered, "the bathroom mirror was also hit by an arrow!"

"Ms. Tanaka ejaculated in the bathroom beforehand. No one would go to the bathroom before the water was boiled, so there was no fear of being discovered in advance. Ms. Tanaka had planned everything long ago, including being assigned to boil water and Mr. Hamano going back to the room to plan the entertainment program."

"What are you talking about?" Tanaka Takahirae laughed, "I was assigned to boil water by chance, or it was Sonoko who chose me, right?"

Sonoko nodded repeatedly and looked at Maori closely and said, "Yes, uncle, it must be a coincidence that Miss Tanaka went to boil water. Besides, that was Mr. Hamano's magic..."

"What if Miss Tanaka was a proxy?" Maori said in a deep voice, "Or, in other words, it was actually Miss Tanaka who planned the magic trick. She made marks on the back of the note paper in the living room beforehand. Since you were blindfolded, you didn't know that she changed to a pen that couldn't write in the middle of the magic trick."

"Could it be that at that time..."

"Yes, Hamano stood aside from the beginning to the end without moving, because the person who actually performed the magic was Ms. Tanaka. I think when you discussed with Hamano, you told him about the work assignment, right? But the person in charge of the entertainment program was not Doi Ta at all, so he felt strange at that time."

"How could it be?" Sonoko turned to Tanaka Takahisa in disbelief, "Ms. Tanaka..."

Maori looked at Tanaka who was standing silently in the snow. "When you left the living room and went to the woodshed, the water was already boiling. You knew that Hamano would be in charge of the entertainment program, so you immediately climbed up to the second floor, sneaked into Mr. Hamano's room and waited for him before killing him... Miss Tanaka, after dawn tomorrow, come down the mountain with us to surrender to the police."

"Where's the evidence?" Tanaka Takahisa trembled and clenched her fingers tightly, saying, "There must be evidence no matter what, right?"

Mao Li looked at Tanaka Takahirae silently for a while, then shook his head: "Ms. Tanaka, it's useless. If you really follow your plan, you can clean up all the evidence when the police come. But there is no if in reality. After all, this is just a bloody failed magic, right, Mr. Doita?"

Maori turned around and looked up at the second-floor balcony.

"When did you find out, Detective?"

On the balcony, Kidd has removed his disguise, and his white cloak flutters in the cold wind. Conan on the side secretly turns on his anesthetic watch.

"Kai-Kaito Kidd?"

Xiaolan pulled Sonoko up in shock, "Sonoko, Doita is your prince charming!"

"what……"

Yuanzi was completely stunned.

"The name 'Doi Takeki' can be re-arranged in hiragana to become 'Kaito Kid'. Just think about it and you'll know," Maori looked directly at Kid in a white dress, "but I didn't expect you to come here to attend a gathering of magic lovers."

"I didn't expect that you, the famous detective, would come here," Kidd chuckled, "and the reason I came here is because I'm wondering why the deceitful boy who should have died long ago is still communicating."

"Deception Boy is actually the stage name of the old magician Harui Fuchu when he debuted. He died accidentally during a magic show a month ago."

Kid looked at Tanaka with regret: "When I saw Tanaka who came here as a fraud boy, I knew she was the granddaughter of Harui Fuden. I also saw through her secret work, but I didn't expect her to kill someone. By the time I noticed it, it was too late. It's really embarrassing."

"Bang!" A burst of smoke suddenly exploded in front of Conan. Kidd took advantage of the chaos to jump off the balcony, spread his glider and flew over everyone's heads.

"See you later, two great detectives," Kidd chuckled and disappeared into the night. "When the clock strikes the end of the century, we will definitely meet again..."

"Ah! He's gone!"

When everyone came to their senses, Kidd was no longer visible, and Conan was so anxious that he kept pounding the railing.

"Damn it! That pretentious thief! He was so close!"

Tanaka Takahisa had been standing silently by the side. After watching Kidd leave, she exhaled lightly and turned to Maori, forcing a smile: "Maybe this is God's punishment for me..."

As she spoke, she took out two arrows with rope loops from her boots and paused, "So, Detective Maori, when did you know that the murderer was me?"

"When you pretended to be enraged and rushed into the woods," Maori said, "I already suspected you at that time, because although I only had a brief conversation with you, I didn't think you would be such a reckless person. And I also saw you throw away the crossbow and retrieve the arrows from the tree... By the way, you didn't wear gloves, and your fingerprints should still be on the crossbow. This is why I didn't let you have the opportunity to touch the crossbow."

“Really?” Tanaka Takahisa lowered her head with a wry smile, “It’s really a failure…”

At dawn the next day, before Maori and others could find a way down the mountain, two helicopters arrived at the villa in the morning light, taking away Miss Tanaka who had surrendered, and also took Maori and others away from the villa.

"It was a young man named Doi Takeshu who called the police?"

"Yeah, he said you were trapped in the villa, and a murder happened," Officer Megure asked Maori depressedly, "Who is that guy? How come he knows so much about the matter?"

"That guy..."

Maori couldn't help but think of Kid's last words - "See you when the clock strikes the end of the century." It didn't feel like Kid said that just to sound cool.

……

It was not until he returned to Tokyo that Maori learned from Inspector Megure that the chat room manager "Escape King" had died at home long before the party, and the murderer was also Miss Tanaka.

As for the motive, it was because of the accidental death of the old magician Harui Fuden. Harui Fuden had been hiding his identity in the chat room. Because a group of people were discussing an escape magic trick, he decided to do an experiment himself and planned to tell others in the chat room after the magic trick was successful, but he didn't expect that something went wrong in the end.

The reason why Escape King and Hamano Toshiya were killed by Miss Tanaka was that they joked about Harui Fuden's death in the chat room afterwards.

Maori was not in a position to comment on this - the motives might seem ridiculous to outsiders, but to Ms. Tanaka, the person involved, it might be as heavy as a mountain.

It’s the same old saying - don’t advise others to do good unless you have experienced their suffering!

Chapter 77 was finally accomplished—Ginkgo’s promise, the doctor’s first love!