Chapter 69 Officer Sang's Little Interlude

Was that Matsuda's voice? Was he really still alive? And was he with Hagiwara right now? After faintly hearing a familiar voice from the other end of the phone, Furuya Rei had already believed that it was Hagiwara himself.

But he still had doubts about Matsuda being alive, and he was skeptical and disbelieving of the claim that it could change Hiro and the squad leader's fate of death, yet he still wanted to take a gamble. Until he discovered that Matsuda seemed to really be alive, Furuya Rei felt like the word "science" in his mind was about to shatter.

At the same time, a strong hope and the possibility that a miracle might truly exist made him hope that what Hagiwara said was true, that Hiro still had a chance to change his fate, return to his side, and allow him to see his smiling face again, and hear his tolerant, gentle, and occasionally mischievous voice...

"Brother Darmo, what brings you up here?" Conan had been eavesdropping ever since he lent out the earring-shaped phone, and he ran up to the top floor of the building looking for another guy who was suspected of being a member of the organization.

However, his watch was almost out of battery and he still hadn't seen the guy. When he heard that Darmo was also heading to this floor, he simply hid at the top entrance and waited for him. Then he followed him and, sure enough, found the other person from the Shinkansen that day.

Eager to learn about the other member of the organization, and having not yet suffered any hardship, he naturally rushed out as soon as he discovered the member.

Seeing the little boy suddenly run over, and hearing Conan call out to Kojinpei, Hagiwara looked at Matsuda with some confusion. They had only been separated for a dozen minutes, so why had Kojinpei changed his name?

Matsuda was speechless under the gaze of his childhood friend. He hadn't expected that the fake name he used to tease children would be exposed in front of Hagi. He was speechless, as he had been trying very hard these past few days to act like a mature and composed twenty-six-year-old in front of Hagi.

This brat ruined his image in an instant. Just like his brother, he's a troublemaker. o(￣ヘ￣o＃) Matsuda was furious inside, but on the surface, he quickly and subtly gave Hagiwara a knowing look that best friends understand each other instantly.

Then he replied to Conan, "Of course I'm here to return your earring-shaped phone! I said I'd use it for a bit and then return it, but after I finished, you actually ran back to this dangerous building. Kid, don't you know it's dangerous here? What are you doing up here?"

Matsuda spoke with confidence and his answer was flawless, showing no sign that he couldn't find Conan down there and decided to return to the instance first.

His answer was so flawless that Conan felt he would have believed it if he hadn't been eavesdropping on Conan's conversation with Gin. However, Conan couldn't reveal that he had been using tracking glasses to listen to the earpiece's phone conversation to expose his lie.

Frustrated, he could only accept the other party's statement. He also had to find a plausible reason for coming here, at least so that Gin on the other end of the phone wouldn't suspect him. So he had no choice but to say, "I came here to see Mr. Kisaragi Mine."

I didn't see Mr. Kisaragi Mine Sui downstairs. After asking the police officer, I found out that he didn't seem to have come downstairs. I was worried that he didn't know about the explosion and fire downstairs, so I came up to find him.

"Kisaragi Mine?" Matsuda, who was interested in models and disassembling various electrical appliances, knew nothing about Japanese landscape paintings or famous painters, and was slightly taken aback when he heard this.

Hagiwara, however, immediately realized: "Ah! Little one, are you talking about that old man who almost strangled the Tokiwa family's young lady by hanging her on the hanging scroll? When the fire alarm went off..."

I saw him hiding in a blind spot in the banquet hall, and I thought he was trying to escape from the police's sight.

To avoid being arrested and imprisoned, but worried he'd be choked by the fireworks, I wanted to take him downstairs for safety. Unexpectedly, he attempted suicide by poisoning himself, so I had to knock him unconscious and take him to the first floor in the elevator. I guess he's sound asleep in the elevator right now!

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After Matsuda left, as the police were making their final withdrawal, Hagiwara was about to take Kazesei to the washroom to get water when another little incident occurred. Despite his seemingly carefree attitude, Hagiwara was actually quite cautious.

While getting water, they would leave the washroom every now and then to check the situation in the banquet hall to make sure there was nothing in the banquet hall that threatened their safety, or whether the police would come to check the washroom.

Unexpectedly, when they went to check the banquet hall again after the police left, they found an old man hiding in a blind spot. It turned out that he and Matsuda had both rescued Tokiwa Mio and were checking where the banquet hall was in danger of destruction.

They also paid some attention to the police's questioning of the suspect in Sanming. With their reasoning ability and having witnessed the murder of Tokiwa Mio, they naturally deduced that the perpetrator was Kisaragi Mine Mizusou.

When Hagiwara saw him hiding there instead of evacuating with the others, he thought that he knew that Lady Tokiwa was not dead and that his crimes would be exposed as soon as she woke up, so he was planning to take the opportunity to escape!

Unexpectedly, this old guy was preparing to commit suicide by poisoning himself, and his reason for killing was so bizarre. He was just like the scumbag who killed Xiao Zhufu's parents, lived a carefree life for more than ten years, and was about to be investigated and was also preparing to commit suicide, even wanting to take someone else's child with him.

He killed someone because the view of Mount Fuji from his home was blocked by the Twin Towers in Seymourne City. After committing the crime, he only thought about escaping reality through death. He was selfish and only cared about himself. He would go crazy if his life was slightly unsatisfactory.

Not to mention that he was going to kill his own student. Having a landscape painting teacher like that is just bad luck! Humph! Komobushi is too good-natured. He even saved a guy like Tomoyuki. Hagiwara, however, would not show his gentleness and consideration to someone like that.

So when they heard that his reason for committing the crime was such a bizarre one, and that he wanted to use death to escape punishment and social condemnation after his crimes were exposed, they simply gave him a "sleep" package.

After the elevator carrying people down due to the fire evacuation reached the first floor, they pressed the button for the freight elevator to come up, put the unconscious Ruyue Fengshui on it, and pressed the elevator button to go to the first floor.

Now that he's right under the police's noses, he probably can't escape, right? Anyway, the bottle of poison has already been given to Feng Jiang and put into his spatial backpack, so he shouldn't die anytime soon...

"Hey! When I was in the elevator, it malfunctioned, and there was an explosion on the floor where the second connecting bridge is located. If you put him in the elevator, won't he get trapped on the floor where the explosion started and caught fire?" Matsuda asked worriedly after hearing what Hagiwara said.

Hagiwara recalled the situation when he pressed the elevator button and immediately shook his head: "It should be fine. The freight elevator seems to run faster than the sightseeing elevator. After I put him on it..."

When I felt the violent tremors from the explosion below, I checked the freight elevator's status. It showed that the elevator had successfully reached the 12th floor, and shortly after, it had reached the first floor.

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"You guys..." Conan hadn't expected that the culprit in this case had already been identified by them and even transported to...

Upon arriving on the first floor, one cannot help but be amazed by their reasoning and action.

He himself was rescued in Tokiwa-san. Only after the police took statements from the three suspects, and based on the statements, physical evidence at the scene, and the findings from the previous two murder scenes, were they able to deduce that the real culprit was that famous Japanese painter.

It's unbelievable that these two suspected members of the organization knew all along, and even apprehended the suicidal criminal. How did they know? Did they also investigate the crime scene records from previous murders? Or did they discover the perpetrator while rescuing the person?

No! According to my deduction of Kisaragi-sensei's crime, they couldn't have discovered it when they were saving her, unless they had discovered it as soon as Kisaragi-sensei made her move. But if they had discovered it then, why would they wait until Tokiwa-san was about to be strangled to death to save her?

Unless they were completely oblivious, and possessed astonishing insight and reasoning abilities, allowing them to deduce the true culprit simply from the rescue and the police's on-site investigation...

If they possess such astonishing insight, it's no wonder they were able to exploit people's blind spots and dare to target valuables worth over 10 billion yen that could have been easily stolen here, given the value of Kisaragi-sensei's painting and the fact that she hadn't become a murderer...

Various thoughts flashed through Conan's mind, causing him to quickly realize what he was about to say and swallow back some of his speculations. He then hurriedly disguised himself with the voice of a pure and innocent little boy.

She said, seemingly quite innocently, "Oh dear... Brother Darmo, how did your friend know that Kisaragi-sensei was the culprit who attempted to murder Tokiwa-san? Did you know that too?"

"It's very simple. Just now..." Matsuda looked at Conan, who was exactly the same as the little boy named Shinichi Kudo from the park a few years ago, and with a look in his eyes that wouldn't give up until he got the truth. So he quickly told him how they discovered that Kisaragi Mine was the reason for attacking Miss Tokiwa.

Aside from the fact that he seemed completely unaware of the physical evidence at the scene of the murder, such as the broken wine cup, and other people's statements, his reasoning process was almost identical to Conan's own.

Conan clearly felt that the reasoning ability of the two people in front of him was on a completely different level from that of Inspector Megure and Uncle Mori, whom he knew. They were very strong, except for his father, Yusaku Kudo.

This was the first time he had ever encountered an adult with such amazing deductive reasoning skills, but unfortunately... such a powerful person turned out to be a villain in the organization! Thinking of this, a strong sense of regret welled up in Conan's heart.

Just over a minute before Matsuda quickly explained to Conan why they knew Kisaragi Mine was the culprit, Furuya Rei, on the other end of Hagiwara's phone, heard a strange little boy seemingly calling Matsuda "Dalmore."

The familiar name of the drink sent a chill down his spine, and he froze, unable to move. The guy speaking in Matsuda's voice was called Darmo. Was he really Matsuda? Had he been tricked? Was that not Hagiwara at all?

Was someone from the organization using Hagiwara's voice to trick me into revealing information? Could such a flawless pronunciation be Vermouth's? Is the person referred to as Dalmore a member of the organization whom I haven't investigated?

Does he possess the same cheat-level mimicry pronunciation ability as Vermouth? Is Vermouth, unwilling to accept the fact that she has something on him, hiring someone in the organization to investigate his background? Realizing this possibility, perhaps he realized that he had indeed been tricked into revealing information by Vermouth during their earlier conversation.

Even though he had leverage over Vermouth's relationship with the organization's boss, it was useless. His seven years of undercover work vanished in an instant, and Furuya Rei even lost control for a moment, blurting out, "Vermouth!"