Chapter 3508, page 3520: [The Arrested Policeman] Requesting monthly votes (づど)
"Oh dear, it's gone!" Ayumi Yoshida exclaimed in surprise, then said disappointedly, "It must have been too long, and the imprint disappeared..."
"A mark?" Officer Sato realized. "You mean when you fell to the ground, you accidentally pressed on that thing, leaving its mark on your palm?"
“Yes.” Ayumi Yoshida nodded, extending her finger to draw on her palm. “It’s the number ’5’… No, it’s written in one stroke. It should be an ‘S’, but it’s wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, with a square head. It looks very different from other ‘S’s.”
"Hmm..." Officer Sato tried to follow her gestures, trying to figure out what kind of deformed "S" it was. After thinking for a long time without being able to figure it out, he had no choice but to hand over his notebook. "Can you draw it?"
Ayumi Yoshida took the notebook and carefully drew a letter on it, which indeed matched the feature she had just described.
Officer Sato glanced at it, slightly taken aback: "This thing... it looks kind of familiar?"
Just as Ayumi Yoshida was about to speak, she suddenly noticed a gloomy man in a raincoat among the onlookers outside the cordon.
The man buttoned his raincoat all the way up, pulled his hood low, and stood silently at the back of the crowd, gazing intently at the scene through the curious onlookers.
"!!" Ayumi Yoshida's mind went blank, and the hairs on her body stood on end. She raised her hand tremblingly, "He...he's there! He's right there!"
The man in the raincoat turned around and quickly disappeared from her sight.
Officer Sato looked back but didn't see anyone suspicious.
The members of the Junior Detective Club, who knew their companion better, immediately rushed over. Unfortunately, by the time they finally squeezed through the throng of onlookers, the man in the raincoat had vanished.
"Keep chasing!" Conan didn't stop. "There's only one road here. Once we get out of this alley, we'll have a chance to see which direction he ran in!"
As he spoke, he rushed to the alley entrance and suddenly saw a man in a raincoat at the intersection of the alley and the street.
The man in the raincoat had his back to them and was talking to someone next to him. Conan stared intently and was stunned—the person he was talking to was none other than Jiang Xia!
"..." Jiang Xia was entangled by these outlaws who disguised themselves as good people again?
Or perhaps he saw the man in the raincoat running and found it strange, so he stopped him and asked him a few questions?
In a flash, Conan's mind conjured up images of "Mr. Yamada" and other guys wearing "good guy" masks who were talking to Jiang Xia. His eyes twitched slightly, and before he could explain, he shouted, "Jiang Xia, grab the person next to you! He's a serial killer!"
"Hmm?" Jiang Xia turned to look at him, then suddenly reached out, grabbed the man in the raincoat's forearm, and slammed him against the railing. "Like this?"
"Yes!" Conan was overjoyed. He hadn't expected the case to be solved so smoothly today. He ran over to Jiang Xia and pulled up the raincoat man's hood...
Then I saw Officer Takagi's face.
Conan: "...?"
"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" Officer Takagi thrashed about. "Stop messing around, how could I possibly be a serial killer!"
Conan asked in bewilderment, "How come it's you?"
Officer Takagi was both amused and exasperated: "Why can't it be me? I'm interviewing people in the neighborhood!"
Ai Haibara arrived shortly after. Upon seeing Takagi, she initially thought they had arrested the wrong person, but then, looking at Jiang Xia who was pinning down the policeman, she wavered and suspiciously asked Officer Takagi, "Then why are you wearing a raincoat?"
Officer Takagi was exasperated by these suspicious kids: "It's raining today, raincoats are more convenient than umbrellas..."
Ai Haibara: "..."
Officer Sato also ran over and said helplessly, "Takagi is not the murderer. He had been with us at the Metropolitan Police Department before. He just happened to be wearing the same raincoat today."
"Is that so?" Jiang Xia glanced at Officer Takagi: there was no murderous intent...
He was somewhat disappointed, but since he had expected it, his disappointment wasn't great; he simply let go of her hand with a sense of boredom.
Then, skillfully shifting the blame, he said, "Conan shouted so urgently that I thought something had happened... Officer Takagi, are you alright?"
Officer Takagi sighed listlessly, shaking his aching arm: "It's nothing, it's nothing."
Thinking back to the other ragged prisoners Jiang Xia had intercepted before, and then thinking about myself, who was merely being held down...
Compared to this, he not only had no resentment, but also inexplicably felt a sense of relief at being given a special treatment.
While he was pondering this with mixed feelings, Officer Sato suddenly remembered the important matter: "Takagi, did you see a man wearing a raincoat just now?"
Officer Takagi pointed to the intersection: "There are so many. Look, half of that group of people are wearing raincoats—after all, with the rain coming and going, raincoats are much more convenient than umbrellas."
Beside her, Ai Haibara looked up at Officer Takagi, then at Jiang Xia, and briefly fell into a daze.
Now that Jiang Xia hasn't continued arresting people, perhaps Officer Takagi really isn't the murderer?
A miniature scientist scratched her cheek, realizing she might have misunderstood something. She said awkwardly, "But with so many police officers here, how dare that murderer just casually blend into the crowd? He's too bold."
Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya asked warily, "Could it be that he felt Ayumi saw his face, so he couldn't let it go and ultimately decided to come back to silence her?"
Yoshida Ayumi: "!!"
She looked around fearfully, then quietly moved closer to Jiang Xia's legs: "..." When there was no murderer, Brother Jiang Xia undoubtedly represented danger, but now... there is no warmer haven than this!
She's going to stay here until the murderer is caught, and nobody's going to let her leave!
Beside him, Conan had a different thought. He observed the large group of people in raincoats on the road and pondered:
"To kill Ayumi in front of so many police officers, that criminal shouldn't be that arrogant—I think on the contrary, he thought no one could see his face, so he dared to sneak back to the scene."
"He just didn't expect that because he didn't change his clothes, he was unfortunately recognized by Ayumi, who also returned to the scene."
Yoshida Ayumi felt a chill run down her spine when she recalled their sudden eye contact. She asked softly, "Why did he come back?"
Conan: "He may have left something at the scene and wants to retrieve it, or there may be something important that compels him to come back and confirm it—in any case, the most urgent thing now is to figure out what the symbol Ayumi mentioned actually means."
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