Conan: Science Cartoonist Kudo Yuji

“I made coffee, but I couldn’t find a coffee cup in the entire office.”

Haibara Ai stood beside Rize and pointed out what was wrong with the coffee. Then the little girl pointed to the safe with the door wide open behind the deceased's desk.

"The safe has been opened!"

There was no such thing as a safe at Chris's place, but after staying at the Kudo family for a few days, Rize found such heavy cabinets in both the living room of Yuji's house and the study of the Kudo family. After asking, she found out what the safe was used for.

The girl ran to the safe and noticed that there was only an envelope inside, but the safe was otherwise empty.

"Was it a burglary?" Ayumi also came over: "There is nothing valuable in the cabinet, could it have been taken away by robbers?"

Hearing Ayumi's words, Rize quickly shook her head and then pointed to the desk.

"Just now I heard the police officer and others say that except for the dead Mr. Baiyuan, nothing else in the room should be moved, so this tabletop should be the same as before."

After receiving the fat police officer's affirmation, Li Ze continued, "The entire office is actually very tidy. If it was a robber, wouldn't he have rummaged around?"

Besides, even if the robbers' target was only the safe, the key to the safe could not be placed clearly on the table.

"And look."

Li Shi continued to point to the ground. There were two marks at equal distances on the floor tiles of the office. It looked like they were caused by wheels. The only thing that could do this was the small movable table in front of the desk.

"From the traces, it seems that this table was originally placed next to the work desk, and after being moved to the door, it seems to have returned to the desk."

The children walked to the end of the trace at the door and looked up to see a switch a few centimeters below the ceiling.

“Could this be…?”

Mitsuhiko understood the purpose of moving the table, and found that Ayumi and Genta were still confused, so he explained it to them.

"what?"

The only officer who didn't know the answer had to ask Conan for help. He learned that when the children were preparing for training in the afternoon, the whole building suddenly lost power, and Ryota Tamagawa happened to go upstairs during that time. He immediately felt that the scene was very familiar.

How many times, when I was still working as Inspector Megure, every time I encountered a guy who was obviously related to the murderer, in the end he was definitely not the murderer.

But now Inspector Megure can't just judge cases based on guesswork. If he makes a wrongful conviction now, it will definitely be more serious than before. It's a pity that Kogoro Mouri is not here, so he has to place his hopes on Conan.

[No! I am Inspector Megure. Relying on a child...]

Inspector Megure shook his head and quickly asked the general police to bring Ryota Tamagawa to the office.

"Tamagawa! When did you open the switch to repair it?"

Inspector Megure took advantage of the moment when the gym master was hurriedly pushed in by the police to question him harshly, and the ordinary man opposite was quickly frightened out of his wits by the shocking question.

"I... I came up at about a dozen after three." Ryota Tamagawa subconsciously glanced at the switch on the wall and the movable table next to the desk, revealing the fact that he was indeed the one using this thing.

"It's called repair, but it's just flipping off the switch."

"So, what was Baiyuan doing while you were fixing the switch?"

Inspector Megure narrowed his eyes and guessed based on his experience that Baiyuan should have been killed around two or three o'clock. When Ryota Tamagawa came up, the man might have collapsed on the desk.

"He... he is just dealing with some problems, and there are other things, or maybe something else, I don't quite understand..."

Tamagawa Ryota's words were vague, and it was clear that it was not that simple. "Officer Megure, we have found the murder weapon!"

A forensic police officer knocked on the office door and walked in carrying a golf club bag. To Ryota Tamagawa's horror, he put on a glove and pulled out the golf club with the ball head inserted in the middle.

"We found the deceased's brain fluid on this club, mixed with some blood. Most importantly, there was only Tamagawa Ryota's fingerprint on the club."

"Yuchuan! What else do you have to say!"

Although Inspector Megure was questioning Tamagawa, his eyes were actually observing Conan, Haibara Ai and Kuroba Rize, wanting to see if they would have any objections.

"I didn't kill Bai Yuan! Really! I... I just..." Ryota Tamagawa opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, and finally said what he did.

According to his account, Tamagawa knocked on the door before going up to the office on the fourth floor from the first floor, but Baiyuan did not respond to him.

This was understandable to Tamakawa, because not long ago the two of them had a big fight over the rent of the first floor gym, so Tamakawa just pushed the door open and went in.

After entering the office, the first thing Yuchuan saw was Baiyuan who seemed to be sleeping on the desk, so he ignored him and pushed the movable table to the wall as he did in the past, then took out the golf clubs from the golf bag in the corner and pushed the switch on the wall.

"Wait, Mr. Tamagawa, are you saying that you always repair switches in this way?"

Rize raised her hand before Conan. At home, both Yuzuki and Kaori had explained the problem of circuit fuse to her. If she did not replace the fuse device and directly turned the switch back on, a short circuit in the circuit would cause a fire.

This Tamagawa Ryota clearly runs a karate gym for children, but his actions clearly show that he does not put the safety of children's lives first.

"Bai Yuan himself doesn't want to pay for the replacement of the insurance, but I can't pay for it myself..."

Ryota Tamagawa felt that the black-haired girl opposite him seemed to be looking down on him, and he couldn't help but get angry: "A child like you who is still acting like a spoiled brat in your parents' arms, how can you understand the hard work of adults!"

"Why are you yelling so loudly!" Haibara Ai stood in front of Rize, worried that the man's words just now might hurt the little girl. She immediately glared at Officer Megure, making the fat officer feel guilty.

"That's enough, Officer Megure. I think we don't need to reason anymore. Just put this man in jail."

"That's right!" x3
The three little ones also joined in the fun.

"Not really, not really." Officer Megure wiped the sweat off his head, calmed the children down, and then immediately turned to Ryota Tamagawa and said seriously, "Tamagawa! Correct your attitude."

"Hi……"

Tamagawa smiled ingratiatingly at Inspector Megure and continued speaking.

When he flipped on the switch, returned the movable table to Baiyuan's side, and put the golf club back into the bag, he suddenly smelled a faint smell of blood in the office.

When he realized that the smell of blood came from Baiyuan, a strange thought suddenly popped up in Yuchuan's mind.

[If Bai Yuan dies, can this building be returned to him? ]

Tamakawa, who was suffocating under the pressure of rent, had completely forgotten why he sold the building in the first place. He slowly walked to Baiyuan's side and stretched his neck to test him.

"Baiyuan? Baiyuan!"

Bai Yuan is actually dead!

(End of this chapter)