Conan: I'm really not the mastermind behind the scenes

The first floor of the hospital.

Koichi Kawai followed the police quietly, his face still sad, but there was a hint of excitement in his eyes that he couldn't suppress.

almost.

After sending the prisoners away, he will inherit all the property. Then everything in the company will be his and he can do whatever he wants.

No one could stop him anymore.

Just as they were about to pass the seats in the inquiry area and were only a few steps away from the door, a figure hiding behind a sign and behaving in an extremely sneaky manner attracted their attention.

The two people around him were policemen after all, and the hospital was a high-risk area for accidents, so Inspector Megure stepped forward and asked, "Sir, what are you doing..."

The man turned around and shouted in surprise: "Officer Megure?"

Megure Jusan was stunned as he watched the other person pull down his mask and take off his sunglasses, revealing a face that was very familiar to him. It turned out to be Mouri Kogoro.

"Why are you like this?" Megure Jusan, who almost thought he was a criminal, was speechless.

Maori Kogoro made a shushing gesture and said, "Please be quiet! I have received a commission and am now..."

"Pfft."

An imperceptible sound was heard.

Megure Juzo did not hear the voice. He watched the man who was talking peacefully one second ago, and the next second his knees went weak, his body took several steps back as if it was equipped with an automatic navigation function, and sat down on a seat.

"Brother Maori?"

Megure Juzo, who had seen this posture yesterday, suddenly had a bad feeling.

"Inspector Megure, as you can see, I'm investigating a case right now." Maori Kogoro's voice sounded again, "It's related to the recent serial burglary cases in 10-chome."

His voice was not loud, but this was the exit on the first floor of the hospital, with a large flow of people around, and he immediately attracted everyone's attention.

Seeing the crowd gathering and talking, Megure Jusan, who had become one of the focus of the crowd, wanted to stop them: "Wait a minute, brother Mori, the suspect in this case was arrested last night!"

The one who actually made the noise, Conan Edogawa, hid behind his seat, trying to keep his body as low as possible so that others wouldn't notice him.

"The serial criminal has indeed been caught. What I want to talk about is the case that happened last night. There is another murderer in the case that killed President Kawai!"

Kawai Koichi's expression changed slightly.

He noticed that another detective next to him was looking at him worriedly, and then he showed a shocked and angry expression and walked forward: "Is it true? Someone else killed my father?!"

"Yes."

Edogawa Conan said in a firm tone.

"——And the other murderer is you, Mr. Kawai!"

The crowd was in an uproar.

There were discussions everywhere, and some of them even raised their cameras excitedly. Kawai Koichi felt that they were all looking at him, and he immediately became anxious.

"I was with my friends last night, how could I possibly kill my dad?! If you keep talking nonsense, I will sue you for defamation!"

"You didn't kill him yourself. But you led the criminal who killed him there yourself!"

The stern voice made Kawai Koichi's pupils shrink.

At that moment, all the sounds around seemed to disappear, and only the detective's voice was left, slowly narrating a certain fact.

"Mr. Kawai, to you, your father is more like an enemy, right?"

"An enemy who will always weigh on your head, making you complain, hate, and despise him... but because you are connected by blood, you can never let him go."

The surroundings suddenly became quiet.

……

A suffocating silence spread in the air, and after a few seconds, Kawai Koichi reacted.

"What are you talking about? I don't understand. How can my biological father and I be enemies?"

He looked at the other person helplessly and blankly.

"Mr. Maori, I know you are a detective who has been unknown all this time and wants to gain fame, but that doesn't give you a reason to frame me at will? Can you build a reputation as a detective by slandering innocent people?"

The sound of discussion began again, but this time the subject of discussion was the sleeping detective.

And when the detective faced the onlookers and questioning, there was no trace of panic in his voice.

"This criminal would have scouted out the area in advance if he was targeting the elderly living alone. If he had targeted the president from the beginning, he would have known that he was in the hospital and could have taken advantage of that time to commit the crime. He wouldn't have waited for him to come home."

"So his target was actually you. I think the prisoner mentioned this after he was arrested."

Takagi Shigeru nodded and said, "That's true. During the interrogation, he confessed that he didn't target the president, but Mr. Kawai, because Mr. Kawai was a witness in the previous case."

"He has targeted you at least twice in the past few days," the detective said in a calm tone.

"...Twice?" Kawai Takaichi was stunned.

"Yes, twice. But the first time he found the wrong person. He mistook a man with a similar hairstyle and body shape for you and pushed down the steel bars to hit him. After that failure, the criminal sneaked into the hospital again and saw you who happened to be visiting your father. When he saw your appearance, he realized that you were the one he was really looking for."

There was a hint of sharpness in Kogoro Mouri's usually untuned voice.

"He began to stalk you and on Saturday at noon, he deliberately pushed you at the intersection of the road, which was the second attack."

"I can't be sure when you realized someone wanted to kill you, but the only thing I'm sure of is that you didn't choose to call the police at that time."

Kawai Koichi noticed the strange looks around him and said, "That's because--"

"Then yesterday, you went to a coffee shop." The detective interrupted him mercilessly, "I was also in the store at that time, sitting at the table next to you, and I heard you loudly say that your father was about to be discharged from the hospital and that there was a large amount of cash stored in your home."

"And the criminal was also at the scene. He did not cover his face, and the waiter and several other customers in the store could recognize him. He heard the information you revealed and decided to attack President Kawai first."

Megure Jusan next to him frowned tightly.

He didn't have a smart brain, but after all, he had been a police officer for so many years and had seen at least a thousand criminals. He had accumulated rich experience and could see at a glance the state of the criminal after being exposed. At this moment, after listening to the sleeping detective's narration and looking at the victim's son's face, he was already 80% convinced.

"What's the motive?" he asked puzzledly, "To kill yourself... there must be a motive, right?"

"For property."

The detective said without hesitation: "His own company is on the verge of bankruptcy, and his father, who is rich, refuses to support him... The medical staff and patients on the fourth floor of the inpatient department have heard them quarreling fiercely over this."

Takagi Wataru was stunned along with the crowd.

He has an honest character and is often criticized for not having the aura of a criminal police. He has seen murderers and various reasons for murder in his daily life, but this time, it took him a long time to find his voice.

"Just for this?" He said in a dry voice, "Are you going to kill your own father for something like this?"

The detective did not answer him. His calm voice was still directed at the criminal: "Mr. Kawai, I have to admit that your plan is great. Your father was killed and the criminal was sent to prison. You are safe and can legitimately inherit all of your father's property."

"Even if the police later find out that you deliberately leaked the information to the criminal, it will be difficult for them to arrest you. After all, this is not even the crime of 'incitement'."

"This is simply a... 'perfect crime'."

……

What is it like to commit a crime?
What is it like to have a crime pointed out and have its truth uncovered layer by layer?
Koichi Kawai stood there. Since Kogoro Mori mentioned the coffee shop, he stopped talking and his mind was blank.

Until the term "perfect crime" came along.

Kawai Koichi gradually came to his senses. There was a layer of fine beads of sweat on his forehead. He did not wipe it off and stood there motionless.

He couldn't help but recall what happened in the hospital that day...

……

"——I'm telling you, if you keep harboring those messy thoughts, I'll kick you out completely! I'd rather throw all my money to the dogs than give you a penny!"

The old man was extremely disappointed, and his roar pierced his ears like an ice cone. Kawai Koichi, who noticed the onlookers at the door pointing and talking, blushed, but he did not back down. He saw a foreign bodyguard in the crowd and could not help asking the question he cared about most.

"Dad, I am your only son! All your things will belong to me in the future... Do you still want to change your will and give them to outsiders?!"

Parents’ property may not be left entirely to their children. In many countries, a will has higher authority than statutory inheritance.

During the meal, the FBI agent mentioned that a wealthy American man in another ward was revising his will. He planned to donate some of his collections to a friend’s art gallery instead of giving them all to his only child!
Kawai Koichi was worried that his father would do the same in anger!

However, upon hearing his words, President Kawai became completely furious.

"Shut up - I won't need you to pick me up when I'm discharged from the hospital tomorrow! Get out of here!!"

……

"Heh, heh heh..."

Kawai Koichi laughed softly.

Yes, this was a perfect crime—he had failed miserably in the game, but had achieved his goal in reality!

He trampled under his feet those who once questioned him!
"You said it very well, Mr. Maori." He twisted his mouth, trying his best to suppress the smile on his face, "Since it is a perfect crime, you don't have any evidence in your hand, right?"

Megure Jusan also pulled down the brim of his hat in distress.

The perfect crime...

What he said on the phone was his personal freedom, and the criminal heard it and then went there to commit the crime, whether it was intentional or unintentional, it could not be considered as instigation. It was indeed as Maori Kogoro said, it was difficult for the police to arrest him.

——Unless he admits it himself.

Megure Jusan thought of this and looked at Kawai Koichi again. He was staring at Maori Kogoro, without any sadness on his face. The crazy light flashing in his eyes frightened even him, a veteran detective with more than ten years of experience.

Kawai Koichi stepped forward and spread his hands: "Come on, Mr. Maori, if you want to arrest me, please give evidence..."

"I really have no evidence."

Conan Edogawa, who was sitting behind a chair, moved his body quietly as he spoke, so as not to get his legs numb from squatting for so long. The expression on his face was exceptionally calm.

Kawai Koichi was about to laugh, but he heard the other party continue in a nonchalant tone:
"This technique is excellent, comparable to a detective novel - you know, I've seen a similar technique in a novel before."

The sneer on Kawai Koichi's face froze in an instant.

"He used words as a weapon to instigate others to commit all kinds of evil deeds, and he just watched from the sidelines. The police were helpless against him because they didn't realize that he was committing a crime. He was the one manipulating everything behind the scenes..."

Such a description made the onlookers feel a chill down their spines.

Takagi Shigeru, who had read some novels, tentatively said a name: "Could it be Moriarty?"

"No."

Edogawa Conan denied it lightly in the voice of Maori Kogoro.

"Moriarty is the Napoleon of crime, famous all over the world; and the man I just mentioned, I'm afraid many people won't remember his name."

"Mr. Kawai, the first detective game you developed borrowed techniques from Sherlock Holmes. Even the cover was the Reichenbach Falls. Because of this, many people accused you of plagiarism, and your website was filled with abuse."

Kawai Takashi's breath was choked.

The smug smile on his face completely disintegrated, replaced by complete anger.

"I've read that plagiarists won't admit their mistakes. They'll just do more and improve their methods to make their plagiarism more obscure - just like what you did this time."

The detective said casually: "This time you chose an unknown little person, so that not many people can see it..."

"No!"

Kawai Koichi let out a loud roar and wanted to rush in front of Mori Kogoro and grab his collar, but fortunately Takagi Wataru stopped him with his quick eyes and hands.

“No plagiarism!”

"——This is my own idea! This time I came up with the method myself, to kill that old man!!"

His shouts echoed throughout the first floor and everyone could hear them clearly.

After shouting, Koichi Kawai stood there in a daze. He was a beat slow to realize what he had said. As the camera flashes rang out around him, his face gradually turned pale.

Megure Jusan walked forward and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Mr. Kawai, come with us to the Metropolitan Police Department for another confirmation."

The same words he said when he left the meeting room, but with a completely different purpose.

……

The crowd gradually dispersed, and the police took another suspect away. Conan Edogawa came out from behind a seat and watched their backs as they left.

On the official website, Kawai Takashi has always responded to accusations of plagiarism without hesitation. So he just tried to use this to provoke him, but he didn't expect it to be successful, making him blow himself up in public.

It's just that even if such behavior is convicted, the crime won't be serious...

Edogawa Conan sighed, glanced at Maori Kogoro, and sat next to him.

Then he remembered the little man mentioned in the previous conversation.

That was certainly not Moriarty.

Without Colonel Moran by his side, without sufficient manpower, and without the brains to formulate a perfect criminal plan, he could not build a huge criminal empire, nor could he receive praise from both the black and white sides.

He was unknown and alone.

He walked among the crowd like an ordinary person. He would personally go to some dissatisfied people to destroy their will to resist killing, widen the deepest cracks in their hearts, and finally let them fall into the abyss.

This is Norton, from Agatha Christie's Curtain.

He is Poirot's final antagonist.

Moriarty was a very famous person, but even he could not kill Holmes, and Holmes was successfully resurrected from under the waterfall.

Norton did not kill Poirot himself.

However, he succeeded in getting Poirot to kill him, because the law could not punish him at all, and Poirot had to do it himself. In the end, the great detective repented of his crime of murder, gave up taking the medicine and died.

——He failed to kill Poirot, but he succeeded in killing a great detective.

A chill suddenly ran up Edogawa Conan's back, and after he came to his senses, the uneasy feeling quietly retreated.

Norton is scary, but this method of crime is also troublesome. He has to get close to the "victim" first and then investigate carefully to catch clues. He is not afraid.

Edogawa Conan even began to recall the other person's name with interest.

Moriarty's real name was James, a very common name; as for Norton's name, he remembered it was...

"Conan! Where on earth did you go just now?!"

A shout interrupted Conan Edogawa's thoughts. He turned back stiffly and saw Ran Mouri who was walking towards him angrily.

"Sister Xiaolan..."

It's over, it's over. Mr. Qingliu just said he would send an email to inform Xiaolan to come up to pick him up, but he just ran down and left her with nothing...

Conan Edogawa's brain was working fast, thinking of a reasonable excuse. His eyes accidentally glanced behind Mao Lilan and found that Aoyagi Akimichi also came down, accompanied by a foreign man.

The foreign man was the bodyguard at the door of the ward at the end of the corridor. He had seen him when he went upstairs just now.

Under his gaze, the foreign bodyguard moved closer to Aoyagi Akimitsu and moved his lips.

"Be safe, Stephen, that man is coming to Japan..."

----

The protagonist's other pseudonym has been changed to Stephen Belloberg, and the previous ones have also been changed. (End of this chapter)