Coroner Coroner

"It was stepped on in advance for a certain purpose before the crime happened."

"What did that guy leave such a strange footprint?"

"Of course it's to confuse the public."

"In order for people to see the footprints, they will subconsciously believe that the murderer was broken into the scene of the crime and fled through the window in desperation."

"Combined with the evidence he hid in Mr. Nakamura's clothes in advance, the murderer can push the boat along the way and pin the blame on Mr. Nakamura."

"But actually..." Conan paused slightly:

"The real murderer never escaped from the room."

"That's why you, and a tracking master like Belmode, were so easily thrown off by that murderer."

"Because you are chasing air from beginning to end."

"The murderer misled you."

"She stayed in the room at that point, acting in front of all of us."

Conan replaced the "he" he was pointing at with "she".

Obviously, he has been able to confirm the identity of the murderer.

Mao Lilan also thought of that name, but she instinctively refused to admit it:

"Ms. Yonehara..."

"This murderer, could it be you?"

Chapter 308 Yonehara-sensei's Decision

What Conan said is correct, Mao Lilan has already locked the real culprit in his heart.

She has already noticed something since she found out that this string of footprints was not left by the murderer when he fled:

First of all, it can be confirmed that this string of footprints was forged in advance by someone to confuse the public and mislead the direction of the investigation.

Then it can basically be judged that:

The person who forged these footprints in advance was the murderer himself.

And Mao Lilan had already determined by observing the characteristics of the footprints before that the owner of this string of footprints was an adult female.

The only adult women in the villa are:

Akoko Yonehara, Misato Nakamura, Sonoko Suzuki, Ran Mori, Belmode.

Among these five people, Yonehara and Nakamura are the only ones who may have the motive to kill Sugiyama-sensei, and who can attack him this morning.

Because Akiko Yonehara was also a victim before, and Nakamura Misato found extremely unfavorable physical evidence against her, everyone subconsciously ignored Mr. Yonehara from the list of suspects.

But now...

The footprint confirmation was forged in advance.

Most likely, the murderer didn't escape through the window at all, but stayed in the room.

Then Akoko Yonehara was more suspicious, while Misato Nakamura seemed to be deliberately framed.

"Yes, could it be... a mistake?"

"People cannot be generalized..."

"Maybe, the murderer's running gait looks similar to that of ordinary people?"

Mao Lilan's expression was extremely shaken.

She even couldn't hold back such absurd thoughts to excuse the suspect.

Because she was too emotional, she instinctively refused to believe that her beloved Yonehara-sensei would be the murderer.

"Xiao Lan, stop being naive."

"This string of footprints was forged by the murderer in advance."

Conan sighed helplessly, shattering Mao Lilan's last illusion:

"Remember what you found, the pair of slippers that the murderer left outside the door?"

When Mao Lilan was chasing the murderer, he found that the murderer had left his slippers in the snow outside the door.

Everyone thought that the murderer changed into a pair of slippers at the door in order not to be found with snow and water stains on his shoes after escaping into the house.

And Conan noticed more from this detail:

"The act of changing slippers is not strange in itself."

"But Xiaolan, have you ever thought about:"

"Why did the murderer throw the changed slippers into the snow outside?"

"Know that the shoe rack for clean slippers is placed in the entrance. If you want to change into clean slippers, you have to open the door first and walk a few steps inside."

"Why did the murderer take off his slippers outside the door, walk a few steps into the door barefoot, and then put on clean slippers?"

"When a normal person is being chased and flees in a panic, they should subconsciously run in wearing slippers, and then hurriedly change into any pair of shoes from the shoe rack in the entrance, right?"

"This..." Mao Lilan's expression changed slightly.

She faintly understood Conan's meaning:

"The murderer did this because she didn't want to enter the villa wearing those snow-covered slippers."

"Because if you do that, those snow-stained slippers? It will leave snow-stained footprints on the floor of the villa."

"Is there heating in the villa? The temperature is higher."

"If it's just a snow dust footprint, the snow dust must not have melted yet."

"If it is a footprint that was forged and left in advance? In a few minutes? The snow will melt into water stains."

"And if the indoor footprints we see don't have snow flakes, only melted water stains..."

“Would it be easy to spot? These footprints weren’t just left.”

"so…"

"In order not to be noticed by us, the murderer deliberately left the dirty slippers outside the door? Be careful not to bring snow dust into the door."

"It's freezing outside the door? The snow flakes on the slippers won't melt, it looks like they've just been abandoned."

"But the act of not having 300 taels of silver in this place proves..."

Mao Lilan reluctantly admitted the reality:

"The footprints were forged in advance, and the real murderer simply escaped through the window."

"Ms. Nakamura Misato is not a murderer."

Eliminate Misato Nakamura? The remaining suspects? But Akiko Yonehara is the only one.

"The only thing that can't be explained now is why Yuanzi's statement mentioned that when she entered the door, Mr. Yonehara was lying on the ground in front of her, but the murderer attacked her from behind."

"Unless Yonehara-sensei knows the avatar technique, she can't do it"

"It seemed pretty incredible."

"It's also the reason why we excluded her as a suspect in the first place."

"But Holmes said: Eliminate the impossible? What remains, however implausible, must be the truth."

Conan's eyes became serious.

He used his wild imagination that day to guess the tricks used by the murderer:

"It's a hoax."

"Sonoko just took a quick look at the time and saw 'Yonehara-sensei' lying on the floor? Then he was attacked and lost consciousness."

"And in such a short period of time, she may not have time to confirm whether the person who fell in front of her is the real Yonehara-sensei."

"After all? In the room at the time:"

"Besides Sonoko and Yonehara-sensei? There is a third 'person', isn't there?"

"You mean..." Mao Lilan couldn't help shivering: "It's the dead teacher Sugiyama?"

"Yes."

Conan boldly guessed:

"Sensei Yonehara probably made that corpse into himself."

"This is easy to do, just cover the body with your own clothes and cover the face with a wig."

"At first glance, Sonoko would subconsciously think that it was Mr. Yonehara who had passed out."

Yonehara-sensei used to have short hair, but now he has long hair.

This can't help but draw Conan's attention.

Of course, Mr. Yonehara may have simply changed his appearance.

But without waiting for Mao Lilan to question, Conan continued:

"This speculation is indeed bizarre, and there is no evidence to prove it."

"But it's also easy to verify."

"We just have to ask again, did Sonoko see clearly the face of the so-called 'Yonehara-sensei'?"

"If you look at whether Yonehara-sensei is wearing a wig, you can almost judge the feasibility of this trick."

"And once the feasibility is confirmed, coupled with the previous investigation and reasoning, the murderer can almost be confirmed."

So far, the case has become very clear:

Yonehara-sensei killed Sugiyama-sensei first in the morning and hid the body under the bed.

Arriving at the villa at night, she hid the evidence in Nakamura Misato's down jacket in advance, and forged footprints in advance, creating the illusion that the murderer jumped out of the window to escape.

Coupled with the trick of misleading Sonoko's sight, this not only relieved Yonehara-sensei himself of suspicion, but also made Nakamura Misato take the blame for her, becoming the number one suspect in everyone's eyes.