People are in Conan, but Ace Attorney

Chapter 1031 The Reversal of the Period Drama (4)

"It was Ito Tamanosuke who advocated for the inclusion of Edo Boys within the traveling theater troupe."

"The person who argued that Edo Boys were not part of the traveling theater troupe was the deceased Chikaishi Tetsuo."

Shiratori Ninzaburo's face darkened slightly.

Then he answered,
"Just now, Prosecutor Kujo proposed the hypothesis that Edo Kid is Ito Tamanosuke. This hypothesis does not actually conflict with the current situation, because Ito Tamanosuke may have proposed this hypothesis to cover up his true intentions."

"That's because Ito Tamanosuke's true identity is Edo Boy."

"That's why he had to do the opposite, to show that Edo Boy was inside the traveling theater troupe, so that he could create a situation like the one that Prosecutor Reiko Kujo mentioned, where the truth is often hidden."

"They have repeatedly used this method to deceive the eyes and ears of local police stations in various places."

Then, Xiang Yuanguang raised an eyebrow and asked,
"In other words, you think Ito Tamanosuke is an Edo kid."

"In order to cover his tracks, he had Chikashi Tetsuo write that Edo Boy was inside the traveling theater troupe, and even went so far as to kill Chikashi Tetsuo and take down his own financial manager in the process, right?"

Are you sure this is really a cover-up?

—That's not true.

Shiratori Ninzaburo's face darkened again.

His explanation seems reasonable at first glance, but it becomes ridiculous when combined with the assumption that Ito Tamanosuke directly killed Chikaishi Tetsuo, and then went on to kill the finance manager in succession.

This is essentially helping the police narrow down the search area.

The traveling troupe originally only had six people. After killing two more, there were only four left, including a disabled person and a woman. This meant there were only two suspects left.

Ito Tamanosuke and Muraki Ryuichi will definitely be subject to a thorough police investigation.

Could Ito Tamanosuke have kept his identity as the Phantom Thief Edo Yakuza hidden at that time?

Shiratori Ninzaburo thought it was impossible.

He pondered for a moment, then said,
"Perhaps it was just a momentary impulse... No, a momentary impulse only explains the murder at noon, not the murder at night. The two are contradictory..."

Shiratori Ninzaburo was lost in thought for a moment, unable to come up with the correct answer himself.

Seeing this, Reiko Kujo continued,

"Attorney Xiang Yuan, what do you think are the possibilities?"

As the Madonna of the prosecutor's world, Reiko Kujo is very famous in the prosecutor's world, but it is well known that she has never won against her nemesis, Eri Kisaki.

Therefore, others felt that although she was famous, her chances of winning were not high.

She herself didn't pay much attention to her win rate. More important than the win rate was the truth of the case. Therefore, she directly asked Xiang Yuanguang to state his hypothesis and stop beating around the bush.

Upon hearing this, Xiang Yuanguang immediately said,

"The reason why Ito Tamanosuke asked Chikaishi Tetsuo to change the ending was actually to lure out the real phantom thief Edo-kun, who was hiding in the traveling theater troupe."

"Because only Ito Tamanosuke and Chikaishi Tetsuo knew the contents of the script."

"A simple question to any member of the traveling theater troupe will tell you that they had very little time to rehearse the script. It wasn't finished until after Chikaishi Tetsuo threw Ito Tamanosuke out."

"Furthermore, the script was not shown to the other members after that."

"Because Chikashi Tetsuo was murdered, and the floppy disk containing the script was also taken away. In other words, now no one knows what's written on the floppy disk except for the murderer and Ito Tamanosuke."

"And in the case of Chikaishi Tetsufu's death, before the floppy disk was taken away."

"Only Ito Tamanosuke knew the contents of the script on the floppy disk, which is why Ito Tamanosuke was framed by the real Phantom Thief Edo Kid at night."

"He sent a message to everyone, intending to have a one-on-one conversation with Edo-kun." "However, Edo-kun didn't know that the message was sent to a group and thought it was sent to him alone. He then believed that Ito Tamanosuke had really figured out his true identity, so he set a trap inside the Beika Theater."

"——Naraku."

Upon hearing this, Reiko Kujo immediately asked,
"A very interesting hypothesis."

"However, how will you prove that? You need to at least prove that there was a third party inside the Miho Theater that night who could have committed the murder. Do you have any evidence of that?"

Hearing this, Xiang Yuanguang snapped his fingers and said,

"Have."

The whole place was in an uproar.

No one imagined that Kou Gen would have evidence that could prove the existence of a third party inside the Beika Theater. Even Shiratori Ninzaburo looked up at the defense table at this moment.

He knew that Xiang Yuanguang had obtained two pieces of evidence at the scene.

One is a wooden board, the other is a fingerprint.

So, the evidence that Xiang Yuanguang is about to present is indeed that seemingly unremarkable wooden board?
"The defense presented evidence."

Xiang Yuanguang said,
"The broken wooden plank hidden behind the curtain of the Miwa Theater."

Upon hearing this, the bailiffs immediately brought out the Kang Zhe wooden board, placing it on the evidence table so that everyone could see this wooden board, which could determine whether there was a third party at the scene.

Reiko Kujo frowned and said,
"There's a shoe print in the middle of this wooden board, but it's incomplete. Is it the deceased's shoe print?"

The deceased she was referring to was not Chikaishi Tetsuo, but Ogiwara Itoe.

It's impossible for Chikaishi Tetsuo to leave shoe prints on the wooden plank, but it's possible for Ogiwara Itoe, since Ogiwara Itoe died at night in the Naraku-ryu theater of the Beika Theater.

Seeing that Xiang Yuanguang nodded, Kujo Reiko then spoke.

"In that case, this piece of evidence should be used as supplementary evidence to prove that Ito Tamanosuke is guilty."

"Ito Tamanosuke deliberately summoned Naraku, then placed a wooden plank above Naraku, guiding Ogiwara Itoe to step on the plank, causing it to break and Ogiwara Itoe to fall to her death."

"Afterwards, Ito Tamanosuke hid the wooden board and then checked the condition of the deceased."

"But he was arrested by the police who rushed to the scene after being alerted."

What Reiko Kujo said makes a lot of sense.

However, she still overlooked some very important piece of evidence.

—Just like in this case, everyone except Minamoto Kou and Conan.

As expected, Reiko Kujo's courtroom skills were still somewhat inferior to Eri Kisaki's.

If it's Eri Kisaki

Then she will notice.

Xiang Yuanguang sighed and said,

“Prosecutor Kujo, you should know that Ito Tamanosuke was not wearing gloves when he was arrested, and there were no gloves around him either. If he was the one who moved this plank, then there should be Ito Tamanosuke’s fingerprints on it.”

"But there was nothing on it."

"This proves that the wooden plank was hidden by a third party!"

(End of this chapter)