People are in Conan, but Ace Attorney

Chapter 943 The Reversal of the Silk Thread (7)

Kogoro Mouri recalled what he had seen in Kanami Saki's bedroom yesterday.

Under the dim moonlight, Kanami Saki was fighting someone at the window when that person jumped out and left. In a fleeting glance, she saw that the person's appearance was remarkably similar to Geralt Pegasus.

However, when he looked at the statue in the photo that Gui Yueying had taken out, he also had a sense of déjà vu.

—Could it be that he misjudged because the light was too dim?
What do these two photos prove?

Ritsuko Usui asked with some confusion.

They're just photos of Kanami Saki's bedroom. Comparing the two, the only difference is the absence of a statue. What does that prove? That Kanami Saki used a statue to impersonate a living person?
Even if she really was using a statue to impersonate a living person, how did she manage to make the statue jump into the sea on its own?

If Kanami Saki threw it down herself, wouldn't Kogoro Mouri, the great detective, have noticed it being there? Is Hotaru Onizuki just desperately trying anything?
"Attorney Usui, you should be able to see the difference between these two photos, right?"

Hotaru Onizuki faced the defense panel and questioned Ritsuko Usui.

Faced with such a visible difference, she couldn't very well lie, so she answered the questions normally.
"Comparing the two photos, one statue is missing."

"But Prosecutor Ghost Moon, what does this prove? What is your purpose in showing these two photos? Are you trying to say that Mrs. Kanami used a statue to impersonate an attacker and then threw the statue out of the window?"

Ritsuko Usui asked herself the question and answered it herself.
"That's impossible. As a great detective, can't Kogoro Mouri tell whether the attacker jumped out on his own or was thrown out by Mrs. Kanami Saki? The difference is like night and day!"

"The fact that a statue is missing doesn't prove anything."

"Besides, according to the descriptions of the people at the Gana villa at the time of the incident, the statue was no longer in that location. Who knows when this photo of you with the statue still standing was taken?"

Upon hearing this, Onizuki Hotaru knew that Usui Ritsuko had not yet learned the full picture of the case.

Since Ritsuko Usui really learned the whole story from Kanami Saki, she would know that there were also traces in Kanami Saki's bedroom at the crime scene that were exactly the same as the murder trap in the piano room.

It seems that the defense lawyer who didn't go to the scene to observe is going to suffer a great loss.

The young prosecutor said it easily.
"Attorney Usui, you probably don't know this yet?"

“There are not only traces of mechanisms left by silkworm silk inside the villa, and they are not limited to the piano room. There are also similar traces in the defendant's bedroom!”

These words immediately caused an uproar in the audience.

Upon hearing this, the presiding judge asked even more earnestly and nervously,

"What? Prosecutor Ghost Moon, are you telling the truth?"

"If there were traces of a murder device in Mrs. Kanami's room, wouldn't that mean the deceased's purpose was to kill Mrs. Kanami and imprison Mr. Kanami Yoshizaki?"

"In that case, it's even less likely that the murderer is Mrs. Kanami Saki, right?"

The bald old man spoke as if Gui Yueying was speaking on behalf of the defense.

However, Ritsuko Usui sensed that something was increasingly wrong.

It is true that the murderer used silkworm silk to create the killing mechanism, but this killing mechanism was actually a simple pulley mechanism that could be used not only to kill people but also to move things.

In other words... if the silkworm silk were used to fake an attack...

Ritsuko Usui suddenly looked at Misaki Kanami in the defendant's seat.

At this moment, Kanami Saki's face in the defendant's dock was visibly pale.

Suddenly, a surge of anger rose in her heart.

Why didn't you explain this to her earlier?
If she had known beforehand, she would have prepared evidence and inferences to support this argument. Now that it has been exposed by the prosecutor in court, the situation is completely different! If it weren't for the fact that she was still in court...

Ritsuko Usui even had an urge to terminate the commission directly and cut ties with Kanami Saki.

Her goal is to become the strongest female lawyer, surpassing Eri Kisaki. If she loses a lawsuit for no reason because of this, wouldn't that make her even further away from her goal?

Immediately, Kanami Saki's expression became somewhat uncertain.

At this point, perhaps the only option is to postpone the trial until the next day.

She sought an opportunity to have a serious talk with the presiding judge of the Third Trial Chamber, hoping to find another way to get him on her side... It seemed that this was the only way to secure a victory.

"The murder trap in the piano room is, in essence, just a use of a fixed pulley."

"By applying a force to a fixed object, the object can be lifted up, and once the applied force is removed, the object will naturally fall down."

Guiyue Ying spoke eloquently.

"In other words, this allows one to use the statue to create the illusion that they have been attacked."

"All you need to do is use silkworm silk to go around the relief above the defendant's bedroom window, tie the other end to the statue, pull the statue up, and then use your body to hide most of the statue's features."

"In this way, the defendant only needs to take the corresponding action and release the silkworm silk the moment someone enters, so that the silkworm silk can pull the statue directly into the sea, creating the illusion that the attacker has escaped."

"What Ritsuko Usui just said not only did not prove my reasoning wrong, but actually proved it to be correct."

She turned the photo over in her hand.

The police had clearly marked the time the photo appeared at the villa in Gana.

June 15th.

In other words, this is a photo taken on that day.

"The reason why Mr. Kogoro Mouri did not see the statue in the middle is because the defendant had taken the statue to create the illusion that he had been attacked, and then it fell into the water along with the silkworm silk."

"Ritsuko Usui, do you think there's anything wrong with my reasoning?"

she asked.

At this moment, Ritsuko Usui frowned, but still gritted her teeth and said,
"Of course, at least the gross profit..."

"What I saw back then might really have been that Beethoven statue."

Kogoro Mouri stroked his chin, speaking thoughtfully.

Upon hearing this, Ritsuko Usui, realizing she had been betrayed, suddenly turned around and looked at Kogoro Mouri.

However, he didn't notice what Ritsuko Usui was looking at, and continued speaking.

"The lighting was dim and the time was short, so we could only see a rough outline."

"Now that I think about it, it seems I didn't see the attacker's lower body, and the facial features are different from Mr. Gerald Pegasus... Hmm, it would be easy to verify if that's true, right?"

"The half-body statue is very heavy. If it had really fallen, it might still be at the bottom of the cliff now."

"Wouldn't the mystery be solved automatically if we just looked for a bust of Beethoven there?"

(End of this chapter)