Conan: Chief of Rice Flower's Science Points

Chapter 316 Dark under the lamp

Chapter 83

At this time, Uesugi also discovered the physical advantage of Police Shiraishi Shimasa - although he couldn't monitor the prison, he could be "unscrupulous" when questioning him.

After Huang Chuan heard Bai Shi talk about this, although he looked unhappy, he still answered.

"Did she contact her family afterwards?" Bai Shi asked further.

"I don't know...what does this have to do with the case?" Huang Chuan couldn't help but ask back.

"Nothing. One last question. Did you find that Qinggu hid the wine in the abandoned warehouse?" Bai Shi asked, staring at him.

Huang Chuan immediately replied: "No."

Bai Shi looked at him, then nodded and gestured with his hand, "Okay, go ahead."

Huang Chuan also looked at Bai Shi again, then stood up and left.

"Do you want to ask Koizumi-san?" Uesugi took the initiative to ask Shiraishi for instructions.

"If you want to hear her nonsense, you can ask her." Bai Shi was obviously not interested.

Whatever the police found out, it was the police who found out. As a witch, she would never undermine herself - otherwise, how would she do "business" in the future?
After hearing what Shiraishi said, Uesugi also shook his head.

……

After questioning all the relevant personnel, not only did they not find any effective breakthroughs, but most of the clues the police had previously investigated were eliminated one by one...

The conflict between father and son, anonymous blackmail due to the daughter's rebellion, the sister borrowing money and not paying it back...these seem to be just trivial family matters at the moment, and it is difficult to say that they are "motives for murder."

"There were only two outsiders... one stole wine and sold it for money, and the other's wife cheated on him, but their motives were only slightly stronger and still far-fetched." Uesugi said with a headache.

Qinggu did make some illegal profits, but does that mean he has to kill people just because this matter is exposed?
Regardless of whether it is really so cruel, what is more important is that this is not something that can be settled by killing Tadao Akabane - a very simple inference, because Tadao Akabane could not go to the abandoned warehouse at all, so if Tadao Akabane knew about this, someone must have told him, which means that at least a third person knew about his act of stealing wine.

As for Huangchuan...

Although it is true that a wife cheating on her with a friend is likely to lead to murder, this happened ten years ago, and it seems that he does not know who his wife cheated on him with, otherwise he would not have pretended for ten years...

Even if he really knew about this recently, it is unlikely that he would suddenly want to kill someone.

"No, we have made an important discovery...their testimonies are contradictory." Bai Shi suddenly said at this time.

Generally speaking, when investigating a case, the most confusing thing is that the testimonies of the relevant personnel are not contradictory, and the reconstruction of the course of events shows that no one has the conditions to commit the crime...

Once there are contradictions in the testimonies of relevant personnel, it often means a breakthrough!
"Contradiction? Where?" Uesugi quickly picked up the little notebook and started reading again.

"The victim's attitude towards the legend of samurai ghosts and witches... The deceased had directly expressed to his son and daughter before his death that he did not want the abandoned warehouse to be demolished because of the legend of ghosts; the deceased's sister and Qingtani said that the deceased did not believe these things before his death; and Huangchuan said that the deceased should have believed them." Shiraishi pointed out the contradiction.

"This... is it important? Could it be that they just don't understand the dead well enough?" Uesugi looked at Shiraishi strangely - didn't you tell me not to care too much about the spiritual ritual?
Moreover, this was the attitude of the deceased. If someone else lied about their attitude, Uesugi would care more.

"First of all, it's the children of the deceased, especially the son... He listened directly to his father and used this reason to refuse his farm transformation. This is also known to everyone. He definitely did not lie about this." Bai Shi analyzed one by one.

"So the ones who lied were the deceased's sister and Qingtani? What's the reason?" Uesugi still didn't understand.

“No, judging from Akabane Miwa’s testimony, the deceased had always subtly shown an attitude that he did not believe these things, but he only recently showed a different attitude.

"The reason given to the son should be to stop him from transforming the farm. Here, it is the deceased who has the motive to lie and just used the 'legend of the samurai's ghost' as an excuse. This is consistent with what Qinggu said." Shiraishi shook his head.

"Wait...you mean...Huangchuan is lying?" Uesugi also reacted at this time.

The deceased lied to his son that he believed in the "Legend of the Dead Samurai" for a purpose, but...

There is no reason to lie to Huang Chuan!
Then the one who has reason to lie should be Huang Chuan.

"Could it be that Huangchuan misunderstood the deceased's attitude?" Uesugi asked doubtfully.

"That's a possibility, but at the moment, the deceased trusted Huang Chuan the most. He even asked Huang Chuan to verify the theft of wine from Qinggu." Bai Shi paused and continued, "And if we believe that Huang Chuan is hiding something, then the other vague point will be explained."

Seeing Uesugi looking at him in confusion, Shiraishi did not keep him in suspense: "According to Qinggu, someone should have discovered his act of hiding wine in the abandoned warehouse, but he doesn't know who it was, and even the deceased didn't know about it.

"At present, it seems that the person who is most likely to discover this is undoubtedly Huang Chuan, because he was entrusted by the deceased to investigate Qinggu's theft of wine. But if he discovered the wine stored in the warehouse, there must be some reason why he concealed this matter and did not tell the deceased about his discovery. He even pretended not to know in front of Qinggu..."

Originally, Shiraishi and the Aomori Prefectural Police did not think that Huangchuan had any reason to do so.

but……

If he lied to hide something in the previous incident, then the suspicion that he lied in other matters would be greatly increased!
"So...what is he hiding?" Uesugi asked puzzledly.

Bai Shi was silent for a moment and then said, "I don't know yet, but we can go to the scene and take a look."

"The scene?" Uesugi instinctively looked towards the southwest of the villa, then reacted and said, "Are you talking about the scene where the wine was hidden?"

"That's right, let's take a look...that abandoned warehouse." Bai Shi nodded.

As Uesugi nodded, Shiraishi looked at another detective next to him and said, "By the way, there is another place where you should have taken fingerprints. Please show me the results."

Shiraishi brought the fingerprint collection results again, and Uesugi took a look at it, but didn't find anything strange. Instead, Shiraishi nodded slowly after looking at it, as if confirming some guess.

Uesugi didn't have the nerve to ask directly, so he could only pretend to have figured something out, while muttering to himself, "Is this big guy playing tricks on me?"

Seeing Shiraishi and others were about to go out, Ayako also came forward.

"We are going to check out the haunted warehouse... Do you want to join us?" Bai Shi asked.

"Eh? Warehouse... I'm afraid it might not be convenient for me to wear high heels." Ayako was still a little scared of these legends.

So only Shiraishi and Uesugi went together, and Aotani was also invited...

……

The farm is large, and the abandoned warehouse is located in a remote area, next to a small road - probably when the warehouse was still in use, agricultural products were loaded directly onto trucks here.

But now it looks shabby because it has been abandoned for a long time.

Although Qinggu used this place, he used it secretly, so it was impossible for him to tidy it up. Instead, he kept it in an abandoned state.

Moreover, this warehouse was probably built to prevent water accumulation, and was located on a slope that was not easy to climb up. The wooden stairs had long been in disrepair and were indeed not easy to climb up.

For an adult, it is not impossible to get up, but it is definitely impossible to get up in a wheelchair!

Bai Shi walked up to the door and shook it, only to find that it was still locked...

"Open the door...Who else has this key?" Bai Shi asked Qinggu.

"Originally there was only one key. Mine was a later replacement. The original key should be kept by Zhongfu." Qinggu said as he opened the door.

The warehouse was still in tatters, and there was no light...

However, after coming in, Bai Shi found several large wooden barrels on the shelf covered with cloth in the corner - in short, there were more than twenty barrels of cider hidden in various remote corners, which were all Qinggu's "extra income".

"You said before that the warehouse had been tampered with. Did you find anything?" Bai Shi confirmed with Qinggu.

"The wine barrels here seem to have been moved, but... I'm not sure." Qinggu said, pointing to a corner.

Bai Shi followed the direction of his finger and moved the barrels of wine away...

In Bai Shi's hands, the wine barrel weighing dozens of kilograms was like moving a plastic chair.

thump—

"Hmm?" Bai Shi suddenly heard a hollow sound when he moved the wine barrel and put it down.

The floor is empty!
Suddenly, Shiraishi and Uesugi both looked towards Qinggu...

"I...I don't know about that. I only hid this much!" Qinggu said quickly.

Bai Shi moved the barrels of wine on the ground, then squatted on the ground and patted the surroundings...

Bang, bang, boom—

"It looks like this is the place..." Bai Shi said as he put on the gloves he carried with him and groped for the gap next to the floor.

As if he had discovered something, Bai Shi directly used his hand to hold the gap and lifted up the entire floor - Bai Shi's nails were also Lv10 nails, with amazing hardness!

However, under the floor, there was no entrance to the cellar, but only a hole that looked about... the size of a person.

It was empty inside at this moment...

Uesugi was silent for a moment when he saw this, as if he had thought of something, but he couldn't put it together. Qingtani was confused and kept repeating that he knew nothing.

"That samurai armor was placed here ten years ago, right? Tsuruko also saw 'the samurai armor moved' here." Shiraishi asked Qingtani.

"Yeah, that's right..." Qinggu nodded.

Upon hearing this, Shiraishi covered the floor and said, "Let's go... Although I'm not interested in this kind of detective story, let's reenact the crime process to make it more convincing this time."

"Eh? Officer Shiraishi, you mean you already know..."

……

March 3, 2: pm.

Although it was not yet time for the spiritual ceremony to begin yesterday, it was already dark outside. This was a farm and there were not many lights outside, so it was pitch black outside the villa.

"What? Reenact the process? Have you solved the case?" Tadao asked hurriedly. "Well... not yet, but we will know after the reenactment." Uesugi said stiffly.

Tadao looked at Uesugi with a questioning look, and Uesugi continued: "After that, everyone, just like last night... go into the house and sit down again in the same order. Be careful not to do anything you didn't do last night."

Soon Shangshan also looked at Huangchuan and said, "Mr. Huangchuan, you are still making tea outside like last night."

"Oh..." Huang Chuan seemed relieved when he heard that.

Shiraishi said to Tsuruko, "Ms. Tsuruko, remember the timing of your scream, and... be sure to pay attention to the first time you saw 'father murder', and see if there is any difference from before."

"Shiraishi..." Ayako pulled him aside, as if she felt this was too cruel.

However, Hezi nodded at this time and said firmly: "Since it is to find the murderer...I will!"

"Okay, from now on I will play the role of the victim. The performance will begin in five minutes." Uesugi said as he sat on the electric wheelchair.

……

Five minutes later, everyone came to the storage room where the murder took place again. Candles and a six-pointed star tablecloth were placed on the round table again.

Everyone tried their best to control themselves and not do things they hadn't done before, but it was still inevitable that they paid more attention to their surroundings.

This time, Hongzi seemed to have understood something and quickly attracted everyone's attention, asking everyone to sit down again in the same order as the night before.

After lighting the candles and turning off the lights, it was still pitch black around me...

However, this time, although Hongzi was still muttering to himself, everyone was more concerned about how the candle was extinguished. They paid less attention to Hongzi and instead observed the person opposite them.

but……

Shila-

The candle suddenly went out!

"what?"

Someone couldn't help but let out a light exclamation - this time, even after paying close attention, they still couldn't notice who blew out the candles!

The next moment, Uesugi made a sound of falling onto the table.

Although she didn't see the slight reflection of the blade this time, Tsuruko still calculated the time and shouted...

Dengdengdeng-

Huang Chuan ran over, pushed the door open, and said in a somewhat awkward tone: "What happened? I heard Hezi's voice..."

At this time, with the help of the light outside, everyone saw Uesugi lying on the table with a note stuck on his back!
The note was obviously not there before, and now, just like last night, everyone is holding hands...

"Huh? This is... 'Guard the door'?" Zhongfu, who was standing next to him, read out the contents of the note.

At this time everyone looked towards the door, and saw... Bai Shi was standing behind the door!

"what!"

"how come……"

"Officer Shiraishi...when did you..."

Just now they didn't know that Bai Shi was also in the room - Huang Chuan was right at the door, so Bai Shi obviously didn't just come in.

Only Hezi was still looking in the direction of her "father", frowning, as if she had discovered something...

"I was in the room from the beginning," Shiraishi said as a matter of course.

"How could it be... where could you be hiding?" Tadao looked around in confusion - there was no place to hide an ordinary person, so how could there be room for Officer Shiraishi to hide?
Qing Gu also asked in confusion at this time: "And the candle just now... who blew it out?" As he said this, he looked at Akabane Miwa and the witch Hongzi.

This time, Qing Gu was looking at his opponents, Zhongfu and Tsuruko. The two siblings definitely did not blow the whistle. In fact, Zhongfu was also looking at them, but he did not notice that anyone was blowing the whistle.

At this time, Bai Shi walked back to the window from behind the door.

wow-

Bai Shi pulled open the curtains, hid behind them and said, "I was just here."

Everyone:...

Zhongfu suddenly laughed out of anger: "Hey, hey, hey, officer... Although I asked you to play my father, but..."

That’s right, the person who pulled the curtains last night was Tadao Akabane himself, so everyone has always assumed that there can’t be anyone behind the curtains.

But now Uesugi is obviously acting as a "shill"...

"But how do you know that your father didn't lie last night?" Bai Shi asked back, taking advantage of his words.

"I...but..." Tadao paused when he heard this, but he was obviously not convinced by Shiraishi's statement - did my father hire someone to kill him?

"And the one who blew out the candles... was actually me." Uesugi stood up and said.

That’s right, it was Uesugi who blew out the candle, so even if he paid some attention to the person on the opposite side, he wouldn’t notice anything.

"Just after the candle went out, I came out from behind the curtains, posted this note, and came to the door..." Bai Shi said as a matter of course.

Obviously, the process of "sticking the note" refers to the step of "stabbing", but...

"Isn't this right? Officer Shiraishi, are you trying to say that the murderer is an outsider? But we didn't see anyone at the door at the time, and it was even more impossible for someone to leave or hide behind the curtains after killing someone, otherwise we would have seen him when we were looking for him everywhere!" Tadao said dissatisfiedly - thinking that the police were treating them like fools.

Bai Shi nodded and said, "Indeed, it won't work just like that, but..."

Bai Shi looked at Hezi and said, "Hezi, you should have the deepest impression. Did you also discover something just now?"

Last night, because of the angle, Tsuruko first saw the reflection of the blade slightly, and then her attention was always on her father.

The moment she opened the door and saw her father's body, the scene had a huge impact on her and naturally left a deep impression on her...

Therefore...

"That's right...it's different from last night...shadow! Last night I only saw the light expanding, but no shadow!" Hezi suddenly said.

Because of Shiraishi's reminder, Tsuruko paid special attention to the process of the light coming in. She felt something was wrong at the time, and now she finally figured out what was different!
"Shadow?" Zhongfu frowned when he heard that.

Soon, he discovered that there was indeed a large figure at this time - the only light was the light coming in from outside, and Huang Chuan was at the door, and he couldn't get in because Bai Shi was behind the door, so of course there would be his shadow now, but...

After hearing what Hezi said, the others also reacted and asked, was this shadow there when they saw the corpse last night?
Akabane Miwa then said: "Hmm? Huang Chuan, you came in directly last night, right? You didn't block the door..."

However, Hezi firmly retorted: "No! It's not a matter of coming in... When the door was opened last night, the light swept in directly through the crack in the door. There was no shadow from the beginning!"

"But..." Qing Gu hadn't reacted yet. He didn't know if Hezi remembered it wrong, and he didn't understand why it was important.

Until Bai Shi walked to the door, pushed Huang Chuan, who had a grim look on his face, out, and closed the door again.

Then Shiraishi turned his back to the door, pressed the door handle from behind with his left hand, opened the door with his back to it, and shouted directly: "What happened? I heard Tsuruko's voice..."

Everyone:...

Seeing this, everyone fell silent.

Indeed, this solved two problems at once - the "intruder" was still in the house and had no chance to leave, and... why did Hezi not see anyone when she opened the door!

Because the door was opened from inside the house...

There is only one possible identity for this "infiltrator"!
But last night, everyone's attention was on Hezi who made the sound, and Hezi was looking towards the window, and no one paid any attention to the door at all.

When the light came in, everyone looked at Akabane Tadao's body by the window, and no one noticed that Huang Chuan's "entry" posture was a little strange...

When Bai Shi opened the door again, Huang Chuan was still standing at the door, but there were already criminal police officers holding him down on both sides.

"Ayako, how was Mr. Huangchuan's performance when he was making tea just now?" Shiraishi asked Ayako outside at this time.

"It seemed... a little hesitant, and not like acting." Ayako answered uncertainly.

Although there is an open kitchen outside, it is still some distance away from the tea-making table.

"Yes, there are footsteps." Hongzi also interjected at this time.

Hearing her say this, everyone reacted - just now Huang Chuan ran over and there were "thump thump" footsteps, but last night... there seemed to be no such sound.

Although I don't remember it clearly, but with so many doubts added together...

"Uncle Huangchuan! What's going on? Could it really be you..." Zhongfu stood up angrily.

At this time, Huang Chuan just lowered his head and said nothing.

Seeing this, Akabane Miwa couldn't help but ask, "But why did Huang Chuan do this? He is the person my brother trusts the most... and all of this just now requires my brother to cooperate with him, right? Why did my brother do this?"

Indeed, if we say this was a "planned suicide", no one would be convinced.

"Of course, it is because he is the person that Akabane Tadao trusts the most that he hides here... I think Akabane Tadao's real purpose is to get his most trusted Mr. Huangchuan to cooperate with him and pretend that the 'samurai ghost refuses to leave', so he cooperated with Mr. Huangchuan to hide behind the curtains and blew out the candles himself...

"Oh, right? Maybe this plan was originally thought of by Mr. Huang Chuan, who then suggested it to Mr. Akabane? After all, if the witch succeeds in exorcising the demon, things will be difficult to handle afterwards.

“But what Mr. Akabane Tadao didn’t expect was that after you came out, Mr. Huangchuan, you didn’t just play tricks, but directly killed him with a dagger!
"Because the only person who cooperated with you was the deceased himself. So when everyone reconstructed the scene later, they couldn't figure out what happened..."

(End of this chapter)