Detective Conan: I, with my magical powers, am going to destroy the world!

The old steward opened the room of the Southern Barbarian, and as soon as he entered, he could see that both sides were filled with all kinds of terrible torture instruments, creating a gloomy and terrifying atmosphere.

I don't know why Torakura Sakoya had his maid, Hibari Hikaru, come to this room without anyone else around; it's definitely not a normal place.

Conan felt like he had grasped some clue. Regarding this murder case, he suddenly asked, "Did you also look for this room when you were looking for Mr. Sakoya?"

"Yes."

The Yincang family members nodded.

Conan turned to the group and said, "Anyway, everyone should go to the restaurant now and stay there. We can't split up anymore. Even if you go to the restroom, you should go in pairs."

"What do you mean?" Hanekawa Johei asked anxiously. "I still need to find my dear."

“There’s no other way,” Conan said seriously, looking at Hanekawa Johei. “Everyone involved in the inheritance is in danger right now. If they’re alone, they might get attacked by vampires!”

The maid hesitated for a moment, said nothing, and turned to return to the dining room with the Torakura family.

Aside from the restaurant, the other maids and chefs of the Torakura family were all in their rooms, leaving only Akatsuki, Conan, and the old butler to move around in the huge villa.

The old butler asked doubtfully, "If the enemy is a vampire, are we the only ones who will be safe?"

“No problem,” Conan said, leading the old butler back to the photo room. “I have a general idea of ​​the vampire’s methods, but they are man-made.”

"What?" The old butler opened his narrowed eyes. "Could it be that, sir..."

“The old man, who is terminally ill, shouldn’t be able to accomplish so much. There are also accomplices in this villa,” Conan turned to the old butler and said, “Who do you think is more suspicious?”

"this…"

The old butler lowered his head.

"If we're talking about something suspicious, it might be the maid, Miss Hikari. You've probably heard about her mother, Miss Yoko. The day she passed away was a stormy night. Miss Yoko, who was waiting for the master to return at the mansion, suddenly said she was going to drive to the hospital to pick him up."

“I warned her it was dangerous, but she didn’t listen. Sure enough, she and her car fell off a cliff at a bend in the mountain road. After investigation, the police concluded that the cause was fatigue driving due to poor visibility.”

"Is there some hidden story behind this?" Conan asked, frowning.

"Actually, before she left, I received a call from the master, asking me to tell Miss Yoko that her daughter's surgery had been successfully completed. In the end, it was the maid, Miss Shimizu, who went to see Miss Yoko."

The old butler said sadly.

"Miss Shimizu, the maid, said she probably wanted to see her daughter as soon as possible, but now that I think about it, Miss Yoko's face was very pale at the time, which didn't seem like it. I've been wondering if Miss Shimizu's death is related to this."

"What about Mr. Asanobu?" Conan seized on the clue. "What does Mr. Asanobu have to do with this?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but at that time, Miss Yoko was driving Master Mashin's car. It was the 13th anniversary of the old master's death, so everyone returned to the mansion."

The old butler said with a somber expression, "Everyone here today was here that day, so if that accident really was a conspiracy orchestrated by someone, as the rumors say, it's not surprising that they will be punished."

The image of the maid, Hikaru Hisahara, flashed through Conan's mind.

"Does Miss Hikari know about this?"

"He probably doesn't know. The master told me not to say anything, saying he would tell Miss Xiaoguang himself."

"If you say so..."

Conan thought of what the maid Hikaru Hibari had mentioned.

That email.

The email was sent by Yin Cangpu.

If Torikura Sakoya explained this in the email, or confessed to Hibari Hikaru after meeting him in the Nanban room, Hibari Hikaru, who wanted to avenge his mother, could indeed have cooperated in committing this murder.

Moreover, whether it's finding a coffin containing a corpse, taking photos of ghostly figures, or even in a restaurant...

The first to be discovered was the maid, Hikaru Hibari.

It seems that the maid was directing and acting it all herself.

but…

There's no reason for me to bring up the email.

Chapter 549 The Strange Corpse and the Cave

"Miss Shouyu, could it be that something has happened to you too?" the old butler said worriedly.

"I'm afraid so, but at least the body should have been found," Conan temporarily put aside the matter of the maid Hikari and asked the old butler, "Has the villa really been searched in every corner?"

"Yes, because everyone is looking for the master."

"What if she had already been murdered or gagged and hidden somewhere by then?"

Chi Chufeng thought of the secret passage beneath the coffin.

"Has your master done anything strange recently, or rather, since about six months ago? For example, renovating the mansion, or buying something?"

“Speaking of which,” the old butler recalled, “about half a year ago, the master said he wanted everyone in the mansion to take a break, so he arranged an overseas trip of about a week. Not long after that, the maid, Miss Shimizu, had that incident.”

What about recently?

"Recently, the old man suddenly bought an inflatable swimming pool for children online, and it seems he also bought toy airplanes and such, which were delivered in a very large box. Oh, right, the old man also recently bought a new lockable refrigerator."

In the kitchen, Conan stood in front of the locked refrigerator.

Is this the one?

He tried it out, and the larger freezer compartment below was indeed locked. The upper refrigerator compartment, which was unlocked, was normal, but it was also full of food.

Why is it locked?

"I don't know," the chef who was called over shook his head. "I heard that there was some premium meat prepared for today's guests, but it turned out that it wasn't used."

Do you have the key?

"The master should have some, and Xiao Guang might have some too."

"Xiaoguang?"

"Xiao Guang keeps the keys to this kitchen and the nearby rooms," the chef explained.

"Yes, that's right," Hikaru Hibari, the maid who had been brought over, replied in a daze, "but I've checked the refrigerator, there's nothing there, just a big jar of seaweed."

After clumsily trying several keys, the maid Hikaru Hibari finally found the key to open the refrigerator.

Just as she said, the two-tiered freezer compartment, spacious enough to fit two people, contained only a cylindrical jar.

Conan carefully inspected the refrigerator. The freezer compartment was very cold and had ice inside, but there seemed to be no problem.

Are there any other places in the mansion where people can hide?

"I think should not be."

"Something terrible has happened!" A security guard in a raincoat suddenly rushed into the room. Seeing the crowd gathered in the kitchen, he shouted, "Something terrible has happened! Someone has died in the forest!"

"forest?"

"It's right in front of the gate!"

It was already late at night, and it was still raining outside the villa. The air was stuffy and seemed to be filled with an unsettling atmosphere.

The body was located in the forest directly opposite the gate. Torakura's eldest daughter, Torakura Mamoru, was lying face up under a tree with her hands tied behind her back to a wooden stake. Her body was soaking wet.

Her thin clothes clung to her body, revealing her round, pale breasts, with a small amount of water still visible in the cleavage.

His neck was wrapped in rope, with faint marks visible underneath. His eyes were wide open, and his face looked somewhat horrifying as the rain washed over him.

"It's Madam Shouyu!"

Conan braved the rain to reach the scene, first checking the area around the body, and then approaching to examine it.

The cause of death was strangulation. Judging from the condition of the body, the time of death was approximately 6 hours ago, which means that he may have already been killed when he accompanied Torakura Kishi to develop photos.

Conan turned to the two guards and asked, "Did you see her come out?"

The mansion only has one entrance and exit, the main gate, and the gatekeeper is responsible for opening and closing the iron gate. If there is anything unusual, the gatekeeper should notice it immediately.

"No," the gatekeeper said, shining his flashlight. "No one has left the gate recently."

"You've been guarding the door the whole time?"

"The gate was opened once, because the furniture company's truck came,"

Another portly security guard explained, "The master said the chairs were old and he planned to replace them all with new ones, so he placed an order with the furniture company a few days ago."

"But when we were checking the goods, we found that they had been mistakenly packed as sofas, so we told the truck driver to go home today. By the way, at that time, there was an explosion that caused the tunnel to collapse. We watched it for a while, but only for a short time."

"Could she have come out around that time?" The skinny man glanced at Torakura no Mori and the corpse from outside the door.

"Wasn't it discovered when they tied the body to the stake here and went back to the mansion?" Conan pondered. "Impossible, just bringing the person over here would have taken a lot of time."

“And this hole,” Conan pointed to a pit dug out next to the body, about the thickness of a wooden stake, “was it prepared from the beginning to be used to insert wooden stakes? Just like it was six months ago.”

"The intention was indeed to hang the body upside down, just like six months ago, but this time the setup wasn't complete. At least the body wasn't drained of blood, and there were only ligature marks on the neck."

Chapter 550 Maid Hikari's Private Meeting

The scene appears to be from a prisoner who left before they could set things up.

Strangely, Torakura Mori was almost entirely tied to the wooden stake, a stark contrast to the situation six months ago when the maid was hung upside down.

There were also methods for prisoners to return to the mansion.