Conan: I'm Really Not the Manipulator

Kudo Shinichi clenched his hands tightly, then loosened them weakly.

The sound of the venomous snake crawling rang out again.

The venomous snake that had crawled out of the gap actually crawled down from a small hole in the ceiling. Its light brown snake pupils looked down at the two trapped people.

As if expecting some answer from him.

----

10am, Minato Middle School.

"…The God of Music?"

Inspector Megure had only a vague knowledge of music. He held the threatening letter and had no idea what it meant.

He turned his gaze to Aoyagi Hikari: "You are a music teacher, right? Do you know who is the one who is called 'God' in the field of music?"

"The concept of music is very broad. Piano and violin performances are music, and pop songs that you occasionally hear while walking on the street are also considered music."

Aoyagi Akiko said this, but he tilted his head to think for a moment: "As far as I am familiar with, Beethoven is called the 'music saint', Mozart is the 'music prodigy', Chopin is known as the 'piano poet'... None of these three have received such exaggerated praise."

Amuro Toru was standing nearby, and naturally joined in the conversation: "By the way, Mr. Aoyagi, you said something was lost in the music classroom yesterday. What was it exactly? Was it valuable?"

"It's not expensive. It's a music score I wrote myself."

Aoyagi Hiromitsu sighed and stroked the rabbit on his shoulder. "It was adapted from Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. It was originally a symphony, and I wrote a piano solo version. Unfortunately, the surveillance camera on the fifth floor was broken, so the suspect was not captured."

Inspector Megure coughed dryly and said, "It's just a sheet of music... maybe you put it in the wrong place?"

"impossible."

Aoyagi Akimitsu, who had remained calm when he was suspected of kidnapping students, frowned and retorted on the spot: "My memory is not that bad, it was just taken away by someone."

Toru Amuro gently supported his chin with his index finger and thumb, with a thoughtful expression.

"… According to Mahler's composition order, it should have been ranked as the ninth symphony, but he felt it was unlucky because many composers died after writing their ninth symphony, so he finally named it "Song of the Earth."

Aoyagi Akimichi nodded, and looked at Amuro Toru with a little more appreciation, and his face showed a sense of relief that he didn't have to explain a lot to a layman.

The short-haired policewoman next to Inspector Megure - Sato Miwako, who had met Amuro Toru once at the entrance of the police academy - was the first to react: "Ninth Symphony? Could the Ninth Symphony in the letter refer to this?"

Toru Amuro said nothing and continued to search through the music knowledge in his mind.

He remembered that the first movement of "Song of the Earth" was called "The Drinking Song of the Sad World", which was in sonata form. The main theme was sung by a tenor solo, and the lyrics were divided into three sections, each of which ended with "Life is dark, and death is also dark."

The style of the entire piece of music is rather gloomy. Even if there is occasional joy, it will soon be replaced by greater sadness and pain.

He himself didn't like it at all, but Hiro admired it very much.

After expressing her personal opinion, Sato Miwako continued to think, and suddenly she caught a glimpse of Aoyagi Akimichi's expression out of the corner of her eye.

"Mr. Qingliu, have you thought of anything else?"

"I was thinking about the Koshiba Koji I mentioned earlier," Aoyagi said. "One day when I was playing the music from the book in class, a man in a chef's uniform stood at the door and listened for a long time."

He paused and continued, "I don't know Koshiba Koji, I don't know if that person is him."

Amuro Toru was not surprised that Aoyagi Akimichi was paying attention to Koshiba Koji. He had not been cleared of suspicion yet, so he must work hard to find the real culprit. The other missing faculty member was the best suspect.

Hearing this, Sato Miwako looked at the Dean of Academic Affairs and the employee who had said that Xiao Chai had lost contact and asked, "Excuse me, do you have any photos?"

The logistics teacher took out his cell phone, walked quickly to them and showed them the photos.

Aoyagi Bingguang immediately said, "That's the guy."

Inspector Megure also saw the photo and touched his chin again: "Why do I feel so familiar with this name and this face? Where is it from..."

Amuro Toru was watching quietly, as he already knew what Koshiba Koji looked like. At this moment, he felt the cell phone in his arms - the one he used to contact the police - suddenly vibrate.

This must be a message from Kazami. He's so efficient...

Toru Amuro was a little helpless about his subordinates' work efficiency. He secretly looked around and saw Aoyagi Akimitsu right next to him, but he did not take out his cell phone for the time being.

It was Sato Miwako who reacted first: "Is it the case from three years ago? At that time, I had just joined the Metropolitan Police Department's Investigation Division 3 and was still an intern. It was -"

"Is it the case three years ago where the president of a blasting engineering company was killed by his employees?"

A voice came from outside, and Amuro Toru saw Jinpei Matsuda walking in.

This classmate didn't even look at him, as if he didn't know him at all, and walked straight to his two colleagues from the First Investigation Section.

After hearing the specific time and the identity of the deceased, Inspector Megure finally showed an expression of sudden realization, and Amuro Toru also did not look at Matsuda Jinpei, but only secretly glanced at Aoyagi Akimitsu next to him.

"What is that?" Aoyagi Binguang asked curiously.

Megure Jusan pressed down the brim of his hat and his expression became strange.

Toru Amuro recalled the Metropolitan Police Department's First Investigation Division's reliance on detectives, especially Kudo Yusaku, over the years, and quickly understood why he did so.

Even in Beika Town, the murder case was special enough because it was evaluated by the media as——

The only case where Yusaku Kudo made a mistake in his reasoning.

Too tired from work, just one update today...

Writing an original case is so frustrating, with multiple lines running in parallel, how to switch perspectives best, and I don’t know how to bury the foreshadowing clues...

Chapter 51: A case where Kudo Yusaku's reasoning went wrong? (Two in one)

One day three years ago, in Beika Town, another company president was murdered.

It was originally just a small case, but it attracted heated discussion among netizens afterwards, and finally the Metropolitan Police Department had to hold a press conference.

Faced with overwhelming suspicion, they repeatedly stressed that the person arrested was the murderer and that the police had not arrested the wrong person.

The case caused such controversy because the murderer had brothers.

——A twin brother who looks almost exactly like him, and even his biological mother would mistake him for his twin brother.

……

In the last century, an author once proposed ten principles for writing detective novels, one of which was: If there are twins or people who look very similar, the readers must be told in advance.

Twins in novels can confuse readers, and the same is true in real life.

"The one who was arrested was the older brother, Koshiba Koichi; and many people believe that his younger brother, Koshiba Koji, is the real murderer."

Inspector Megure was the police officer handling the case at the time. After remembering it, he gave more detailed information.

As a police officer in the explosive ordnance disposal team, Jinpei Matsuda was also deeply impressed by the criminal case.

In order to ensure that the president would be killed, the criminals placed bombs not only in the office, but also in the basement garage and in the car.

He went to defuse the bombs, but because the bombs were finely made, it took him a while to defuse them. When he came out, he happened to see the whole process of the prisoner crying, kneeling and confessing.

There are no new clues at the moment. The police who went to check on the whereabouts of the Kudo family's nanny and Koshiba Koji have not returned yet, so Inspector Megure briefly explained the case.

"The parents of the Xiao Chai brothers are famous pianists. Under their influence, they have been learning piano together since they were young. The elder brother is very talented, while the younger brother is average."

"At the age of sixteen, they applied to the Vienna Conservatory of Music together, but only the elder brother was admitted, not the younger brother."

Aoyagi Binguang suddenly let out a soft "eh".

When they looked at him, he answered honestly, "I never thought that I almost became college classmates with Koshiba Koji."

"Teacher Qingliu is a top student who graduated from the Vienna Conservatory of Music." The Dean of Academic Affairs spoke appropriately.

"..."

Toru Amuro remained silent.

Vienna Conservatory of Music... That sounds good. According to the information Rum gave him, Aoyagi Akimichi clearly graduated from the law school of New York University four years ago.

However, Toru Amuro did not expose the other party's fraudulent alma mater information to their face. When he went to various companies to investigate himself, he found dozens of companies that lied about their alma mater information.

"Perhaps out of sympathy for his brother and not wanting to discourage him too much, Koshiba Koichi did not enroll in the school. Instead, he returned to Japan and planned to take the entrance exam for Domoto Music College."

"Unfortunately, they didn't make it. That year, their parents died in an accident, and their relatives took advantage of legal loopholes to take away most of their inheritance."

"The two brothers moved around in various cheap apartments and gave up playing the piano. Later, they both got into college, but the high tuition meant that only one of them could continue their studies..."

Megure Juzo lowered the brim of his hat. He knew that the prisoner's experience was very unfortunate, but he had to tell it out loud so that everyone could listen and analyze it together.

"…In the end, it was the elder brother who gave up. He chose to let his younger brother continue his studies while he himself stepped into society and started working."

Japan is a place that values ​​academic qualifications. Take the police academy as an example. The training time for high school graduates and college graduates is different. For those with lower academic qualifications, the training time will be doubled.

"After graduating from high school, Koichi Koshiba had been doing odd jobs, and then joined a blasting engineering company and became a security guard in an underground garage."

"And Koji Koshiba, although his grades in school were unstable, sometimes good and sometimes bad, he still successfully graduated from university and joined the same company as his brother, becoming a blasting engineer."

Almost everyone present was silent.

There was a pair of twin brothers. The elder one was a genius while the younger one was a mediocre person.

As time went by, the elder brother became a security guard who was often bullied, and the younger brother became an engineer with a better salary, treatment and status than him...

"So brother is feeling unbalanced?"

Another policeman, who was learning about the case for the first time, asked curiously.

Officer Megure nodded. "Yes, according to the neighbor's testimony, he heard the brothers quarreling. Although he didn't hear the specific content of the quarrel, it was very noisy."

"The next case is about that one." He continued, "There was an explosion in the office of the president of that company. The president was killed on the spot. Afterwards, the police retrieved the surveillance footage from the corridor and quickly identified the Xiao Chai brothers."

"Koji Koshiba made a mistake in the blasting operation a week before the incident, causing serious losses to the company and requiring a large amount of compensation. In addition, the suspect was wearing work clothes in the video, so the police's first suspect was Koji Koshiba."

"However, Yusaku Kudo, who was dining at a restaurant next door to the building at the time and heard the noise and came to help solve the case, said after looking at the scene that the murderer was actually Koshiba Koichi."

"The brothers look and have almost the same body shape. Even colleagues who have seen them all the time can only identify them by their clothes. It is the elder brother who put on his younger brother's clothes and deliberately disguised himself as the younger brother to commit the crime."

"And the izakaya owner and several other customers can prove that Koshiba Koji was drinking in the izakaya during the period when the surveillance showed the criminal going to plant the bomb, and he did not leave until the next morning."

Qing Liu Bingguang then said: "Is there no other definitive physical evidence?"

Megure Jusan was silent for a moment and sighed.

"On the other bombs that were dismantled, the fingerprints were wiped clean, but on the inner edge of the shell of one of them, there was a little bloodstain. Maybe it was because the shell was black that we couldn't see it... But..."

Anyone with a little knowledge of biology knows what the latter part refers to.

In most cases, DNA is one of the hard evidences that can determine the crime.

But in this case, the murderer has twin brothers whose DNA is exactly the same. The only things that can truly distinguish their identities are fingerprints, irises, etc.