Detective Conan 730

Chapter 730

01

Title: File 730 The Journal's Secret
Text: What is the truth behind the kidnapping hidden in that picture!?

02

Mitsuhiko: A...
Mitsuhiko: A troubling prodigy?
SFX: Rain

Mitsuhiko: That's who we're up against?
Conan: Yes...
SFX: Click click

Conan: Okay!
Conan: The chair's at the perfect height!

Conan: Hey, Ayumi-chan. How about you play the piano...
Conan: and we all sing along?
Ayumi: Eh?

Conan: Make it a nice...
Conan: fun song!

Right margin: What is Conan doing now that he has realized the hidden truth behind the kidnapping...?

03

Ayumi: Here I go!

Kids: I stepped on a cat, I stepped on a cat.
Kids: I stepped on a cat and it scratched me.
[TN: These are the Japanese lyrics to the Flea Waltz. They call it "I Stepped on a Cat".]

Kids: The cat scratched me, the cat scratched me. The cat scratched me out of fright.

Kids: You...bad cat...I'll cut...your claws...

Kids: Come down...from the roof...and I'll shave...your whiskers...

Ai: How about you...
Ai: stop playing hide and seek?

04

Ai: Whoever you are.

SFX: Run

Conan: It's okay!
SFX: Hit

Conan: We're...
Conan: on your side!

Ayumi: Wow! Everything went just like you said it would, Conan-kun!
Mitsuhiko: It really was a kid!

SFX: Turn on
Genta: Oh!

05

Ai: It looks like the power's back.

Conan: Okay, we want to ask you some things!
Conan: Let's start with your name and age.

Keita: Onoda Keita.
Keita: 7 years old.

Conan: 7? So are you in first grade?
Keita: Yeah! I'm in class 1-3 at Haido Elementary!
Genta: You're in the same grade as us!?
Mitsuhiko: But how did you know he was a kid, Conan-kun?

Conan: First there was that part of the journal...
Conan: where it said, "Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven...The melodies cause your heart to tremble...A genius born in the same age...I resent his talent..."
[TN: The Japanese could also be interpreted as "Geniuses born in the same age" and "I resent their talent".]

Conan: At first I thought it was talking about the named musicians...
Conan: but Chopin was born 60 years after Bach died.
Conan: You wouldn't say they were geniuses born in the same age, would you?

Conan: I wasn't sure who it referred to.
Conan: But when I saw the picture Ayumi found, it came to me.

06

Conan: The kidnapped boy was a piano prodigy...
Conan: the same age as the girl in the picture!

Conan: Most likely, the kidnapper wanted his daughter to win the Beckham International Music Contest at the end of March...
Conan: so he kidnapped this boy and confined him to his villa!

Genta: His villa? So this is the kidnapper's villa?
Conan: Yeah! The piano room in the picture is the same as the one here!

Conan: From what the journal said, I'm guessing you were kidnapped by the father of the girl in that picture.
Keita: Yeah. It was Chiaki-chan's dad.
Keita: I'd never met him before, but I knew what he looked like! Chiaki-chan had shown me his picture before.

Keita: But I wasn't kidnapped!
Keita: He saved me!
Keita: The contest is coming up, so all I'd been doing is practicing the piano.
Keita: I didn't get to do anything fun!

Ai: So you got to eat snacks while walking around, play with the push cart, play video games all the time, and other things you couldn't before because your parents would get mad at you.
Keita: Yeah! Running through the hallway with the push cart feels so good!

Mitsuhiko: So the tall person I saw was...
Conan: It was him standing on the push cart's handle.
Conan: It's a pretty heavy push cart.

07

Conan: And the half eaten stuff on the table in the kitchen was because you were hungry and the man who brought you here was gone, wasn't it?
Keita: Yeah! I ate the ham in the refrigerator, the bread, and the fried chicken...
Keita: because I can't cook!

Ayumi: But the piano room is so clean!
Conan: That's most likely because his parents told him to never get it messy.
Keita: My mom said the god of music is in the piano room.

Conan: And you always made sure to put the chair back to its proper height after playing, didn't you?
Keita: I also took off the extension pedal!
Keita: When you first got here, I forgot to put the seat back to normal out of shock.

Ai: I see. So that's why you were freaking out. You were convinced the piano player was a child, but the chair wasn't a kid's chair.
Conan: Yeah. It didn't occur to me that you could change the height of the chair.

Genta: But did the kidnapper really run away?
Mitsuhiko: In the journal he said he had to kill the kid because he knew who he was and the next day it said "Boy, please forgive me"!

Conan: It's true that, with those entries next to each other, it looks like he killed him because he had no choice, but they weren't actually consecutive entries!
Mitsuhiko: Eh?
Conan: This boy switched them out.
SFX: Pull out

Conan: You ran out of paper to copy treasure maps on to and wrote on the journal without thinking...
Conan: so you had to remove the page!

08

Conan: See how there are 2 pages sticking out from the edge?
Conan: That shows that the pages were switched out!
Conan: The edges of journals and notebooks are cut evenly, so, if you take a farther out page and put it closer to the middle, it will stick out!

Conan: That's also why the staples were bent in different directions!
Conan: He straightened them out to switch out the pages and then couldn't get them back perfectly right.

Conan: He drew the treasure map on the right side of what was one of the pages with the wine stain on it and had the date of March 24th on it.
Conan: And on the other side from the date, it must have had the journal entry for March 23rd.

Conan: But if he just took that page out, it would be obvious the next time that the March 24th entry was gone.
Conan: So he took the page for March 21st, put it after March 23rd,
Conan: changed the 21 to a 24 and put some wine on it like the original had!

Ai: I see. If it originally said March 21st, then what was written on the back would be the entry for the day before, the 20th.
Ai: That would put the "I have no choice but to kill" entry before the "From talking to him, he seems to be a very nice boy." entry.

Conan: Yeah. In other words it started on the 20th with "I have no choice but to kill".
Conan: On the 21st was "From talking to him, he seems to be a very nice boy." On the 22nd was the entry starting with "Bach, Mozart...".
Conan: Then comes the missing entry for the 23rd and finally, on the 24th, "Boy, I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

09

Conan: If, on the 23rd, he wrote about regretting his crime...
Conan: then the journal means that he originally thought he had no choice but to kill and his murderous intent slowly faded...
Conan: and in the end he decided to run away leaving you here!

Mitsuhiko: Taking out the pages like that was an amazing idea!
Genta: You should have just ripped them out!
Keita: If I ripped them out, it would have been obvious I'd done something.

Keita: When I had some homework where I had to write a bunch of notes on a musical score...
Keita: my big brother who started going to middle school last year showed me...
Keita: that I could cheat by switching out the pages with those of a notebook I'd written it in before.

Conan: Hey? Do you have the page you took out with you?
Keita: Y-yeah...

Conan: It's no good...I can't do it...
Conan: As someone who also aimed to be a musician, killing someone of his talent would be worthy of death.
Conan: I have to prepare myself.

Conan: Hey! Did that man say where he was going!?
Keita: No. He said my mom was coming to get me soon, so I should wait here and not let anyone in.
Ayumi: C-come to think of it...

Ayumi: That picture was floating in a pool of hot water in the hallway...
Conan: The bathroom!!

10

Ai: There's hot water coming from under the door...
SFX: Trickling trickle

Ai: Most likely he tried to kill himself by slitting his wrist and putting it in the bath.
Ai: If he leaves the hot water on, the blood won't clot which makes it easy to die of blood loss.
Ai: He must have been holding that picture and it was swept out here.

Conan: Damn it. It's locked!!!
SFX: Turn turn

SFX: Bam

Conan: No good. As kids, we can't even budge it.
Conan: And I can't use my kick-power enhancing shoes because the hallway isn't wide enough and I can't get a good footing with because of the water.

Conan: I'll have to...

SFX: Draw draw

Genta: Wh-what are you doing, Conan?
SFX: Draw draw
Mitsuhiko: He's drawing marks on the wall.

11

Conan: Go get my shoes from the entry hall!
Mitsuhiko & Genta: Eh?
Conan: Hurry!!

Conan: Okay!?
Conan: You all stand back!

SFX: Inflate

SFX: Pop out

SFX: Run
Conan: Here I...

Conan: Go!!!
SFX: Bam

SFX: Whoosh

12

SFX: Bam bam bam bam bam

SFX: Kabam

Genta: Oh, wow!!
SFX: Clatter
Ayumi: The door flew off!

Mitsuhiko: It's all flooded!

13

Conan: He's unconscious but breathing.
Conan: The wound isn't that deep; he hasn't lost as much blood as I'd thought.
Conan: He might be able to be saved if he's treated right away.
SFX: Water running

Conan: The water overflowed into the hallway...
Conan: because the drain was plugged up with that towel.

Conan: Hey! Grab that tall, skinny can of shaving cream from the sink!
Mitsuhiko: Ah...
Mitsuhiko: Okay!
SFX: Squeeze

Conan: This will tighten on his upper arm and stop the bleeding.
SFX: Squeeze
Conan: Now we just have to get him to the hospital.

Conan: But a bunch of kids can't carry an adult...
Agasa: Don't worry!

Agasa: I'll take him to the hospital in the car!
Ayumi: Professor!
Mitsuhiko: How did you know we were here!?

Agasa: Your day packs were lined up at the front of the entrance hall.
Ayumi: At the front of the entrance hall?
Keita: I put them there! I wanted you to hurry up and leave.

Agasa: And I heard the situation from this woman who I came across standing next to her car because it was out of gas.

14

Mother: K...
Mother: Keita!?

Mother: Keita!!
Keita: Mom!!

Mother: Thank god! Are you alright!?
Keita: Yeah!
Keita: I'm completely fine!

Keita: Chiaki-chan's dad saved me and I got to play all I wanted!
Keita: It was so much fun!!

Ai: No, Keita-kun.
Ai: That man didn't save you.

Mother: Actually...he might have.
Mother: It's been a long time since I've seen him smile like that.

Mother: Maybe, by always making him practice...
Mother: the one who had him confined...

15

Mother: was me, his own mother.

Genta: Well? What happened with the kidnapping afterwards?
Conan: The kidnapper turned himself into the police as soon as he got out of the hospital.

Conan: Well, he was so ready to kill him that he had a coffin ready, so it wasn't really a time to think about extenuating circumstances...
Conan: but Keita-kun's mother put in a good word for him and they managed to keep it all from going public!
Conan: In the end, the person who called his mother to the villa was the kidnapper himself.

Ayumi: I'm worried about the girl from the photo, Chiaki.
Mitsuhiko: Yeah. Now her father is a criminal.
Conan: Apparently they won't be telling Chiaki-chan until she's older! Her parents got divorced half a year ago anyway.

Ai: And? Did that Chiaki girl win the contest?
Conan: I don't know.
Conan: I haven't heard about that.

Conan: Hm?
Keita: Eh? Chiaki-chan, you didn't participate in the contest!?
Chiaki: Nope! I talked with my mom and quit!

16

Chiaki: Since you were missing, I was so worried I couldn't concentrate on the contest!
Keita: I see...

Chiaki: I was shocked when I heard you played with my dad at his villa!
Keita: My mom has gotten nicer since then, too!
Keita: She isn't always hounding me to practice anymore!

Chiaki: But when they aren't telling you to play the piano, doesn't it kind of make you want to!?
Keita: Yeah! Let's play together again sometime! We can play Mozart's sonata meant for 2 pianos!

Ai: "Parents do not know their children's hearts" it seems...
[TN: This is a reversal on the Japanese proverb "Children do not know their parents' hearts".]
Genta: But why did he only play that one song?
Conan: Who knows. He might have heard it on the home video of his brother's graduation ceremony.

Conan: The Air on the G String is played when the graduates are leaving the school, so maybe he thought it would make us leave.
Conan: Or maybe...

Conan: he was the one who he wanted to graduate.
Conan: To graduate from the pressure of being a prodigy.
Text: Due to the author's research, there will be no chapter next week.

Right margin: At this rate, they're sure to become wonderful pianists!