Detective Conan 735

Chapter 735

01

Title: File 735 Vengeful Spirit
Text: The key to the disguised trick is in the charcoal grill!?

02

Abukawa: W...
Abukawa: Wait a second!!

Abukawa: Why are you saying I'm the murderer!?

Abukawa: I just look after him...
Abukawa: And I just got back from shopping!
Box: Abukawa Funae (39) Home Helper

Abukawa: Also...
Abukawa: It looks like the door was sealed with packing tape...

Abukawa: And you were taking tape off of the window when I came in, right?
Heiji: Yes.
Heiji: It was stuck on there good.

Abukawa: And...
Abukawa: there's a charcoal grill on the floor next to the body.

Margin: Conan and Heiji have concluded that the helper who looked after the victim is the murderer...

03

Abukawa: No matter how you look at it...
Abukawa: this is clearly charcoal suicide, right?
Box: Kudou Shinichi (43) Victim

Heiji: That's true...
Heiji: And it's a perfect locked room murder since the door and window were sealed from the inside.

Conan: Not to mention that if the room was filled with carbon monoxide...
Conan: no one but the body could have been in here.

Abukawa: Th-then...
Heiji: But it's odd...

Conan: Yeah, this old man..
Conan: was supposed to have a bad back.

Abukawa: Y-you can still put tape on the door and window if your back hurts, right?
Heiji: No, not that! We're talking about the shelf on the bookshelf the books used for the stepping stool were taken from.

04

Heiji: Do you think someone with a bad back is going to choose the lower shelf that he would have to lean over to reach?

Heiji: And all of them are pretty heavy looking books.
Heiji: He could've hurt his back and been unable to move before he managed to kill himself.

Abukawa: M-maybe the books on the easy-to-reach shelf were all ones he didn't want to make a stepping stool out of.
Abukawa: So he forced himself to get the others...
Conan: And this grill doesn't feel hot to the touch at all!

Abukawa: B-boy, you may not know...
Abukawa: but with charcoal suicide...
Conan: If charcoal burns in a sealed room, all the oxygen in the air gets used causing incomplete combustion which creates carbon monoxide.

Conan: When breathed in, the carbon monoxide is taken into the bloodstream where it combines with the hemoglobin depriving the body of oxygen which eventually leads to death.
Conan: Are you trying to say that, in the end, all of the oxygen is used up and the fire in the charcoal goes out?

05

Abukawa: Y-yes...
Heiji: Well, if you screw up, it's really painful and there are some after-effects, so I'm not sure why anyone would do it...

Heiji: but we saw him sleeping about half an hour ago.
Heiji: and it would take him at least 10 minutes to seal the window and door, right?

Heiji: And if he was slow because his back hurt, it'd take him even longer!
Conan: And it would take quite some time for a single charcoal grill to fill up this room with carbon monoxide. That doesn't leave much time.
Conan: Even if the fire went out, there should still have been some heat left.

Conan: In other words...
Conan: it's been quite a while since the fire in this grill went out.

Heiji: Which means that that grill was left here unlit.
Heiji: And someone could have stayed in the room and sealed up the window and door with tape!

Abukawa: D-don't be ridiculous!
Abukawa: Are you saying I was in here?

Abukawa: But then you would have seen me, right?
Abukawa: I wasn't here, right?
Heiji: You just held your breath and hid, didn't you?

06

Heiji: Hid in the space between the bookshelf and door!

Heiji: You had a good idea.
Heiji: You sealed the window and door and left the grill in here making us think it was a charcoal suicide...
Heiji: so we had to unseal the window to get some fresh air in here.

Conan: We also had to get the grill and the collapsed person out of the room, so we wouldn't be focused on the door.
Conan: You would easily be able to sneak out the door in that time!

Conan: It seems you raised the room's temperature to keep the body's temperature from falling...
Conan: but his chin had begun to stiffen meaning it had been more than an hour since he had died.

Heiji: And there was faint postmortem lividity on this back!
Heiji: That's proof that you laid him down to make it look like he was sleeping!

Conan: Well, as for proof, her fingerprints are probably still on the tape.
Heiji: Yeah...
Heiji: Putting sticky tape on like this would take quite a while if you used gloves.
Heiji: And it would be odd if she was found to have gloves on her.

07

Heiji: You were probably planning on pretending to take the tape down with us in order to have a reason for your fingerprints to be on the tape...
Heiji: but you can't do that now.
Abukawa: Wh-
Abukawa: Who?

Abukawa: Who...
Abukawa: are you!?

Heiji: Didn't we tell you when we rang the doorbell!?
Conan: We're detectives!

Abukawa: N-no...
Abukawa: This isn't what I was told!!
Heiji: What you were told?

Abukawa: I-I was told...
Abukawa: that some kid detective would be coming, so...

Heiji: Huh? Did this old man say that I wouldn't be much help because I'm a kid!?
Abukawa: It...

08

Abukawa: It was the murderer!!
Abukawa: The murderer said that the detective was a kid, so I could deal with this if I did what I was told!

Conan: Wh...
Heiji: What!?

Heiji: Hey, old lady...Cut the crap already.
Abukawa: I-I'm not lying!
Abukawa: When I got here today, Kudou-san was already dead.

Conan: What do you mean?
Abukawa: I-I got here just after noon like usual...
Abukawa: but I got no answer when I rang the doorbell.

Abukawa: I had no choice but to use the spare key I had been given.
Abukawa: And the phone was ringing.
SFX: Rinng
SFX: Rinng
SFX: Rinng

Abukawa: The person on the phone...
Abukawa: muttered in a creepy voice that sounded like it had been mechanically altered.

09

Abukawa: He said that Kudou was closed up in the wardrobe in his bedroom.
Abukawa: And that if I wanted to save him, I should let him out immediately.

Conan: The wardrobe!
Heiji: This is it!

Abukawa: I came to the bedroom without really believing it, but the wardrobe really was sealed up with tape.
Abukawa: And the handle had a stick stuck through it so it couldn't be opened from the inside.

Abukawa: I took it out and opened the wardrobe...
Abukawa: and found Kudou-san dead even if he looked like he was sleeping.

Heiji: The edges of the doors are all sticky...
Conan: Yeah. It looks like he was drugged and closed inside along with the charcoal grill.

Abukawa: S-see? I'm telling the truth...
Heiji: Yeah...
Heiji: This is definitely the real murder site!
SFX: Close

Conan: But if that's true, why didn't you just call the police?
Heiji: Surely you knew that if you screwed up with that little trick, you'd take all the blame.
Abukawa: B-but...

10

Abukawa: Stuck on the inside of the wardrobe door...
Abukawa: was a picture of my son!!
Conan & Heiji: Eh?

Abukawa: He said on the phone that if I didn't do what he said, my son would meet the same fate.
Abukawa: Uuh.
Abukawa: Uuh.
Heiji: And you believed him?

Abukawa: Yes. He even seemed to know that I often had arguments with Kudou-san...
Abukawa: He said it would be for my own sake to make it look like a suicide.
Conan: Arguments?

Abukawa: Like about the food I served...
Abukawa: Kudou-san was a picky eater.
Abukawa: He complained about the people he worked with a lot, too...

Conan: Speaking of the food, what were you going to do about dinner?
Conan: You said you were going to buy things for dinner, but you didn't go, did you?

Abukawa: I always came here after getting everything I needed at the supermarket.
Abukawa: So I was instructed to put the bag from the supermarket in the fridge...and pretend to go shopping when the kid detective got here.

Abukawa: Then what were you going to make for dinner?
Abukawa: Mackerel boiled in soy sauce...
Heiji: Do you know the supermarket's phone number?

11

Man: Oh, that helper, Abukawa-san!
Sign: Beika Supermarket
Man: She came by at around noon.

Man: Oh, she was persistent today, too. It was a real pain!
Heiji: Persistent...?

Man: About the cut of mackerel! She wanted a discount because a bit of red juice had accumulated in the bag!
Man: Even though it was at a pretty low price already...
Heiji: I see...

Heiji: In that case...
Heiji: Thanks for your help!

Conan: So what she's telling us...
SFX: Beep
Heiji: seems to be the truth.

Heiji: It would be a bit odd to haggle over the price of the fish for the person you were about to kill.
Conan: And by doing something that memorable, the trick of making it look like she went shopping at a different time would be seen through pretty quickly!

Heiji: Well? Did the murderer tell you who he was?
Abukawa: W-well...

12

Megure: A...
Megure: A vengeful spirit!?

Megure: Is that really what the person on the phone said he was?
Abukawa: Y-yes.
Abukawa: He mumbled that and hung up.

Takagi: Do you have any idea who it could have been?
Takagi: Did anyone have a grudge against the victim?
Abukawa: W-well, actually...
Heiji: The demon dog of the Inubushi family.

Heiji: He was the adopted child of the Inubushi family and had recently been really scared...
Heiji: because some bad guy had slipped into the family and was attempting to eradicate the Inubushi bloodline with the cursed demon dog!

Takagi: D-demon dog!?
Megure: Hmph. That sounds like a story from a mystery novel.

Takagi: Yeah...there was a Holmes story about it, right?
Megure: Hm? Don't you mean Kindaichi Kosuke's "The Inugami Clan"?

13

Takagi: Well? Did you hear anything from the victim?
Takagi: Like a promise to meet someone?

Abukawa: All I heard was that there was some kid detective coming from Osaka.
Megure: And since the murderer knew that, it must have been done by an acquaintance.

Abukawa: Y-yes. He may have been planning on going somewhere with the murderer.
Takagi: Wh-what makes you say that?

Abukawa: When I found him in the wardrobe...
Abukawa: he was in a suit and tie.

Conan: A suit...
Heiji: and tie?

Takagi: So you took them off of him and put that jersey on him?
Abukawa: Y-yes. The murderer told me to...

Megure: And then you laid the body in the bed...
Megure: and waited for the "kid detective" to get here.

14

Megure: And after you showed them that the victim was sleeping, you said you were going shopping, went into his room, moved the body to the floor, sealed up the window and door, brought out the charcoal grill,
Megure: set a timer to make a loud noise,
Megure: and hid in a place where you would be in a blind spot.

Megure: And then when Hattori-kun and Conan-kun entered the room because of the loud noise, you took the time while they were focused on the window, the body, and the grill...
Megure: to leave the blind spot, go to the door, and act like you had just gotten back from shopping.

Megure: And all that is what the murderer instructed you to do?
Abukawa: Y-yes...
Abukawa: I'm sorry...

Megure: But just remember that haggling at the supermarket doesn't prove you didn't kill him.
Takagi: Well, if we find the real murderer, we'll know it wasn't you.
Abukawa: Okay.

Takagi: By the way, was anything stolen?
Abukawa: I don't know.
Abukawa: Only Kudou-san would be able to tell that.

Abukawa: Oh, but...
Abukawa: The decoration on his tie pin had been taken off.

15

Megure: His tie pin?
Takagi: Was there a valuable jewel on it?
Abukawa: I just noticed a mark that meant there was something there that had been taken off.

Abukawa: I don't know what it was.
Abukawa: I didn't see Kudou-san wear a suit very often.

Man: Okay, let's turn him over and get him on the stretcher!
Man: Ready...

SFX: Fall

Man: Eh?
Heiji: Something fell from his mouth!
Conan: It was small and round...

Conan: Ah!

16

Conan: A pearl!!

Conan: Hey, you need to...
Conan: check his tie pin immediately!!

Takagi: Eh?
Conan: If you find his saliva on it...
Heiji: he must have bit this pearl off of his tie pin in his dying moments.

Heiji: This could be his dying message!!
Box: To be continued in Issue 26

Margin: What meaning does the pearl have!? Next Issue!!