Mouri Kogoro's "Solo" Deduction Show / Should I Disguise Myself as Sleeping Kogoro?

Where's my lighter?

He remembers being there when he was smoking outside.

Could it be that it was accidentally dropped outside while you were chatting with Jiang Hang?

As he rummaged through his pockets, he flicked his head at Jiang Hang while smoking a cigarette, as if asking if Jiang Hang had brought a lighter.

Jiang Hang shrugged and spread his hands, indicating that he didn't smoke and usually didn't carry a lighter.

After all, incendiary bombs shouldn't be considered lighters, right?

Kogoro Mouri continued rummaging through his pockets, then glanced at the two girls next to Jiang Hang.

Okay, they probably don't have any lighters either.

It looks like the only option is to ask someone outside for a lighter. This information is really overwhelming, and I don't know if I can find any useful information in it.

On the contrary, after he had this idea, he suddenly noticed the lighter on the table next to him, which was one of the deceased's belongings.

Chapter 526: Chapter 522: Kogoro Mouri's "Personal" Deduction Show

Almost the instant Kogoro Mouri noticed the lighter, which was one of the deceased's belongings, Jiang Hang seemed to have read his mind and took out a pair of gloves from his pocket and handed them to him.

"Take it and use it for now."

After all, there were only a few items left on the deceased's body, and the police had already collected evidence from all the necessary locations. Moreover, this lighter didn't seem to have any connection to the case, so the police didn't pay much attention to this seemingly ordinary lighter.

Although Kogoro Mouri was a little embarrassed, he waved to Jiang Hang to express his gratitude as his craving for a cigarette came over him. He then took the gloves, put them on, and picked up a lighter to light a cigarette.

Seeing this, Koharu Yoshino was even more confused about Jiang Hang's intentions.

While it may not really matter, is this really okay?

Then she saw Kogoro Mouri, who had run to the side, struggling to light a cigarette while it was dangling from his mouth.

But for some reason, the lighter that Kazami Yoshiki before couldn't be lit at all in Kogoro Mouri's hands.

He checked it and found that the flint of the lighter in his hand was not broken.

"This lighter is out of fuel too, it can't be that unlucky, can it?"

Kogoro Mouri habitually shook his lighter. Before he could even remember that kerosene lighters rely on a wick and absorbent cotton to ignite the kerosene, he felt that there was something wrong with the lighter in his hand.

He tried shaking the lighter in his hand again and confirmed that the feel was indeed completely wrong.

Although he usually finds it troublesome and uses cheap disposable lighters at home, he has certainly used many good lighters when he is out and about.

But no kerosene lighter makes that metallic clanging sound when you swing it around.

He turned his head and glanced at Jiang Hang, gesturing for Jiang Hang to come over and check.

"This lighter seems to be faulty. I'm planning to take it apart and check it. Could you keep an eye on it for me?"

Jiang Hang nodded to Koharu Yoshino, instructing her to take her phone and record the entire process of Kogoro Mouri disassembling the phone.

As the camera focused on Kogoro Mouri, he licked his lips and then carefully removed the lighter's inner liner.

Although the lighter smelled strongly of kerosene, Kogoro Mouri, who had also experienced many cases, still keenly detected a bloody smell from the bottom of the inner liner.

He removed the bottom of the inner liner, and then nearly a dozen pieces of utility knife blades, stained with the smell of blood, appeared in front of everyone.

Koharu Yoshino, who was in charge of filming the video, couldn't help but let out a soft gasp.

After seeing these utility knife blades, everyone present knew exactly how the murderer had hidden the weapons.

He killed Kazami Yoshiki using a utility knife from the film crew, and then disassembled the bloodstained utility knife before anyone arrived at the crime scene, hiding it in a lighter on Kazami Yoshiki's body.

Because the fatal wound on Kazami Yoshiki's neck could only have been caused by a blade longer than 10 centimeters, the fact that the murderer hid the utility knife blade inside a small lighter is something most people wouldn't have thought of.

Although the police do investigate lighters, they only extract fingerprints from them and do not carefully examine the contents of the lighter.

The situation where some wick and cotton remain inside the lighter, jamming the blade, is something that would normally only be noticed by someone like Kogoro Mouri, who, when his nicotine craving kicks in and he instinctively shakes the lighter vigorously when it won't light.

Of course, this refers to the normal situation.

For Jiang Hang, who possesses Eagle Eye and was forced to learn a whole host of useful and useless assassination techniques in the learning space, hiding something inside a lighter is already considered a relatively simple method among assassination techniques.

When Jiang Hang arrived at the crime scene earlier to examine the scene and the deceased's belongings, he only needed to pick up the lighter and feel its weight to confirm that something must be hidden inside.

After confirming that one of the utility knives in the crew's collection showed signs of being newly installed and not yet used much, Jiang Hang knew that the murder weapon was a utility knife.

After all, it's already evening, not the time when the film crew has just started work.

In order to complete the set design, the crew used everything in their toolbox that could be used on set.

There is no situation where the handle of a utility knife has fingerprints from many people using it, but the blade itself is brand new.

It's only possible that the murderer used that utility knife to kill Kazami Yoshiki, then disassembled the entire blade and replaced it all with new ones.

Utility knife blades are consumables, so it's unlikely that anyone else on set would notice that more than ten blades were missing. Even the set's prop master would probably have had a hard time noticing the abnormal wear and tear on these props.

Therefore, after realizing that the murder weapon that the police had been unable to find was most likely hidden inside the lighter's liner, Jiang Hang had already figured out how to help Kogoro Mouri regain his confidence in deduction.

While having a heart-to-heart talk with Kogoro Mouri, he secretly took the lighter from Kogoro's body without him noticing.

Then, by using the seemingly tedious and fragmented information from Koharu Yoshino, he would give Kogoro Mouri a headache and make him crave cigarettes, thus naturally drawing his attention to the problem in the lighter.

If the other person doesn't notice, he'll try to steer the conversation towards why the lighter won't light, thus forcing Kogoro Mouri to discover the problem.

Under normal circumstances, it would probably be necessary to remind someone to go this far.

Fortunately, today's Kogoro Mouri is meeting an old classmate, and his mind works very quickly.

I realized the problem with the lighter's internal parts as soon as I started using it.

It seems that what happens next can be logically deduced by Kogoro Mouri.

He secretly patted Koharu Yoshino, using some pre-arranged signals to signal her to cooperate at this moment.

These codes are all very simple.

Basically, there are seven or eight simple codes used in different situations, such as asking girls to divert other people's attention, pretend to be stupid, cooperate actively, and leave the place as soon as possible.

Sensing that Jiang Hang was asking her to cooperate with Kogoro Mouri in speaking, Koharu Yoshino was taken aback for a moment, but still followed Jiang Hang's instructions, expressing her surprise and then asking the question that had been bothering her.

"If the murderer used a utility knife to kill the victim, there should be fingerprints or other bloodstains on the knife," Koharu Yoshino said, then shook her head slightly.

"The police also tested those utility knives with luminol, and no recent bloodstains were found on them. Would the murderer be that careful when committing the murder?"

Since Kogoro Mouri has already obtained the murder weapon, the next step is simply to deduce how the murderer erased the traces he left behind.

After all, none of the suspects have tested positive for luminol.

After thinking it over, he concluded that the murderer must have used some method to conceal his identity.

But what methods did they use to hide it?

Moreover, besides this problem, he himself became aware of a new one.

That is because the murderer wanted to stuff so many razor blades into the lighter's liner, so some of the cotton inside the lighter would have to be removed.

That cotton certainly won't be easy to dispose of.

As he flipped through the information that Koharu Yoshino gathered about the crime scene and its surroundings, he first confirmed that the suspects were not carrying any cotton or anything else unusual.

Then they searched through the document to see if there was anything else in it.

Jiang Hang also gave a timely reminder.

"Although the police conducted luminol tests on many people in the villa and on the suspected weapons, they certainly wouldn't test everything. There must have been something easy to hide, and there were many of them in the villa that were not easily noticed, that could have been used as a cover."

At this moment, it seemed that Shizuka Sakaki had thought of something before Kogoro Mouri. Just as she was about to speak, Jiang Hang pulled her back again.

Um?

Jiang Hang told me to pretend to be stupid and not to say anything?

What does this mean?

Like Koharu Yoshino, Shizuka Sakaki was somewhat puzzled after receiving Jiang Hang's coded message, but out of trust in Jiang Hang, she chose to remain silent.

However, following Jiang Hang's instructions, she then began pacing back and forth on the other side of the room.

Kogoro Mouri was still deep in thought, but seeing Shizuka Sakaki pacing back and forth on the ground beside her, he suddenly noticed that there seemed to be a lot of conspicuous white tape stuck around Shizuka Sakaki's feet.

Because the tape was close to where the person died, some of it was stained with blood.

"Wait, how did this tape get stuck here? Didn't the police notice?"

Seeing that her actions had finally been noticed, Shizuka Sakaki breathed a slight sigh of relief.

She quickly explained the purpose of this thing to Kogoro Mouri.

These are the points used to help actors find their routes during filming. Since the camera position is fixed most of the time, the actors naturally need to be in the most conspicuous position in the frame to make the picture look better.

For actors who have been making films for decades, finding the camera position is naturally a basic skill. As long as they can see where the camera is, they can roughly know how to move.

However, many young actors, including idol Kazami Yoshiki, lack this awareness.

For this reason, almost whenever the film crew used this villa for filming, the villa's floor was covered with all sorts of markings, and some tape even had labels indicating which actor was at which spot.

Although this room was used as the victim's rest room before the incident, it was also used as a filming location for an afternoon before the evening's filming, where the "famous detective" Kazami Yoshiki analyzed the case in the rest room.

Almost all the tape in this room was prepared for Kazami Yoshiki alone.

The tape was originally supposed to be disposed of after tonight's filming, but due to the case, it hasn't been dealt with yet and has remained at the crime scene.

Several spots near the sofa were stained bright red because they were soaked in Kazami Yoshiki's blood.

Upon seeing this scene, Kogoro Mouri suddenly had an epiphany and clapped his hands.

"That's right, it's tape!"

"The murderer must have wrapped the handle of the utility knife with tape before the incident, and after killing the victim, he used the blood-stained tape on the handle to cover the areas where the blood would flow before the blood could drip onto the ground."

"When the police arrived, the blood had completely soaked the tape on the ground. After the police investigated the tape and confirmed that it was just used to mark the locations for filming, they did not suspect anything because they did not know what the murder weapon was."

"After the incident, the props team and the film crew probably wouldn't have noticed that there was an extra mark in the blood."

As Kogoro Mouri analyzed the situation, he also realized what to do with the remaining cotton in the lighter.

"There wasn't much cotton in the lighter to begin with, and it wasn't very noticeable. Plus, there were markings everywhere in this villa. He could just find a spot with lots of markings, stick the cotton on the floor with tape in the same way, and since the TV series might not even have a sequel, the crew would be even less likely to notice these things."

Having solved two problems at once, Kogoro Mouri immediately felt much lighter, as if the mountain weighing on him had been lifted off his feet.

Next, he needs to find the tape containing the cotton in the villa, and the razor blades he has in his hand may still have the killer's fingerprints on them.

After all, it's not easy to remove the cotton from the lighter's inner liner while wearing gloves, and then neatly stuff the blade back into the liner.

In order to ensure speed, no matter how careful the murderer is, he will inevitably leave some flaws.

By comparing the two cases again, we can accurately determine who the murderer in this case is.

However, these fingerprints can only be considered the final, decisive evidence.

When the razor blade was found in the lighter, the culprit had already been identified.

This case clearly occurred without the perpetrator's prior preparation; otherwise, they wouldn't have used props from the film crew.

Among the current suspects.

Nobuharu Nagumo and Amashiro Ruri don't smoke, so they're definitely not familiar with the structure of this kerosene lighter.

Kasumi Hahabara's room and the smell of smoke on her body could temporarily serve as her alibi.

So, only Akira Nagumo, who used to be a heavy smoker, was left, but chose to quit smoking after getting married.

"Brother Jiang Hang, could you please call Liuli in? I have something I'd like to say to her privately."

Jiang Hang nodded. "Okay, I'll go help."

Then, taking advantage of the moment when Kogoro Mouri turned around to look out the window, he swiftly and decisively injected Tranquilizer Dart into the back of Shizuka Sakaki and Koharu Yoshino.

Watching Kogoro Mouri skillfully find the most comfortable sleeping position before being anesthetized, Jiang Hang walked up to him.

"Let you show off your deductive skills and regain some confidence, that's enough. With me, the pure love warrior, around, don't even think about taking this opportunity to cheat on me, okay?"

Chapter 527: Chapter 523: I'll pretend to be the Sleeping Kogoro?

Shizuka Sakaki and Koharu Yoshino had thoroughly investigated the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Besides the argument between Kogoro Mouri Kazami Yoshiki, there were also various reactions from the crew members after they arrived at the theater.

This included Kogoro Mouri, who, in the eyes of the staff, was an old classmate of Amashiro Ruri Kogoro Mouri, and was talking about his middle school days and his romantic experiences over the years in front of the crew.