The Showdown

May Sickness

Tap! Tap! Tap... Tap!

The clinking of the silver handcuffs abruptly stopped without warning. Nakajima Ritsumin, who had been waiting for the next tap, looked increasingly grim, his chest so tight he could barely breathe.

Hypnosis again?

Though Nakajima Ritsumin, a hypnosis expert from Japan, could only guess, he couldn't be certain the young man before him was using hypnosis. It was like a gazelle hanging its horns on a tree—leaving no trace.

Bang!

Yamamoto Takeo, who had seemed to be meditating, suddenly stood up and slapped the table. He glared at Li Bai and said, "There's only one truth!"

Li Bai tilted his head in surprise. What a familiar line. Had this police officer watched too much Detective Conan?

"You, Li Bai, secretly left the American Park Hotel around ten o'clock on the night of [redacted], slipping away from the terraced balcony. Then you swam across to Mosaic Plaza, used the play of light and shadow for cover, and made your way along the shore into the neighboring Kawasaki Industrial Port. The whole trip took less than an hour, and the distance was no more than three kilometers. After coming ashore, you used hypnosis..."

Yamamoto Takeo rattled off his version of Li Bai's "crime." He had to admit, it sounded fairly convincing. At least some of it matched the actual "crime" committed by the siblings Davidson and Diana.

But those "events" were nothing more than his own deductions, with no solid evidence to back them up. Worse, he had even identified the wrong culprit, so he was as far off the mark as Sun Wukong's somersault cloud—108,000 li off.

So...

Clap, clap, clap!

Though Li Bai's hands were cuffed, his applause still rang out.

"That's a wonderful story! Absolutely wonderful!"

If it were adapted into a screenplay,