"Mm?... Oh, thanks."
The secretary reached out in delighted surprise to accept the business card. Her gaze fell on Jiang Xia's signature, and she instinctively ignored the implications of the "business card" itself, treating it as an autograph card instead. After admiring it for a moment, she happily tucked it into her pocket.
Jiang Xia waited for a while, but the other person did not offer him a business card in return. He could not help looking at her twice more, silently urging her on. "...?"
The secretary had not actually come for an autograph. She had clearly misunderstood what Jiang Xia was prompting her for. "Well, to make a long story short, this is what happened—"
After putting away the unexpected delight Jiang Xia had just given her, she warily glanced around, then leaned closer to the detective and lowered her voice.
"The banquet performance is about to begin, but my boss still hasn't come out. I went to knock on the door of his lounge, but there was no response, so I wanted to ask you to go take a look."
Conan, who had been stretching his ears to eavesdrop: "..." That was it?
...Who would specifically go looking for a detective just because their boss would not open the door?!
Jiang Xia glanced at Conan's complicated expression and showed a similarly subtle look. He turned to the secretary. "Could he have left temporarily, or been on the phone and not heard you?"
The secretary shook her head. "My boss's lounge is a suite, with a restroom inside. Going by his habits, if he heard knocking, then even if he did not want to speak, he would definitely reply by email. But he hasn't.
"I knocked for a while, and then I remembered that many true-crime reports have