"Several pins were missing from the cylinder. No wonder the song it played was always missing a few notes." As expected, the master detective was unlike those other clueless detectives. He quickly found a lead and said under Haruna Yuki's eager gaze,
"This isn't a quality issue. It should be wear caused deliberately—the previous owner intentionally ground down these pins, probably to convey some information to whoever received it."
"Convey information?" Haruna Yuki grew tense. "Could something really have happened to Mr. Aki-Satoru? Like being imprisoned by someone?"
"Let me think." Mouri Ran had quite a talent for music. "This song should be 'Come, Spring.' If so, the missing notes in this music box are RA, DO, and RA."
"RADORA?" Suzuki Sonoko tried reading them together. "Uh, it sounds like some monster's name... Maybe it isn't the melody, but the lyrics?—I remember the lyrics here are, 'I wait for you to emerge from your cocoon.' Then the missing syllables are MO, DE, and RU."
"If you read MODERU together..." A noun slipped out, and Suzuki Sonoko's eyes lit up. "That's how you pronounce 'model'! Could this have something to do with some handsome model?—Let's check out modeling agencies. If we search them all, we'll definitely find this Aki-Satoru person."
Jiang Xia shook his head. "That would take too long. We might as well go directly to his home."
"His home?" The two high school girls belatedly realized what he meant and stared at him in surprise. "You know where he lives?"
Jiang Xia pointed at his phone, demonstrating the usefulness of the police. "I asked an officer from Investigation Division 1 to look into it. We should have the results soon."
Haruna Yuki: "..."
As expected of a master detective—he could actually make use of the police!
With Aki-Satoru's