Amuro Tooru looked at that photograph, his pupils shrinking slightly. This... this matched the image of Uzo he sometimes sketched in his mind far too well. Could it be...
As if he had realized something, he raised his head again and, under Jiang Xia's gratified gaze, frowned as he began examining the photos on the wall left behind by the magician's apprentices, inch by inch.
Beside them, Mrs. Kujukuri did not have that much on her mind.
Hearing Jiang Xia's question, she explained, "This is my husband's original Magic Trick No. 18—the fine threads are connected to the ring. They look obvious in the photo, but normally, onstage, they can't actually be seen. By manipulating them, he could make the props on the stage move as if they were alive.
"Now that you mention it, on the day my husband died, he was indeed wearing that kind of special ring. I suppose he was reviewing that manipulation magic at the time, but..." Mrs. Kujukuri thought it over carefully again, her brows gradually furrowing. "But when we found the body, there didn't seem to be any of those fine threads on his ring."
Jiang Xia nodded, not surprised. "In that case, the conclusion is very clear—your husband's death wasn't suicide. It was murder."
"Hmm?" Things were developing in the direction she had suspected, but Mrs. Kujukuri still hesitated. "Why do you say that?"
Amuro Tooru withdrew his gaze from the many photos and sighed. "You still don't understand? It wasn't that your husband's body had no traces of being bound. It had exactly those traces, but you overlooked them.
"If the corpse's hands were wearing rings at the time, then as long as the rings were tied with fine threads, his hands would naturally be bound as well, preventing him from