Hashimoto Maya: "..." Wait, hadn't Jiang Xia just been testing him? How had the focus shifted to someone else in the blink of an eye? Just how many backup assistants did this detective have?
Could this squinting-eyes guy be my colleague too? Hashimoto Maya instinctively sized up Okiya Subaru and thought this.
But he quickly decided that did not seem right. If getting close to Jiang Xia and then setting Jiang Xia up counted as work, then this graduate student's current behavior practically qualified as slacking off.
While one employee secretly studied another employee.
Nearby, Okiya Subaru was forced onto the job and answered Jiang Xia's question. "At first, everyone had one glass of wine. But when we sat down after the toast, Senior Togashi accidentally sat on that wobbly stool. To keep from falling, he instinctively grabbed the tablecloth and, in the confusion, knocked over the birthday girl's glass.
"That bottle of imported wine had all been poured out. To make sure the birthday girl had wine to drink, Senior Togashi gave her his own glass as compensation. That's why there were two glasses in front of her."
Sato Miwako nodded and added for Jiang Xia, "The poison was detected in the glass at the back. Besides the victim's and the restaurant staff's fingerprints, the poisoned glass also had the fingerprints of Mr. Togashi, Mr. Okiya, and Miss Kojima."
Jiang Xia asked, "So many people all touched the same glass?"
Only then did Okiya Subaru finally recover from the sight of the birthday girl's sudden death. A few beats late, he remembered his job and explained softly, "When passing the wine around, Senior Togashi handed the glass to Miss Kojima, who was closest to him. She passed it to me, and it only reached the victim afterward."
Jiang