"Uncle Mouri wanted you to look at this, didn't he?" Jiang Xia pointed at the key in the Mini Lake. "This is the key to the victim's room. Since this is a new building that was only constructed this spring, the room keys use the newer Internal Groove design, which is very difficult to duplicate."
"That's right!" Mouri Kogoro had heard this information during the earlier small talk as well. "There are only two keys like this in the world: one is here, and the other is with the landlady. The landlady has been with us the whole time, and when we arrived earlier, the door was locked from the inside. It was a locked room—meaning the situation is already obvious. The victim locked himself inside, then committed suicide!"
Inspector Megure said, "This..."
It sounded somewhat reasonable, but after spending so much time around Brother Jiang Xia, the words "locked room" had gradually become difficult for him to associate with "suicide." Instead, his mind was now filled with thoughts of "a man-made trick."
Just as he was thinking that, an agitated voice came from beside him. The landlady cut in, "Impossible! A-Zhen would never commit suicide! When I brought him juice this afternoon, he even ordered dinner and said he wanted pumpkin tonight. Would someone planning suicide do that?!"
"You saw him this afternoon?" Inspector Megure realized this was an important time marker and hurriedly asked, "What time did you bring him the juice?"
The landlady thought for a moment. "Around six in the evening. He didn't like older people interfering with his life, so after delivering the juice, I didn't stay in his room for long and quickly went back to my own room..."
She covered her face in grief. "If only I hadn't left then."
Jiang Xia walked