Still, a Great Detective was a Great Detective.
After freezing up for a while, Hattori Heiji somehow managed to grasp most of the situation without making Conan repeat himself a second time:
"Disguise Technique—you mean the kind of technique that lets someone impersonate others, like Kid? Sharon Vineyard used it to disguise herself as her own daughter, Chris Vineyard?"
Conan shook his head. "Most of that is right, but you got one part backward—it wasn't the elderly mother disguising herself as her young daughter. It was the daughter, who doesn't age, using Disguise Technique to make herself look older and posing as 'Sharon Vineyard.'"
Hattori Heiji said, "Doesn't age? How could that possibly—"
Halfway through, he silently lowered his head and looked at the classmate from Tokyo before him, who should have been the same age as him but was now not even as tall as his leg. "..."
A moment later, half lucid and half bewildered, he said, "I understand."
Conan nodded in satisfaction and continued, "Sharon Vineyard is a friend of my mother's. Also, when I went to New York, I ran into some things connected to her... Anyway, she probably won't make a move against Ran or me."
"..." Hattori Heiji pressed a hand to his temple and began processing things with a rumble in his head again. Time was tight—there was no time to figure out how these circumstances had come about. The urgent thing was to remember all of this first.
Conan glanced again at the Halloween Invitation Letter lying beside him. "The fact that this Invitation Letter was sent to Uncle Mouri and me probably isn't a threat, but protection disguised as one—she wants to drive us away this way so she can make a move against someone else."
"Someone else..." Jiang Xia's figure