Kanaya Mineto stood frozen with his mouth agape. After a long while, he finally exclaimed, "How could it have been me?! I was fishing on the Breakwater just now, more than ten meters away from Eshiri on the Breakwater Pile. Even if I were some kind of legendary marksman, there's no way I could have stuck him with a Poison Needle from that far away!"
Jiang Xia shook his head. "There was no need to throw it. As long as you used the fishing line and fishing hook, you could deliver the Poison Needle to Mr. Eshiri's hand from a great distance."
Kanaya Mineto's expression changed drastically. Beside him, Haga Kyosuke recalled what Jiang Xia had said earlier and gave a slight nod in understanding.
Looking at Kanaya Mineto, Jiang Xia continued, "You deliberately tangled your fishing line with Mr. Eshiri's line. When Mr. Eshiri noticed, he reeled in his Fishing Rod and tried to untangle the hooks.
"At that point, all you had to do was yank your rod hard. Your poisoned hook would then stab his left hand."
Cold sweat streamed down Kanaya Mineto's face under the sun. After a long silence, he forced out a strained smile. "That's complete nonsense. If that were really the case, the seawater would have washed the poison off the hook while the lines were tangled in the sea. How could it still have poison on it by the time it reached Eshiri's hand?"
Jiang Xia said, "Because your poisoning method was unusual—you deliberately mixed poison into glue, then coated the hook with a thick layer of poisoned glue.
"Once the glue had partially set, you pretended to cast your line, tossing it into the sea so that it tangled with Mr. Eshiri's line."
He looked toward Haga Kyosuke, whom Inspector Megure