Inspector Megure hurried over with his subordinates. The moment he entered, he heard the maid crying, "A monster! It must have been that monster from the legend that killed the master!"
"Who's this superstitious?" Inspector Megure dispatched people to investigate while surveying those present. Soon, he let out a surprised sound. "Miss Shirai? You're here too?"
Curacao smiled politely.
Fortunately, aside from being a victim of the elevator bombing and having "handled a bomb together" with Jiang Xia, she had not done anything particularly conspicuous. Inspector Megure did not pay much attention to this younger lady and soon trotted over to Jiang Xia to ask about the Cause and Effect of the case.
After a while, Officer Takagi returned with information. "This room's design is rather strange. This entrance can only be bolted shut from the inside; it can't be locked from outside.
"Also, although the paper window has been opened slightly, there's a bamboo security grille outside with gaps too narrow for anyone to crawl through.
"And though there's a pantry on the west side of the room, it too is locked from the inside, just like this door..."
As he spoke, Officer Takagi sighed and summarized, "For now, this appears to be a locked room. The deceased may have hanged himself."
But with Mr. Jiang Xia here, that "suicide" had to be questioned...
Wait, what did Mr. Jiang Xia have to do with whether it was suicide? Those were completely unrelated matters.
Officer Takagi briefly lost focus, then continued, "The victim died between three-thirty and four in the afternoon. Though there was some bleeding, the primary cause of death was suffocation from the rope constricting his neck."
"Bleeding..." Inspector Megure lowered his head and indeed saw a long trail of blood flowing from inside the small door to