More than an hour had passed since Takeyori Oikawa was stuffed into Noah's Palace by Tangze.
Mori Kogoro, Conan, and the Oikawa family's veritable swarm of police officers had practically turned the entire house upside down. They had also more or less pieced together Takeyori Oikawa's movements over the past twenty years.
In short, it was about time.
Watching Conan choke on his words after finishing his explanation of Oikawa's situation, then silently run off, Tangze finally turned over his phone and looked at Takeyori Oikawa on the screen again.
Having understood what the Phantom Thieves of Hearts wanted him to see, Takeyori Oikawa could no longer spare any thought for whether any of this made sense.
He gripped that battered paintbrush and reached out to stroke the most complete painting in the gallery.
Calling it the most complete was only a comparison to the other paintings in the gallery.
After all, these paintings had been made with a mouth. The control was nowhere near as precise as using hands, and the rough brushwork was unavoidable.
But it had once been painted by the great landscape artist Haruhito Kanbara. Though the details were somewhat crude, its unrestrained yet melancholy atmosphere still leaped from the canvas.
It was also the painting whose brushwork most resembled Takeyori Oikawa's own.
This painting was the "Blue Gale" Haruhito Kanbara had ultimately prepared for him.
A "Blue Gale" meant to save his son-in-law's life, to convey guilt and comfort.
Thinking of his scheme, thinking of the tragedy that was about to unfold in the villa, Takeyori Oikawa was filled with regret. He slowly sank to his knees and broke down sobbing.
He had been so close.
If the Phantom Thief Troupe had not taken him away, perhaps he would have already completed all the preparations