"Takeyori Oikawa? Mm, indeed, you were right. He was also a target of the Phantom Thief Troupe."
"So the red paint on Kitagawa's hands back then..."
"Yes, exactly what you think."
Tangze, who had hurried over from the shop, nodded in confirmation of Conan's guess and gave an affirmative answer to his misunderstanding.
The reason he had thought to wear gloves was because he knew Conan had recently been paying close attention to other people's hands. While Kaito Kuroba's hands would not have any particularly obvious characteristics—after all, Kaito Kid wore gloves too—they would still be very different from Tangze's own hands.
Naturally, he had borrowed the situation in Takeyori Oikawa's Palace as an excuse, misleading Conan into associating the change in hand color with the Phantom Thief Troupe's actions.
Takeyori Oikawa's Palace Treasure was naturally also a painting, but it depicted the inner demon that had tormented him for so long: his murderous intent toward his father-in-law.
If someone reached out and touched it directly, they would not only get bright red paint all over their hands, but also trigger Shadow Takeyori Oikawa's alert and mark, allowing him to circle around and assassinate them from behind.
Only Takeyori Oikawa himself, if he felt remorse before picking up the painting, could avoid the murderous intent originating from himself at that moment and leave peacefully with the Treasure.
That was also why they had pulled Takeyori Oikawa and Haruhito Kanbara into Noah's game first for a round of reform, before sending them into the Palace.
For Palace owners with such deeply knotted hearts, getting them to work through it themselves was far more effective than the Phantom Thief Troupe forcibly changing their hearts.
"So that's how it was..." Conan nodded thoughtfully, but his gaze involuntarily drifted toward Tangze's hands.
Tangze, as