Chapter 265
Although he didn't quite understand why someone wouldn't like explaining, for a detective, this was a highlight moment, so Hattori Heiji had no intention of refusing.
But before that...
"There's still someone hanging outside the ship!" Hattori Heiji gestured. "I saw..."
"Kanie." Samukawa Shinryu said naturally.
Hattori Heiji politely paused for a moment, but found that Samukawa Shinryu had only said a name and stopped, still not planning to explain, so he had to continue.
"When I came here to investigate just now, I found traces of something having been stuck to the railing, so I deduced that the gunshot we heard, the sudden fire here, and so on, might all have been mechanisms. Just putting a lit cigarette here would make a very simple mechanism, so the alibis we thought we had before aren't actually reliable. When I was examining this area, I also shone my flashlight outside and discovered there was a rope ladder over there, with Mr. Kanie hanging from it, which means my previous... uh, my earlier guess was wrong..."
While Hattori Heiji was explaining, the watching crew members also quickly sent someone over to rescue Mr. Kanie, who was hanging on the outside of the ship.
The person was still alive, just unconscious.
The crew brought the person over and placed him at Hattori Heiji's feet.
Hattori Heiji was already parched from talking and had finally explained most of Mr. Kujii's plan.
Simply put, it was a shell game, making everyone think everything was Mr. Kanie's scheme, including that the dead person was also a body double that Mr. Kanie had found. Later he would find a reason to make Mr. Kanie look like he had committed suicide, and even if he was exposed, since the statute of limitations had passed, he could still monopolize the 400 million yen.
While Hattori Heiji was explaining, Samukawa Shinryu wasn't completely silent—he would just say a keyword when others raised questions, and Hattori Heiji would extend his explanation based on that keyword...
Going through this whole process, Hattori Heiji completely understood that Samukawa Shinryu had indeed seen through the truth! Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to say the keywords so precisely!
He only had one question.
"Samukawa-kun, when did you realize something was wrong with Mr. Kujii?" Hattori Heiji asked puzzledly.
"Hmm." Samukawa Shinryu thought for a moment. "During the card game, I suppose."
Everyone: "................"
Wasn't that basically equivalent to noticing something was wrong almost as soon as they met?!
Mr. Kujii had already resigned himself when Hattori Heiji started explaining, but hearing this still shocked him: "Where did I give myself away?"
"People who have killed, people who want to kill... are obvious to me." Samukawa Shinryu said indifferently.
Former Officer Samezaki's mouth twitched: "Then why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"Insufficient evidence." Samukawa Shinryu said. "Now there's evidence."
Everyone: "..........."
Ah, this.
Come to think of it, that was indeed true. The statute of limitations was about to expire, so even if he had exposed it then, the other party would have had ways to escape and it would have alerted them.
Since Samukawa Shinryu had already seen through Mr. Kujii's murderous intent, waiting for them to turn on each other and for new evidence to appear before arresting them was indeed more convenient. And the new round of murder definitely hadn't passed the statute of limitations...
Now Hattori Heiji was both victim and witness, and the still-unconscious Kanie was the same. Mr. Kujii couldn't escape no matter what.
How to put it—from the perspective of problem-solving efficiency, this operation was indeed okay, but from the angle of problem-solving approach... the thinking felt a bit subtle.
Former Officer Samezaki held his forehead.
He always felt that Samukawa Shinryu's methods sometimes, especially the part about achieving goals by any means necessary, might be better suited for the Japanese Public Security Bureau.
After all, the Japanese Public Security was famous for being good at illegal operations...
"Anyway, no matter what, the case is solved. Have the captain go full speed ahead and get back to shore quickly." Former Officer Samezaki restrained Mr. Kujii, planning to find a place to lock him up before reaching shore.
Samukawa Shinryu suddenly said: "Wait, I still have a question to ask."
Former Officer Samezaki was startled and stopped: "Go ahead and ask."
Hattori Heiji and Edogawa Conan also curiously slowed their steps—Samukawa Shinryu had acted like he knew everything, yet he still had questions he didn't know?
Then they heard Samukawa Shinryu seriously ask: "How did you administer the drug? Kanie actually didn't wake up after being blown by the night wind for so long and being tossed around like this."
Everyone: "..........."
Although the focus was a bit strange, this was indeed true when you thought about it.
Had Mr. Kujii used a dosage meant for elephants on Mr. Kanie? Would he even be able to wake up? What if he woke up already turned into an idiot?!
Mr. Kujii was silent for a moment, then confessed the situation.
He had originally planned to kill Mr. Kanie anyway, so naturally the dosage was just to ensure he stayed alive until tonight. Whether his brain would be damaged was not within his consideration.
He admitted that Mr. Kanie's brain might indeed be damaged...
Samukawa Shinryu: "Oh, that's good then."
Edogawa Conan: "...???"
Hattori Heiji: "..........."
Former Officer Samezaki, who was more familiar with Samukawa Shinryu, was speechless: "Samukawa, you... forget it, I'll take him over there first."
This guy really couldn't stand seeing criminals doing well!
Although it looked a bit like that, Samukawa Shinryu truly hated evil like an enemy—he just really couldn't speak properly.
Sigh, sometimes he really wished Hagiwara Kenji and Samukawa Shinryu could average each other out... No, it probably wouldn't work, because sometimes this Samukawa Shinryu guy deliberately said strange things!!!
Samukawa Shinryu turned around and found Hattori Heiji still looking at him, so he raised an eyebrow: "Hmm?"
"Um, thank you for saving me." Hattori Heiji rubbed the back of his head. "But can I ask a somewhat presumptuous question?"
Samukawa Shinryu said generously: "Go ahead and ask."
"It's just... you arrived so timely, you weren't already there early, were you?" Hattori Heiji's mouth twitched.
After all, before he lost consciousness, he had already felt himself falling over the railing. How close would someone have to be standing to just happen to knock down Mr. Kujii and save him!
The deck at night had no lighting and was pitch black—you couldn't see your hand half a meter away. If someone was nearby, he might not necessarily have noticed.
"Not very early. I followed Kujii over." Samukawa Shinryu answered. "Otherwise I would have chased you away earlier."
Hattori Heiji: "...??? Why?!"
Why did he seem to really dislike him!
Samukawa Shinryu said casually: "Because you were interfering with Kujii's plan... But forget it, it doesn't matter anymore. This way works too."
Hattori Heiji watched Samukawa Shinryu leave on his own, feeling full of question marks, and had to ask Edogawa Conan: "What does he mean? Did he actually want to let Mr. Kujii continue killing people?"
Edogawa Conan: "Uh... possibly."
"What?!"
Edogawa Conan sighed: "The last question he was concerned about was whether Mr. Kanie might have brain problems due to the drug dosage... Maybe he was regretting that because he saved you, he had to expose Mr. Kujii's plan early, which resulted in Mr. Kanie surviving..."
Hattori Heiji was stunned and recalled Samukawa Shinryu's attitude when asking this question just now, and his "that's good then" after getting the answer. His expression couldn't help but become subtle.
"So when Samukawa-kun said 'this way works too,' he was reluctantly accepting the result that Mr. Kanie didn't die? Because he became mentally disabled and still has to go to prison, so he paid a price anyway?"
Edogawa Conan was silent but didn't refute, which meant he agreed with this speculation.
Hattori Heiji couldn't help but fall silent too, and after a long while said: "Wasn't he a police officer before?"
What kind of mentality was it to clearly see through everything early on, but insist on waiting for the criminals to kill each other down to the last one before taking action? What kind of new battle royale was this?
He'd never seen such a police officer!
Edogawa Conan reminded him with difficulty: "He's technically still a police officer now..."
Hattori Heiji tried to make excuses: "From one perspective, he does hate evil like an enemy, and seems to have a strong sense of justice..."
Edogawa Conan was silent for a moment: "Actually... Mr. Samezaki revealed earlier that when Samukawa-kun was a police officer before, he especially liked toying with criminals..."
If it was all this level of toying, saying Samukawa Shinryu had a sense of justice felt strange!
He completely didn't treat criminals' lives as lives!
And at this point, Edogawa Conan thought back and couldn't help suspecting that on Tsukikage Island, Samukawa Shinryu had also discovered the truth early on but just didn't say anything—he had even deliberately found an excuse to investigate other things and stay away from the scene, probably to avoid other acquaintances thinking he was too slow to solve the case this time.
After Asai Narimi had completed his revenge and someone discovered the truth and solved the case, Samukawa Shinryu also returned. This would explain Dr. Asai's strange and subtle attitude toward Samukawa Shinryu...
Wait, someone who solved cases quickly but played blind when seeing revenge scenes, also played blind when seeing criminals turning on each other... How did this actually seem like he really did hate evil like an enemy?!
Edogawa Conan suddenly felt speechless and simply brought it up to discuss with Hattori Heiji.
After hearing this, Hattori Heiji said earnestly: "Although I can indeed understand your suspicions about Samukawa-kun, judging people by their appearance really isn't good... From the current intelligence, aside from him indeed appearing at the game launch event like Botanist, he doesn't seem to have any connection to that Black Organization! And this personality doesn't seem like someone who would help criminals plan strategies as [the Consultant]..."
"You're right." Edogawa Conan sighed in reflection. "Indeed, we should understand more about the inner person."
Hattori Heiji added: "Since Samukawa-kun isn't a bad person, why don't we just ask him directly if he knows about another [Criminal Consultant]."
Edogawa Conan was startled and thought that made sense!
When he had previously asked Samukawa Shinryu if he was [the Consultant], Samukawa Shinryu had admitted it, though later he discovered he was talking about being a Metropolitan Police consultant—it was completely a misunderstanding. But it also showed that Samukawa Shinryu wasn't uncommunicative. Asking more questions might really yield results.
So the two people chatting on the deck started running, catching up to the leisurely Samukawa Shinryu.
Hattori Heiji: "Um, Samukawa-kun! Wait, I still have questions I want to ask!"
Samukawa Shinryu stopped and turned to wait for them.
Wow, Samukawa-kun is really so polite... He usually speaks using honorifics, and now he seems to have quite a good temper too...
Hattori Heiji thought random things, then ran up to Samukawa Shinryu and asked: "Samukawa-kun, have you heard of [Criminal Consultant]?"
"The one who was caught a few days ago?"
"Not that one!" Hattori Heiji said urgently. "Are there other consultants? The kind that criminals would often go to for advice..."
Samukawa Shinryu pondered: "I don't know much about this area. Apart from the person who was already caught..."
Hattori Heiji and Edogawa Conan held their breath.
Samukawa Shinryu: "Then there's only me."
Hattori Heiji: "..."
Hattori Heiji: "Huh???"