Chapter 285
When Kudo Shinichi woke up, he found himself lying in the infirmary.
Mouri Ran was pacing back and forth anxiously beside him. Hearing him wake up, she quickly rushed over to check: "Shinichi! You finally woke up! What's wrong with your body? Last time it seemed like this too..."
"Uh, to investigate the case, I haven't slept for several days. My body probably couldn't take it..." Kudo Shinichi quickly found an excuse and managed to brush off Mouri Ran.
Mouri Ran really wanted to stay and accompany Kudo Shinichi, but although the stage play was terminated due to the case, the cleanup work wasn't reduced at all—in fact, it had increased.
Kudo Shinichi had returned secretly, and his fainting didn't attract other people's attention. With Hattori Heiji plus the physically strong Mouri Ran, and Vermouth disguised as Teitan High's infirmary teacher working together to carry him to the infirmary, plus Vermouth disguised as the infirmary teacher helping to cover, no one paid much attention to his condition.
Because of this, Mouri Ran couldn't disappear without reason. Even if Suzuki Sonoko helped smooth things over by saying she went to the bathroom, being completely absent while working would feel strange, and Mouri Ran didn't want to go back and explain that she had diarrhea or something.
So after seeing Kudo Shinichi wake up, understanding why he fainted, and confirming he was fine, Mouri Ran reluctantly left the infirmary.
Vermouth smiled as she watched her angel leave, then turned and said: "I'll also step out briefly. You can lock the door from inside, and don't open it even if someone comes."
"Okay, thank you, doctor."
Kudo Shinichi observed the situation: "Dr. Niide is..."
"Because you suddenly fainted and scared your Ran-neesan, she seemed to trust that Dr. Niide very much, so she called him to examine you and asked Dr. Niide not to tell others. Anyway, it didn't attract other people's attention... It should be fine, right? What do you think?" Hattori Heiji wasn't familiar with Dr. Niide.
Kudo Shinichi recalled the case he solved as Edogawa Conan at Dr. Niide's house, as well as his understanding of Dr. Niide's character all along, and nodded: "Dr. Niide should be fine. He's very understanding and won't spread rumors."
After all, he had almost couldn't help jumping out to solve the case in front of a whole venue of people. Now it was just one additional Dr. Niide, which was already perfect.
Hattori Heiji sighed: "I thought you were going to shrink in front of Ran-san, which scared me... I knew you couldn't have been frightened unconscious by Samukawa-san."
Kudo Shinichi: "............"
Hattori Heiji: "...No way? Was it really because of Samukawa-san?"
"...Just a coincidence, I was indeed a bit shocked." Kudo Shinichi painfully grabbed his hair, "How should I put it... anyway, it's better to be careful around Samukawa-san in the future."
"Suspecting Samukawa-san has problems again?" Hattori Heiji didn't find Kudo Shinichi's inconsistency problematic—detectives suspecting this person and that person was very normal. "What's the reason?"
Since it wasn't convenient to mention Haibara Ai's matter, Kudo Shinichi said vaguely: "Got some new clues."
Hattori Heiji immediately said: "What a coincidence, I also got some new clues about Samukawa-san, but haven't had time to confirm them yet."
Kudo Shinichi: "...??? What clues?"
"His address." Hattori Heiji sighed, "I don't know why, but even though he's considered an acquaintance at Metropolitan Police, his address is particularly hard to find out. My dad was initially reluctant to help me with this, saying why ask him about such trivial matters, but even he struggled for a long time to find out..."
Kudo Shinichi pressed: "Besides the address? What else did you find out?"
"...Very low-key, the Moriarty of the police, somewhat solitary personality and such—nothing valuable." Hattori Heiji recalled, "Though I heard he's an orphan, grew up in an orphanage, got into university on his own, then passed Metropolitan Police's Police Academy and stayed in Tokyo. Quite inspiring..."
Kudo Shinichi was slightly stunned.
This was somewhat unexpected.
Because his several meetings with Samukawa Shinryu were all at crime scenes, he had no chance to chat about family matters. Even the easy-going Officer Hagiwara couldn't possibly suddenly say "Oh right, that Samukawa guy is an orphan" during conversation.
But how should he put it—just looking at Samukawa Shinryu, the refinement revealed in his gestures and his calm confidence in dealing with people, you really couldn't tell he was from an orphanage background!
Even when he occasionally spoke harshly and made people feel offended, most of the time it seemed intentional—etiquette was something that could exist for Samukawa Shinryu, but could also be absent when he didn't care. Combined with that aura, even people he offended couldn't accuse him of lacking manners...
People would believe it if you said he came from a distinguished family.
But such a Samukawa Shinryu was actually an orphan? What kind of amazing orphanage was that?
Kudo Shinichi thought rationally and felt there was one possibility—Samukawa Shinryu's learning ability was too powerful!
Forget about special agents, historically some con men could be trained to disguise themselves as nobles and hold their own among real aristocrats. Samukawa-san should be stronger than those con men, right?!
But after hearing Haibara Ai's suspicion that Samukawa Shinryu might be from the organization, Kudo Shinichi wondered if Samukawa Shinryu's background might be fabricated.
After all, Japanese records were too easy to forge—a bunch of paper materials, and the computer data that was finally entered wasn't even networked. Each system operated independently, making the networking pointless... Samukawa Shinryu's orphanage records were from over twenty years ago—could they really still be found?
Moreover, as far as he knew, Police Academy background checks were quite casual...
Thinking of this, Kudo Shinichi couldn't help frowning.
He couldn't jump to conclusions. He could only continue investigating, but future actions had to be more careful. After all, if even Haibara Ai thought there was a problem, it would be easy to alert the target.
...Though it couldn't be ruled out that Haibara Ai had misunderstood something. After all, Samukawa-san's aura... right?
"What are your plans?" Seeing Kudo Shinichi silent and seemingly thinking about something, and worried that Mouri Ran or Dr. Niide might return at any time with insufficient talking time, Hattori Heiji proactively suggested: "I was thinking of checking out the situation near that address, but I have to return to Osaka soon..."
Kudo Shinichi nodded seriously: "I'll go check it out later."
Being much more cautious, Kudo Shinichi worried about his house being monitored or something. Plus, he couldn't rule out the possibility of shrinking at night, so he had to reluctantly stay at neighboring Dr. Agasa's house.
Mouri Ran found this baffling—who leaves their own house empty but doesn't live there, choosing to stay at a neighbor's house instead? But she was also brushed off by Kudo Shinichi's excuses.
The next day, waking up to find he hadn't shrunk, Kudo Shinichi breathed a sigh of relief. He chatted briefly with Mouri Ran, who couldn't help coming over on her way to school to confirm yesterday wasn't a dream, then didn't dare swagger off to school himself. He regretfully watched Mouri Ran leave with Haibara Ai, who continued disguising as Edogawa Conan.
He spent the day being extremely cautious. That evening, the medicine finally wore off, so he couldn't wait even one more day. After changing clothes, he immediately went to check out the address Hattori Heiji had given him.
After all, many shady things happened at night. Going at night might accidentally reveal something, right?
Dr. Agasa was speechless but agreed that if Edogawa Conan called for help, he'd immediately help call the police—he often stayed up late anyway, so it was no trouble.
Just in case, Dr. Agasa also gave Edogawa Conan several new gadgets. Although their quality wasn't very stable, they might come in handy.
Edogawa Conan set off like this.
The address wasn't in a very remote location, but since it was this time of night and a child appearing on the street might be caught by patrolling police who'd contact his parents, Edogawa Conan simply took a taxi. This way, the driver would only think he was taking a taxi home.
When they reached the destination area and stopped, the driver actually gave him some extra warnings: "Why didn't your family come pick you up? Get home quickly, and definitely avoid any suspicious people! This area gets a bit chaotic at this time!"
Edogawa Conan's eyes lit up, and he quickly probed: "I think this area is very safe. Uncle, where is it chaotic?"
"Sigh, once when I was passing through here, I saw three people fighting, shouting about 'me first' or something. One of them even dropped a gun! Later, when I passed through here again, I'd deliberately observe, and sure enough, some rather intimidating characters often appear here at night..." the driver said with a sigh.
Edogawa Conan: "...Uncle, don't you call the police?"
Driver: "Other people should call the police, right? Police cars seem to come here frequently too..."
Edogawa Conan: "..."
His expression became somewhat grave.
Were those intimidating characters the driver mentioned related to Samukawa Shinryu living here?
Was Samukawa Shinryu the cause of attracting those suspicious people, or the one calling the police? Or both?
He got out of the car, turned into a small alley, and after the taxi left, carefully advanced toward his destination.
Soon, Edogawa Conan's gaze sharpened as he spotted the small building with its gate tightly locked but first-floor lights on.
He made a small detour, circling to the back of this building, and discovered there was indeed a back door.
Edogawa Conan obviously couldn't directly knock on the door himself. He only planned to observe, but the driver's words made him somewhat suspicious.
If he could find those suspicious characters the driver mentioned, he might learn something.
Edogawa Conan walked along the street for a while, his gaze stopping on a small alley at some distance from Samukawa Shinryu's house—someone had just turned into it.
He looked around, ran to the emergency stairs outside the building opposite that alley, then adjusted his glasses and finally saw clearly what was happening in the alley.
There were about three or four people in the alley. Whether due to the cold winter night or because they were doing something shady, they were all bundled up tightly—hats, sunglasses, masks, scarves, everything they could equip themselves with. These people formed a circle and were—
Edogawa Conan's gaze became vacant.
—Drawing lots?! What exactly were these people doing here in the middle of the night?!