Mr. Hat who was forced to lose his memory

"The name of the deceased is Yazaki Kazuhiro, male, 42 years old, and he served as the chairman of the Tokyo Pass Group before his death. According to his accompanying secretary, the deceased told her at eight o'clock last night that he would go to see someone alone , and then lost track, and unexpectedly found the body the next day."

The gray-eyed man with a hooked nose held a magnifying glass to inspect the scene, especially the compartment where the deceased was killed and the condition of the body.After listening to the report from the staff on the cruise ship, he asked without raising his head, "So did he say he was going to see anyone?"

The staff member was a young guy. He put the folder under his arm and replied sternly: "I'm sorry, no. And the relevant cameras of the places he went to when he went out were destroyed, so there is no way to know through the monitor. Who did you meet?"

"I see, you can go back." The foreign man put the magnifying glass back into his jacket pocket, took out a pipe, put it in his mouth, and skillfully lit it with a match.

A few minutes later, a dark-haired young man in a brown deerstalker stepped over the cordon and opened the toilet door.

"How is the investigation going, Mr. Edogawa?" Sherlock Holmes asked seemingly casually, puffing out a smoke ring.

Edogawa shrugged indiscriminately. He pulled the high school student behind him and pushed him in front of Holmes. He patted Holmes on the shoulder forcefully: "Come on, little detective, tell me your reasoning."

"Wait, wait! Who is that person?" Kudo Shinichi, who was forced to drive ducks to the shelves, looked at the foreign man in black suit, black tall felt hat and smoking a pipe in front of him, and expressed doubts. sound.

"He is Sherlock Holmes, and we have handled cases together abroad before." Edogawa Ranpo's tone was filled with a hint of appreciation and respect, which is extremely rare for him who has always been proud, "Although I don't want to admit it, but He is indeed a famous detective who can stand by my side and is a very strong competitor."

"It's so powerful." Kudo Shinichi was in awe of the foreign man.He knows how powerful Edogawa Ranpo is, and it is naturally impossible for someone who is appreciated by such a powerful person to be inferior. "Hi sir, I am..."

"Kudo Shinichi, right?" Holmes answered his name for him with a smile.

Kudo Shinichi was taken aback, and lowered his head subconsciously: "I didn't bring a suitcase and a nameplate..."

Edogawa Ranpo let out a childish laugh. Holmes shook his head helplessly and said, "I know your father. He often talks about you to me."

"I see." Kudo Shinichi suddenly realized.

Getting to the point, Kudo Shinichi's expression became serious.He said that he blocked the scene as soon as he rushed into the scene. After roughly observing the scene of the victim, he and Edogawa ranpo went to the monitoring room to check the monitoring, but unfortunately, all the cameras that could be clues were artificially blocked. broken.

"This is a brutal and sudden murder." Kudo Shinichi said, "Judging from the victim's wound condition and the situation at the scene, he had a fierce struggle with the murderer, and the murderer should have a great influence on the victim." Hate."

There is a long corridor between the room where the victim lived and the toilet where he was killed. The camera at the end of the corridor is operating intact, but it only captured the victim leaving his room at eight o'clock last night from the next door. The figure going down the stairs, and this became the last image of the victim during his lifetime.

Kudo Shinichi borrowed the name of Edogawa Ranpo to read the video from the camera that may be the only clue from [-]:[-] last night to the present, and asked several staff members to fast-forward and view it segment by segment.But the creepy thing is that during this time, no one has entered the toilet where the deceased was killed.

In other words, the cleaner who first discovered the murder scene was the only person who had entered the toilet during that time.

"Except for the factor that the camera has been tampered with. If an adult of this age wants to appear in the toilet out of thin air, he can only pass through that window."

A window of this size could theoretically pass two adults, but...

Kudo Shinichi bypassed the blood on the ground, put on his gloves, and opened the window less than two square meters at the end of the compartment.

There are no facilities outside where you can step on your feet, and below is an empty deck 15 meters high from the windows.

"Unless the murderer can fly, it is impossible for him to enter the toilet through the window without using any abilities or tools," Kudo Shinichi said.

The tricky thing is that this is not like previous cases on land.On a moving cruise ship, as long as the murderer binds the relevant murder weapon to any heavy object and throws it into the vast sea, the traces can be perfectly eliminated, and the hope of recovering it is extremely slim.

"I have two speculations about the murderer. Either his hacking skills are so good that he can invade the surveillance system on this cruise ship and cover it perfectly, so there will be no images of anyone entering this toilet in the corridor outside; or his superhuman ability It is related to gravity or spatial movement, and it can easily carry an adult from the window without any support outside to the toilet cubicle, and then brutally kill him."

After hearing this reasoning, Holmes raised his hands and applauded: "Very good reasoning, although there are some shortcomings, but your observation ability is indeed unmatched by ordinary people. You are indeed the proud son of Mr. Yusaku Kudo."

However, Kudo Shinichi didn't show a happy expression. He touched his chin and frowned: "But I still can't figure it out. Since I want to kill people, why don't I throw the corpses into the sea as well, but have to work hard in this toilet?" Leaving the dead body here unscrupulously? Isn't this just waiting to kill yourself?"

"That is the so-called 'motivation,'" said Holmes. "As long as you find this, you will not be far from the truth. After all the impossibilities have been ruled out, what remains, although unbelievable, is the truth."

He held his pipe, looking at the body that had remained unchanged since its discovery.As a sign of respect, he had previously placed a white cloth over the corpse's shattered head.

"However, you are still far behind, little detective." Edogawa Ranpo had already put on his glasses, his copper-green pupils shone with a sharp light, "Mr. Holmes and I knew the crime scene as soon as we saw it." The modus operandi and who the murderer is."

"Eh?! Really?" Kudo Shin was taken aback.

"Well, considering that you don't have supernatural powers after all, it's naturally impossible to compare with me who has "super reasoning", so I'll give your performance a [-] out of [-]. "

Kudo Shinichi: "..."

No, are you sure you really didn't mean to hit people?

The frustrated Kudo Shinichi looked at the foreign man who had been smoking and watching the show: "Since Mr. Ranpo is so strong because he has supernatural powers, what about Mr. Holmes...? Is he also supernatural?"

Holmes laughed and said nothing.

……

Sitting on the bar counter of the open bar, the black-haired young man shook the red liquid in the glass in his hand, and his lips curved slightly.He was dressed in black, and Nakahara recognized that it was from the ancient Heian period clothing format.His pale complexion and bright red pupils make him look very weak, but the dark power originating from his body cannot be ignored anyway.

"Why don't you drink it? It's rare for me to let them pour you a glass."

The red-haired boy sitting next to him tensed his body, forcing himself to look like a normal person.Hearing this, he deliberately pulled out a smirk: "I'm only 14 years old, it's against the law to drink alcohol."

The black-haired young man took a sip of the red wine, and narrowed his eyes in enjoyment, "Don't pretend, I've already seen it... You, you don't look like an ordinary 14-year-old boy. To you, wine is probably just It's no different than water."

No matter how dare Zhongyuan Zhongya really drink down, his drinking capacity is not good in itself. Once he gets drunk, he cannot control what will happen later.His instinctive alarms had been buzzing, alerting him to the danger of the dark-haired youth next to him—even though the man had acted fairly harmless throughout, pretending to be a normal person.

Zhong Yuanzhong didn't know what the purpose of this person approaching him was, but it must not be a good thing.Just as he was brainstorming for a way to escape, a black-haired boy in military uniform appeared.

"Tsuramaru Kuninaga." California Kiyomitsu called out the name of the black-haired young man with a cold expression, "Master told me to warn you not to approach..." His eyes met the red-haired young man on the side, and then moved away Kai, "...he, if you don't want to die."

Tsurumaru Kuninaga showed a dissatisfied expression: "Why does he take such a leniency, obviously this kid is just an ordinary person, but I am very interested in him."

California Qingguang said indifferently: "If you are not afraid of the consequences of disobeying the master's order, please do it yourself."

"Okay, okay." Tsurumaru Kuninaga put down his wine glass, and before leaving, he showed a meaningful smile to Nakahara Nakaya, "I will see you again next time, Nakahara... Nakaya."

Zhong Yuanzhong was also frightened by the rising tail sound, his scalp went numb.

Although he also felt the same aura as Tsurumaru Kuninaga from that black-haired boy, but now it seems that the boy is responsible for taking that Tsurumaru Kuninaga away, which can be regarded as solving one of his troubles. That's great.

The author has something to say: ①: Quoted from "The Sign of Four", which is also one of Sherlock Holmes' classic quotations.

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The crane in the back is black because he fell darkly.

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Speaking of the name of the chat room in the previous chapter, it actually comes from the fanzine "Literary Cell" founded by Mr. Sanyuan Dazai when he was 19 years old. Published the short story "Infernal Affairs".

As for the boss Jitai, it comes from the pen name used by the protagonist when drawing manga in "Disqualification in the World", which sounds the same as "Attempt to Die for Love (じょうしいきた).

You all know who is behind these two vests.