Chapter 57: Please Begin Your Performance

The two of them exchanged a glance and immediately rushed off.

Hattori Heiji went to the kitchen to investigate the cake piping nozzle, while Conan took advantage of his small stature to sneak over to the serving cart in search of evidence.

Chi Feichi did not follow them. Looking at the caller ID on his phone, he picked it up and answered.

Neither Conan, Hattori Heiji, nor the police were certain whether the culprit had planned the crime long in advance or acted on the spur of the moment. He was different, however; he knew very well that this incident should never have happened, and the only variable was himself.

Presumably, Eguchi Sachiko had learned about the chaotic state of the room after their private conversation, and upon remembering the snake venom obtained through some channel, she had been prompted to commit the crime and shift the suspicion onto him. If that was the case, Eguchi Sachiko had at most a little over half an hour to prepare.

The snake venom was likely something left behind by her daughter in the past, kept in some corner of the room as a memento, and with only half an hour to prepare a tool to simulate snake fangs, the only methods he could think of were a piping nozzle and a piping bag.

Compared to Conan and Hattori Heiji, he indeed held the advantage of information.

Once the call connected, the steady and composed voice of Chi Shinnosuke came through, "I've already heard about the situation from Mikio. Does this matter have anything to do with you?"

Chi Feichi replied calmly, "No."

Chi Shinnosuke let out a soft "Hmph," then continued, "I've already arrived near the Sonozaki estate, but right now the outside of the house is swarming with reporters, so it's inconvenient for me to show my face. A lawyer will go straight in shortly, and everything from here on will be handled by the lawyer. In any case, do not let the police take you back for questioning as a suspect."

"Master, that brat Conan is aiming his watch at you!" Nonaka suddenly warned.

Chi Feichi reacted with lightning speed, bending down at the waist, "There's no need to trouble a lawyer to come over; this will be resolved very soon."

A tiny anesthetic needle zipped swiftly past right above Chi Feichi, flying all the way to the wall before bouncing off and dropping to the ground.

Damn it!

Conan broke out in a cold sweat. Stealing a glance, he saw that Chi Feichi was still on the phone, but his heart felt no lighter for it.

When a person sitting in a chair suddenly bends over at the waist, it is usually to tie a shoelace or pick something up from the floor. But Chi Feichi had simply bent down and immediately straightened back up—it was abrupt, as if he had done it specifically to dodge the anesthetic needle.

And yet, Chi Feichi had indeed dodged it, just like the wiretap from last time. It was terrifyingly acute.

Last time, he could still fool himself into thinking that amidst so many people, Chi Feichi probably hadn't been sure who planted the listening device. But this second time, he could be certain that Chi Feichi definitely knew about his little trick; it was entirely an attitude of 'I won't play along with your act, nor will I pursue the root cause.'

It left him unsure of what Chi Feichi was actually thinking.

Simply because he lacked curiosity? It was possible. Not just towards him, but Chi Feichi seemed to harbor very little curiosity about anyone else; the same went for Haibara Ai and Hattori Heiji...

...

Over on the other end, Chi Feichi was still talking to his cheap old man.

"Resolved very soon?"

"The famous detective Mouri Kogoro is here, along with the high school detective from the west, Hattori Heiji. They seem to have a clue."

"Good then. Contact me once the matter is resolved."

The call hung up.

Seeing Hattori Heiji nod at him upon returning, Chi Feichi put away his phone and walked over to the serving cart.

Hattori Heiji had reached the serving cart a step ahead and whispered to Conan, "Well? 工... Con-, Conan, did you find anything?"

Conan reined in his drifting thoughts, shot Hattori Heiji an irritable glare, and pointed at the fringe along the lower tier of the serving cart. "It's jammed in the fringe. It seems the culprit is indeed Ms. Eguchi Sachiko. Although Miss Katagiri Kaede also had the opportunity to strike and her relationship with Mr. Kikuhito is a bit strange, only Ms. Eguchi Sachiko can freely operate the serving cart."

"She wasn't wearing gloves when serving the food, and they weren't found among her belongings afterward. Her fingerprints will definitely be on the cake piping nozzle," Hattori Heiji suddenly flashed a grin. "Case solved!"

"Please begin your performance." Chi Feichi turned and walked back to his seat.

"Hey..." Hattori Heiji failed to stop him in time and could only turn to look at Conan.

"You do it," Conan said helplessly. "My anesthetic dart has already been used."

"Used?" Hattori Heiji instinctively turned his head to look at Mouri Kogoro, who was still bouncing around energetically at the scene.

"I originally wanted to make Chi Feichi fall asleep," Conan lowered his voice. "But after I fired the anesthetic needle, he sensed it and dodged."

Hattori Heiji snorted with laughter, playfully poking Conan's head with his finger. "I'm telling you, stop provoking other people. Wouldn't it be much better to just obediently put that muddle-headed old man to sleep? Last time you tried to drug me and I discovered your identity, and you still haven't learned your lesson this time?"

Conan speechlessly dodged Hattori Heiji's repeated finger-pokes. After some consideration, he decided to tell Hattori Heiji the truth. "He has a video of me on his phone, as well as a photo of Haibara. It's very likely to attract people from that organization. Yet he refuses to delete them. I was hoping that while using his identity for my deductions, I could conveniently get his hands on his phone and wipe those things out."

"It'll draw those guys who made you shrink over here? That's troublesome," Hattori Heiji sneaked a glance at Chi Feichi. "Why not just spell it out clearly to him..."

"Please!" Conan hurriedly intercepted Hattori Heiji's train of thought. "If those guys find out Kudo Shinichi isn't dead, they'll definitely come to kill me again. By then, even the people around me will be in danger. The fewer people who know about me shrinking, the better."

If Hattori Heiji hadn't guessed his identity and chased after him to expose it, he wouldn't have told him in the first place...

"But does he really not know?" Hattori Heiji argued. "Although he's only stayed here for two days this time and gathered more information than we did, his deductive and observational skills are no less than mine. What I can figure out, he should be able to figure out too, right?"

"He doesn't have curiosity as strong as yours," Conan said, eyeing Hattori Heiji sideways with a pointed look. "At least he hasn't come to verify it with me, nor has he relentlessly questioned me about it."

"If he's not curious, it could also mean he already knows everything and doesn't find it worth wondering about; he just isn't telling you," Hattori Heiji said with a strange hint of schadenfreude. "Just like the last time with Kudo Kid's preview letter puzzle—he clearly figured it out long ago, yet he neither sought verification from anyone nor spoke a word. It's the same this time. If you don't go and ask him, he might just keep it bottled up until we dig out the truth ourselves."

"I have my suspicions about that too, but since he doesn't ask anything, there's simply no way for me to determine what's going on in his head. Anyway, let's wait and see for now." Conan was out of ideas.

Chi Feichi simply did not play by the rules. Furthermore, considering that Chi Feichi was a patient at Aoyama Fourth Hospital, he felt that one shouldn't try to understand Chi Feichi's mindset using normal human logic, let alone attempt to speculate on what he was thinking...

Hattori Heiji did not dwell on the subject any longer. After preparing himself, he alerted the police and began to deduce the entire sequence of events.

Everyone returned to their original seats to reconstruct the crime scene. Megure Juzo and Takagi Wataru stood in for Sonozaki Kikuhito and Shigematsu Akinao, while the remaining police officers retrieved the piping nozzle wedged in the fringe of the serving cart as instructed by Hattori Heiji.

Eguchi Sachiko offered a couple of defensive excuses at first, but once Hattori Heiji reconstructed the method of the crime, she fell silent.

"Inspector Megure!" An officer walked over holding an evidence bag, inside of which was strikingly a flat metal piece retrieved from the lower fringe of the serving cart. "Plastic components containing snake venom were found inside, and clear fingerprints were left on it as well!"

"Right, I understand." Megure Juzo stood up from his seat and looked at Eguchi Sachiko.

"I only... wanted to ruin tomorrow's wedding," Eguchi Sachiko said, keeping her head down in self-reproach. "I didn't know the snake venom cleaned out from Miejia's things belonged to a pit viper. Looking at the photos in Miejia's room, I thought it was just like the snake brought by Young Master Feichi. I figured that since it was a snake that could be kept as a pet, injecting just a little bit of its venom wouldn't kill anyone..."

"Then this Miejia you mentioned..." Megure Juzo wanted to confirm the source of the venom.

"She's my daughter. Ever since I divorced my ex-husband, she has been living on her own outside, refusing to tell me anything," Eguchi Sachiko looked toward Katagiri Kaede with a complex gaze. "I would occasionally go over to help clean her room. It was during the time I discovered she had left the snake venom behind at home that I also found a photo of her and Young Master Kikuhito together. After that, I called to ask her if she had started dating someone. That was our most harmonious conversation in years. The moment she talked about her romance, she seemed to return to that little girl who depended on her mother, talking full of hope about her life during that period and timidly asking me if the gift she chose was all right. I originally intended to tell her the next time I called that Young Master Kikuhito was the eldest young master of the household where I worked..."

"Th-Then later..." Thinking of her engagement to Sonozaki Kikuhito, Katagiri Kaede left the rest unsaid.

"Then Miss Kaede came along, and with Butler Shigematsu's matchmaking, she got engaged to Young Master Kikuhito," Eguchi Sachiko closed her eyes as tears welled in the corners of her eyes. "I couldn't imagine how heartbroken Miejia would be. No matter what, parents always worry about their children. When Young Master Feichi came over this time and brought a snake that looked very much like the one in the photo, I thought it must be heaven telling me to stop this wedding. I only wanted Young Master Kikuhito to have a little accident and incidentally cause Butler Shigematsu to get hurt too. I never intended to kill them..."

"If you don't know anything about snakes, you shouldn't go messing around with snake venom," Hattori Heiji sighed helplessly. "Snake venom is inherently a very dangerous thing. What would you have done if someone had died because of this, or if an innocent person had shouldered the blame for murder?"

"I am deeply sorry!" Eguchi Sachiko bowed deeply to everyone.

Shortly after, the police received a call from the hospital stating that Sonozaki Kikuhito and Shigematsu Akinao had both been pulled out of critical condition following emergency treatment, though they would still need to recuperate for a period of time.

Sonozaki Mikio went outside to inform reporters that the wedding would be postponed, while Chi Feichi took a phone call from Sonozaki Kikuhito.

"I'm terribly sorry; it seems I've caused you trouble. Actually, Miejia knew her mother worked in my house, but..." Sonozaki Kikuhito's voice was weak. "Never mind, let's not talk about that now. Please also apologize to Nonaka for me."

"Nonaka wants to eat fish," Chi Feichi stated calmly.

There was a silence of one second on the other end of the line: "Alright, I'll buy it! I'll contact someone to order fish right now, as much as you want."