Chapter 90 The Bookshelf Falls Automatically

Chapter 90 The Bookshelf Falls Automatically

Miwako Sato asked, "Then how did Inspector Shiratori know for sure that the criminal was targeting Mrs. Soo?"

Shiratori Renzaburo glanced at Youya, and Youya made a gesture of invitation.

Today is Inspector Shiratori's first day of promotion, so let him have some time to shine.

Shiratori Jinzaburo nodded with satisfaction, Brother Kamiya, well, since he has been promoted to inspector, from now on he should follow Inspector Megure and call him Brother Kamiya, it will seem more intimate this way.

Brother Kamiya is still very sensible.

Shiratori Renzaburo coughed lightly and said slowly, "You said that the victim's screams were heard on the phone, which means that the criminal committed the crime at that time. Under normal circumstances, a thief who is caught while stealing will only be scared and run away, and will not take the initiative to commit crimes. After all, theft and murder are completely different things. In addition, didn't the victim say that he wanted to go to the Metropolitan Police Department to make a statement?"

Takagi Shigeru nodded and responded, "Yes, the victim called me last night and said he had something to tell me about the robber. He planned to come to the Metropolitan Police Department with his husband to give a statement, but he didn't show up at the agreed time, so Mr. Soo called to inquire."

Shiratori Renzaburo then asked, "So, did the victim know that the person who called her was a police officer from the Metropolitan Police Department?"

Takagi Wataru answered affirmatively: "The victim confirmed on the phone that I was the police officer who spoke to her last night."

Shiratori Renzaburo nodded, "That's right. The criminal must have sneaked in at that time. After hearing that she was talking on the phone with the police, he killed her while she was on the phone in order to stop her from continuing."

Sato Miwako was shocked: "If that's the case, could it be that..."

Shiratori Renzaburo: "Yes, in my opinion, the victim was held hostage by the gangsters in the bank. Because he was too close to the gangsters, they thought the victim saw his face and wanted to kill him to silence him. In addition, it is said that when the victim was held hostage, he resisted violently and even grabbed the gangster's woolen hat, right?"

Takagi Shigeru shook his head: "No, actually the first hostage taken was Inspector Megure's wife, and she was the one who resisted. It was the victim who took the initiative to ask for a hostage replacement. So the victim is considered hostage number two, right?"

Shiratori Renzaburo said with some surprise.

"Come to think of it," Soo Keizo suddenly said, "I heard her say something about foreigners yesterday."

Shiratori Renzaburo was delighted: "That's right, your wife must want to tell the police the characteristics of the criminals as clues for investigation, Takagi," he turned to look at Takagi Wataru, "contact the special investigation headquarters immediately and tell them that one of the criminals can be assumed to be a foreigner."

Takagi Wataru responded and immediately prepared to report it.

"Wait a minute." Yuya suddenly spoke.

Takagi Shigeru stopped as usual, and everyone looked at Yuya.

Youya walked around the body and said slowly, "There are no sweat stains left by the victim on the ground around, and the phone was dropped next to him. The criminal did not need to move the body after killing him, which means the victim was killed while riding a bicycle, so..."

He raised his hand and gestured, "The bicycle is some distance away from the door, but also very close to the wall. How did the criminal get behind the victim and commit the crime?"

Shiratori Renzaburo frowned and thought for a while, then looked at Soo Keizao: "Excuse me, does your wife have the habit of riding a bicycle every day?"

Zeng Wei Keizao nodded: "Yes, she has the habit of riding a bicycle around 2 o'clock every day."

"So, what time did you get up this morning?"

Zeng Weiguizao thought for a moment and replied, "I left home very early because I had to go to work at the bank. As for my wife, she stayed up late drinking with friends these past few nights. She should sleep until noon, right?"

Shiratori Renzaburo showed a proud smile: "That's right, according to my reasoning, the criminal should be hiding here!" As he said, he walked to the curtain behind the bicycle and lifted it up. There was a bookshelf inside, and there were no books on the upper shelves. There was only an empty partition.

"That's easy. Just remove the partition and the prisoner can hide inside."

"I guess the criminal must have investigated the daily habits of the Zengwei couple, and then waited for Mr. Zengwei to go out, then went into the house and hid in the bookshelf to wait for the opportunity. I don't know whether it was lucky or unfortunate, but the criminal heard the victim talking to the police here, and in order to prevent her from revealing the information of the criminals, he rushed out and killed her."

Youya tilted his head: "Is that really the case?"

Shiratori Renzaburo was stunned: "What do you mean?"

Yuuya pointed at the short knife on the corpse's back and said, "Don't you think it's strange where the knife stabbed you?"

Everyone looked at the dagger and their faces suddenly changed, because they found that the knife was stabbed horizontally into the victim's back.

"Indeed, if the murder was committed with a knife, the knife should have been inserted vertically, right?" Takagi Wataru thought, stroking his chin.

"Yes, and..." Youya squatted down and pointed at the victim's back, "There is a mark on the clothes at this position where they were pressed."

Takagi Wataru hurried over and shouted, "There's a horizontal indentation. What's going on?"

Yuya's eyes couldn't help but fall on the two bookshelves. He stood up and walked to the front of the bookshelf to observe. Soon, he found some bloodstains on the top horizontal bar. The edges of the bloodstains were very smooth.

Yuya frowned slightly, looked at the bloodstains, then looked at the bicycle behind him, calculated the trajectory between the two in his mind, and his eyes lit up.

Turning around and walking to the bicycle, I found Conan squatting next to the pedals, looking at something.

I walked over, squatted down, pressed his head and asked, "What did you find?"

Conan pointed to the axle of the bicycle and said, "There's something like a kite string here."

Yuya took a look, took out his gloves and put them on, then pulled out the line wrapped around the shaft and found a small circle on the head.

Seeing Youya walking back and forth in the room without saying a word, Shiratori Renzaburo couldn't help but come over and ask, "What did you find?"

Yuya smiled at him: "I already know how the victim died."

Shiratori Renzaburo was shocked. He knew it just by looking back and forth? Brother Kamiya's ability to solve cases is even better than before.

"Tell me more about it." Shiratori Renzaburo urged.

Youya coughed lightly, stood up and spoke slowly: "As I said just now, based on the traces at the scene, we can judge that the victim was killed while riding a bicycle. If someone really attacked from behind, then no matter how he hid his movements, he would be discovered. The victim could not have sat on the bicycle and been stabbed to death. In addition, the direction of the knife stabbing was wrong."

Everyone nodded.

"Then, if I say that the knife was not stabbed by someone, but stabbed into the victim's body by itself..." Yuya's mouth curled up slightly.

No wonder, at that time, Keizao Sōo did not scream immediately after discovering the body, but waited a while.

"What? Automatically?" Everyone was shocked, especially Soo Keizao, whose face suddenly turned ugly.

Yuya looked around and was about to say something when he saw Conan handing him something out of the corner of his eye. He took a closer look and found that it was a short knife made of paper.

After touching his head with admiration and giving him a pair of dead fish eyes, Youya walked to the bookcase with a paper knife in one hand and the string pulled from the pedal in the other.

"Ah, Inspector Shiratori, can you lend a hand?" Youya looked at Shiratori Renzaburo.

Shiratori Renzaburo's mouth twitched slightly. "Brother, I've been promoted. Can you please stop ordering me around like you did before?" He looked at Takagi Wataru and said, "Officer Takagi?"

Takagi Shigeru had no more burden and ran over eagerly to ask what to do.

You also curled his lips. He originally wanted to play a trick on Shiratori, but he was found out.

Yuya instructed Takagi Wataru to put the books from the next bookshelf on the top layer of the empty bookshelf, raised his hand and inserted the paper knife into the gap between the books and the bookshelf, and then pressed the wire on the bookshelf.

Everyone looked at this scene and vaguely guessed something.

"Is this... a mechanism?" Sato Miwako was a little surprised.

Yuya nodded. "Yes, that's it. Put the short knife like this, and then use the wire connected to it - by the way, this wire is specially made, very strong and won't break easily - use a bicycle. As the victim pedals, the wire will slowly tighten, and finally, bang!"

Shiratori Renzaburo's eyes narrowed. He calculated the trajectory of the falling bookshelf in his mind and found that when the bookshelf fell, the top would hit the victim's back. In this way, the indentations on the victim's body made sense, and there was also a reasonable explanation for the knife being inserted horizontally.

"Well, after the autopsy, we should be able to find traces of the victim's back being hit by a heavy object."

Sato Miwako was a little puzzled: "But why would the criminal need to make such a complicated mechanism? And when we came here, the bookshelf didn't fall down?"

"No," Takagi Wataru suddenly said, "There is someone who needs to use this technique, and can push the bookshelf back to its original position."

"You are the only one who knows the layout of this house and the victim's behavioral habits better than anyone else, Mr. Zeng Wei Gouji!" Takagi Shigeru raised his hand and pointed at Zeng Wei Gouji on the side, with a very imposing manner.

Yuya looked at Takagi Shigeru with some surprise. When did he become so confident?

Miwako Sato and Jinsaburo Shiratori subconsciously looked towards the Sowei structure.

The Zengwei structure became visibly in a panic.

"I see," Sato Miwako crossed her arms, "So you made the appointment at 2 o'clock on purpose, because you knew very well that your wife would ride a bicycle at this time, so you would know the time when the knife stabbed someone. Then you made the call in front of us and let Takagi answer the call in the middle, just to prove that the person you were talking to was your wife."

"The person was killed while on the phone, and you were far away in the Metropolitan Police Department, so your alibi is established."

"And as soon as we came in, you asked us to check the second floor, but you went to the living room. This way you had time to restore the bookshelf to its original state."

"How is that possible?" Soo Keizao quickly defended, "If there were more than just the two of you, wouldn't there be a police officer who walked in before me and saw the fallen bookshelf? And the boy also entered the living room with me at the time?"

"No," Youya denied, "I didn't come in at the same time as you. I only came here after hearing your screams."

Soo Keizao continued to argue: "If I really put the knife on the bookshelf, my wife would definitely see it, right?"

Youye smiled and picked up two books and placed them horizontally on top of the knife.

Gao Mushi took a look and said in surprise: "I see, this way, if you don't look carefully, you can't see the knife."

"Moreover, even if we were the police who came in first, we would have thought that the victim and the criminal had fought each other after seeing the books and bookshelves on the floor."

Yuya nodded with relief. Takagi Wataru is very smart and he understands everything immediately.

"What about the evidence? Is there any evidence to prove that I set up this mechanism?" Zeng Weiguizao was sweating profusely and making his last struggle.

Youye shrugged his shoulders. Saying such words was basically the same as admitting guilt.

He smiled and said, "Of course, if I wasn't absolutely sure, I wouldn't be standing here."

Takagi Wataru's eyes lit up. Here it comes, this is Kamiya-kun's favorite catchphrase when he solves a case.

"Didn't you notice? I just put the string on the bookshelf, but if you want to pull the bookshelf down, there must be some fixed measures, right?"

Yuya looked at Zeng Wei Keizo with a smile, only to see his face becoming paler and paler.

"From the time you came to the living room and screamed to the time I came in, there was a little time in between, but it wasn't too long. You didn't have enough time to deal with the things that were used to fix it, so I guess that thing definitely wasn't thrown too far away. You can find it with a careful search. Or... is that thing still on you?"

Yuya's scrutinizing gaze scanned Soo Keizau from head to toe, finally stopping on his slightly bulging pockets.

Zeng Wei Keizao couldn't help but shiver and subconsciously covered his pockets.

Well, now the three police officers in the living room knew what he was hiding without having to say anything.

"Can you take the stuff out of your pocket?" Shiratori Renzaburo said coldly.

Zeng Wei Keizao suddenly collapsed to the ground, took out the things in his pocket resignedly, and lowered his head.

"Why did you kill your wife?" asked Sato Miwako puzzled.

"It was for the insurance money. I bought a huge amount of insurance for my wife, so I planned this bank robbery and kidnapped my wife. I wanted to make it an accidental death, but I didn't want to replace the hostage in the middle, so..."

"At this time, you still want to protect your accomplices, no, should I say friends?" Youye suddenly spoke, with a photo album in his hand.

This was just delivered by a police officer, but at that time everyone's attention was focused on Yuya who was restoring the mechanism, so Conan intercepted it.

Yuya unfolded the photo album, and there were several photos with people circled in them: "These two are the bank robbers, right?"

"I guess you were the mastermind behind this bank robbery. As the person in charge of the bank, you made the plan, so the success rate would be very high. But you didn't expect that your wife happened to go to the bank and was taken hostage by the robbers. As a result, your wife recognized the robber from his voice as your friend, and you were worried that she would report you, so you killed her."

"So that's why. No wonder the victim took the initiative to ask for a hostage replacement. Did he recognize that the hostage was his friend and knew that he would not be harmed?" Shiratori Renzaburo suddenly realized.

At first, he was a little surprised when he heard the victim voluntarily ask to be a hostage. If it was Inspector Megure's wife who did this, he would have thought it was normal, but he didn't expect this to be the reason.

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Later, with Zeng Weiguizao's confession, the two bank robbers were successfully captured and the 2 million yuan was recovered.

After solving two cases at once, the newly appointed Shiratori Jinsaburo immediately received verbal commendation from his superiors.

Before leaving, Youya whispered in Shiratori Renzaburo's ear, "Inspector Shiratori, congratulations on solving two cases right after taking office. I heard that you have a lot of wine in your wine cellar at home."

Shiratori Renzaburo frowned: "Brother Kamiya, minors are not allowed to drink."

Yuya laughed: "No, I meant wine-flavored drinks."

Shiratori Renzaburo was speechless. Is it appropriate for you to say such things in front of a police inspector like me? "If it's a drink, it's not impossible."

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