Following Mary's instructions, Qin Zhibo came to a French restaurant 400 meters away from Big Ben.
Under the dark green restaurant sign, Mary is already waiting.
Today, Mary is wearing a pair of loose denim overalls, a khaki short-sleeved upper body, and still wearing light-colored sunglasses and a hat.
Seeing Qin Zhibo coming from a distance, Mary stepped forward and said hello.
"It came very quickly..."
"Well, it happens to be not very far from here..." Qin Zhibo replied.
Mary looked Qin Zhibo up and down, then turned and walked towards the door of the restaurant.
"Let's go, let's talk while eating..."
…
Clang.
Clang.
The bell at the door made two melodious and crisp sounds, and Mary and Qin Zhibo walked into the restaurant one after another.
It happened to be lunch time now, and I took a quick look and saw that there were quite a few people inside.
At this time, a sunny-looking waiter came over and asked the two of them if they had made a reservation in advance.
Mary shook her head.
Since there was no reservation, the good seats by the window were reserved by other guests, so Qin Zhibo and Mary were arranged in a slightly remote corner of the restaurant.
After a while, the waiter brought two menus and handed them to Qin Zhibo and Mary respectively.
The two people sitting across from each other looked at the menus in their hands. Qin Zhibo said "lady first" and Mary started ordering first.
"A glass of pumpkin juice, the main dish of stingray with mashed potatoes, and for dessert...rice pudding."
Originally, Qin Zhibo wanted to double whatever Mary ordered.
But when she heard that everything Mary ordered was so plain, she immediately lost her appetite.
"A French baked pie, a roasted pork chop, a chestnut chicken, and almond chocolate for dessert."
"If you want to drink...just have a glass of water."
"Fishing" is a laborious activity, and Qin Zhibo does it more.
Mary didn't say anything about it.
After the waiter took away the menu, Mary formally started to ask questions.
"Are you ready for your plans for the afternoon?"
"Um……"
With that said, Qin Zhibo took out a human skin mask from his clothes and placed it on the dining table.
The human skin mask was a little wrinkled at first, but once it was laid flat it looked much better.
"this is……"
Mary subconsciously reached out to touch the mask, but as soon as she touched the texture, she was immediately shocked.
In fact, MI6 also has such things as human skin masks.
After all, MI6 must have found a way to make even the commonly used spy props seen in movies.
However, the human skin masks developed by the MI6 equipment department are relatively thick, not only non-breathable, but most importantly, low in anthropomorphism.
As long as you look carefully, you can easily find flaws and it is almost in an unusable state.
Even in this case, it is very difficult to order a human skin mask with a specific face.
However, the mask Qin Zhibo took out was not only less than 1/2 thicker than the human skin mask made by MI6, but also had a lifelike face.
It feels like holding a real human face in your hands...
Mary rubbed the surface of the human skin mask with her fingers, which also had the texture of imitating skin.
But as long as you pinch it a little harder, you can still feel the slight elasticity and toughness that does not belong to human skin.
"Don't use too much force..."
"It's afraid of pain."
Qin Zhibo quickly reminded him to avoid damaging this "treasure".
Although this human skin mask is perfect in every aspect, it still has a shortcoming.
That is, it is particularly easy to "lose your face".
As long as you tear it with a little force, the mask can be easily broken.
This is also the inevitable consequence of making the mask too thin.
"Oh, sorry."
Mary returned the human skin mask to Qin Zhibo and asked, "Where did you get this mask?"
Qin Zhibo smiled and replied: "I asked a craftsman to help make it."
"Craftsman?"
"Yes, craftsman."
Qin Zhibo put away the human skin mask to avoid causing misunderstandings among nearby guests.
"What I want to say is that there are also such 'craftsmen' in the organization who can make such lifelike human skin masks."
"Her name is Belmod, she is an important member of the organization, and her nickname is the 'Thousand-Faced Witch'."
"Her ability is not only to make this kind of mask, but also to pretend to be anyone with her powerful acting skills. She can even imitate her voice completely."
"That's why I'm worried that Akai Taketake, who is currently wandering in London, might be her in disguise."
"Once she impersonates Akai Mutake and does not arouse anyone's suspicion, she can sneak into Mi6 and successfully obtain MI6 intelligence."
After listening to Qin Zhibo's analysis, Mary looked thoughtful.
After thinking for a moment, she said seriously: "In that case, can we use the trick?"
"Pretend to be deceived by her, then take her to the headquarters of MI6, and then capture her in one fell swoop..."
Mary's words provide a new idea.
If it is carried out smoothly, capturing Belmode will also be a major gain.
But Qin Zhibo shook his head and rejected her idea.
"No, you will only make MI6's position crisis."
"I may not have made it clear to you yesterday, but what we are fighting now may be one of the most powerful people in the UK, and even a popular figure in the world."
"The origin of the organization is the United Kingdom. It may be just a coincidence that spies have not penetrated MI6 before..."
"Once MI6 is allowed to arrest Belmode openly, the organization will devote all its energy to dealing with MI6."
"You don't want the headquarters of MI6 to be reduced to a sea of fire, right? Mary..."
A look of surprise flashed across Mary's cold face, and her sharp eyebrows frowned slightly.
Qin Zhibo sighed and continued to explain, "You may still not understand the organization's behavior well enough..."
"This organization is unlike any criminal organization you have encountered before."
"Previously, I had designed the Japanese public security to arrest another organization cadre. As a result, the organization boss arranged another person to execute the cadre who failed the mission."
"This is enough to show that once the mission fails, the organization boss will not leave anyone alive."
"Even if we are lucky enough to be able to capture the person alive and return to MI6's headquarters, MI6 will be exhausted from dealing with the various attacks of the organization."
"With the manpower and material resources of the organization, they can create all kinds of chaos in London and distract the police force; when MI6 is exhausted to deal with it, they can achieve their desired goal in one fell swoop."
"Furthermore, the FBI has caught this Belmode before, but they didn't actually get any useful information from her."
"Every organization cadre is absolutely loyal to the boss. They would rather die than betray the organization."
Mary's expression condensed slightly, "According to what you say, the organization is impeccable?"
"No..." Qin Zhibo shook his head, "No matter how powerful the fortress is, it cannot be invulnerable."
"Isn't there another saying? Fortresses are often broken from within..."
"Although every organization cadre is absolutely loyal to the organization boss, they still have some selfish motives hidden in private."
"For example, this Belmode..."
Qin Zhibo recalled that when he captured Belmod before, he took advantage of her concern for Conan and Xiaolan to force them to cooperate with him to find the Panest fragment and give it to him.
Belmode has a special affection for Mao Lilan and Conan, due to the incident in New York a year ago...
Therefore, Qin Zhibo plans to take advantage of this again.
Because this is probably the only way for Belmod to defy the organization's boss.
"So, in the afternoon I would pretend to be someone and hang out on Vauxhall Bridge..."
"If 'Akai Mutake' appears, and he is disguised as Bermod, he will definitely find a way to get close to me."
"But be careful that there are other companions around her, so the support will depend on you."
"I wonder how your shooting skills are, Mary?"
Facing Qin Zhibo's question, Mary's eyes showed a hint of doubt.
"Oh? Have you forgotten my marksmanship?"
"Don't forget, that year in Hawaii, even the military force was only tied with me..."
Qin Zhibo's face was stunned, but then he laughed awkwardly, "Ha... I have forgotten about such a long time ago..."
At this moment, the bell at the door of the restaurant rang again.
Dang rang, dang rang, dang...
This time the sound of the bell ringing was longer because four people came in at once.
The waiter took the initiative to greet these four people, still using the same basic conversation skills.
The leading girl smiled and showed two tiger teeth. Although she has short hair, she looks a bit cute.
"Four people~"
“No reservation required, you can sit anywhere~”
"Of course, it would be better if you could get as close to the window as possible!"
Behind her were all Asian faces. One of them was a beautiful girl with a signature horn on her head.
Behind him is an old man in a suit with a mustache and a bald old man with a big belly.
Seeing this group of people, Qin Zhibo's pupils quickly dilated.
How could it be them!
Mary, who was sitting opposite, was also attracted by the energetic and familiar voice. She turned around and looked slightly surprised.
So pure...
I saw that group of people, led by the waiter, sitting in the last row. It was only one table away from the window seat reserved for others. It was a good seat.
Seriang quickly thanked the waiter, "Thank you!"
After the waiter put the menu on the table, Serang handed the menu to Mao Lilan who was next to him.
"Haha~ Whatever you want, I'm treating you today!"
When Mouri Kogoro heard "Someone is treating me", his eyes immediately lit up and saliva secreted rapidly in his mouth.
"Ah?" When Mao Lilan heard this, she asked a little embarrassedly, "But wouldn't it cost Zhenchun a lot of money?"
"no problem, no problem!"
Seriang waved his hand, took out a black card from his pocket, and said with a smile: "My mother and I often come to this restaurant to eat, so we got a stored-value card here."
"There's still a lot of money in it, so you can eat it!"
Seeing her daughter's hospitable look, Mary understood why she suddenly couldn't find her prepaid card before going out today.
It turned out to be in the hands of this prodigal daughter.
Qin Zhibo also foresaw something when he looked at Mary's cold and terrifying eyes and the hidden black line on her forehead.
It looks like someone is going to be punished tonight...
Fortunately, these people were still some distance away from their dining table, and the beautiful scenery outside the bright window on the other side easily attracted attention, so they didn't notice themselves at the first time.
But in order to avoid being discovered, let’s disguise ourselves first...
Qin Zhibo put the human skin mask on his head with lightning speed.
When Mary came back to her senses, she found that the person opposite her had been replaced by a man with blond curly hair.
She was stunned for a moment. If she hadn't seen that her clothes had not been changed, it would have been easy to misunderstand him.
"You..." Mary looked suspicious.
Qin Zhibo stroked his fake face and said, "How about I show you the effect of the disguise? Is it realistic?"
"Well...well, it's indeed true."
Mary stared blankly at Qin Zhibo's fake face and nodded.
Qin Zhibo stretched out his hand and said: "By the way, lend me your sunglasses..."
…
On the other side, the waiter brought three more menus and distributed them to the remaining people.
The four of them took their respective menus and started ordering.
Since it was Shiliang's treat, Mao Lilan didn't want to show off his kindness to others, so he didn't refuse and just gave some token tokens.
Dr. A Li also ordered a little less, saying that he was told by Xiao Ai not to eat or drink too much before leaving.
Mouri Kogoro originally wanted the lion to open his mouth, but under the warning from his daughter's eyes, he could only restrain himself.
"What? That's all you order? You didn't even order this restaurant's signature dish..."
"It's better to look at me!"
Seriang ordered six items by himself, all of which were the restaurant's signature main dishes.
After all four people at the table had finished ordering, the waiter took the menu and left. Seriang quickly stopped his relaxed expression and said seriously: "So far, the secret code of Big Ben is the one we found on Westminster Bridge.
Drain cover engraved with the letter 'A'..."
"There are two lines symbolizing Big Ben in the code, which means the letter A will appear twice."
"Coupled with the N and T that were previously cracked, if this is a seven-letter word, we have already solved four of the letters."
"Now let's think about it, where are the places that contain the letters N and T, and two A's?"
After everyone explored the Big Ben just now, they successfully found the meaning of Big Ben.
This one is relatively easy to find.
There is an arrow on Westminster Bridge under Big Ben. According to the arrow's guidance, you can find that a drain on the bridge has no cover.
The edge of the drainage outlet is engraved with "The Valley of Fear", which is also one of Sherlock Holmes's famous stories, the Uncanny Valley.
Mao Lilan didn't need to ask Kudo Shinichi this time, because Sera casually searched nearby and found that the missing drain cover was tied with a rope and hung down into the Thames River.
The lid is engraved with A.
"A,A,N,T..."
Mouri Kogoro raised his chin, "How can you guess this? We are not familiar with London..."
Dr. A Li also nodded in agreement, "Yeah, I'm afraid it's hard to find the word for such a place, right?"
Seriang thought seriously and said after a few seconds: "I do know that there is a place in London called Pantile Road, and the word is pantile, but this place has only one a..."
Just when everyone was frowning, a figure walked to the table.
"Everyone, you seem to be stumped by a certain problem..."