Upon hearing that there were two famous detectives and police officers in the house, the expressions on the faces of everyone in the Tokura family changed slightly.
"Um...the food has already cooled down. Can I take it and heat it up again?"
While everyone was discussing the case, the young maid appeared behind everyone and asked for instructions.
When the old woman heard this, she raised her eyebrows and said angrily: "What's the matter with you? At this time, you still come to ask about such an insignificant matter?"
"Hug, sorry!"
The maid was so frightened that she quickly bowed her head and turned to leave.
"Wait a moment……"
Qin Zhibo stopped the maid at this time and said with a smile: "Let's warm it up. I haven't had dinner yet."
…
After investigating the scene, Officer Otaki and Kogoro Mori planned to go down the mountain immediately and send the blood stained on the coffin board to a nearby police station for testing.
This is located in Gunma Prefecture, so of course we have to send it to the Gunma Prefecture police station.
After the two of them took the car down the mountain, everyone returned to the restaurant and discussed the inheritance.
"In the end, brother didn't show up at all?"
"Didn't you agree to explain the distribution of the inheritance after dinner?"
Tokura Ernan's wife complained, as if she didn't care about the situation in which the dead person had just been found.
After all, I didn't see the body with my own eyes, I just listened to the one-sided words of the two little girls.
The old woman held the pretty boy's arm affectionately and suddenly said, "Should we take a photo first?"
Hattori Heiji, who was following behind, took a step forward and asked, "Why do you want to take photos?"
The old woman turned around and explained: "Whenever our family gathers together, everyone gathers to take pictures..."
As an outsider, Xiao Bai Lian also echoed: "I've had this habit since three generations ago..."
Hattori Heiji drooped his eyelids and thought to himself: Isn't that the time when cameras start to be exposed to civilians?
"But isn't the owner of the bungalow here now? Are you planning to take pictures too?" Yuan Shan and Ye asked with a frown.
Torakura Sano replied nonchalantly: "Yes, last year when we were halfway through the shooting, my eldest brother suddenly ran out of the room and rushed over to take pictures."
As the youngest bespectacled girl in the Tokura family, she also echoed, "It's true, when all of us are halfway happy and noisy, maybe the eldest brother's face will suddenly appear..."
Just like that, several people turned around and walked to the photo studio.
Hattori Heiji and Conan looked at each other and felt that there was no need to inform Qin Zhibo who was having dinner in the restaurant about this kind of thing.
Just to keep an eye on whether these people behave out of the ordinary, the two high school detectives were enough.
…
In the restaurant, Qin Zhibo sat alone at the dining table, feasting on the food on the table.
Since I was rushing all the way, I didn't have a chance to stop for dinner, so I was already very hungry.
When he was almost finished eating, Qin Zhibo wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin and turned to look at the maid serving beside him.
Qin Zhibo took a look at the maid's name. It was Hihara Hikaru, and she was 24 years old.
Hibara... Haibara?
"Miss Maid, how long have you been working in this bungalow?"
The maid was startled and said softly: "It's been half a year..."
Half a year?
Qin Zhibo thought for a while. If he wanted to inquire about rumors about vampires, it seemed that this maid was not qualified enough.
"That means you haven't experienced the death of a maid in this house in the nearby forest half a year ago?"
The maid was startled again, then her eyes lit up and she asked, "Are you talking about Miss Qingshui's incident?"
"I really haven't experienced it. I came here to be a maid after that incident..."
Qin Zhibo nodded clearly and suddenly saw that the maid uniform was wearing a maid outfit with a metal picture frame brooch pinned to the material between the two collarbones.
On the frame of the brooch is a photo of a woman, with a dignified and elegant temperament, and her appearance is very similar to that of a maid.
"Excuse me, the picture of the woman on your brooch is your mother, right?"
Facing Qin Zhibo's question, the maid lowered her head and glanced at her brooch, then nodded.
"Yes."
"Oh..." Qin Zhibo said casually, "It seems that you love your mother very much."
The maid replied: "Actually, this brooch was given to me by the master and asked me to wear it on my clothes at all times."
Qin Zhibo was confused, "Master? Mr. Tokura Sakuya?"
"Yes." The maid nodded, "The master said that as long as he sees this brooch, it will remind him of my mother..."
The maid's answer made Qin Zhibo even more confused.
Realizing that the relationship was somewhat complicated, Qin Zhibo continued to ask.
Only then did I learn that the mother of this maid named "Hikaru Hibara" was once the fiancée of the owner of the bungalow.
Due to the accidental death of Xiaoguang's maid's mother two years ago, Torakura Yuya was unable to marry the maid's mother Yoko.
As for Maid Xiaoguang, she was born to a woman and her ex-husband. She clearly does not have the blood of the Torakura family, so she does not have the right to inherit the inheritance.
After listening to Maid Xiaoguang's description of this relationship, Qin Zhibo understood what the old woman was worried about when other illegitimate children appeared in the office.
"Let me ask a rude question, since you have no inheritance rights, why do you still stay here as a maid?"
"Isn't it strange to be called around by your former family members?"
"Especially those people from the Yincang family, they don't seem to be very friendly to you..."
Qin Zhibo's question made Maid Xiaoguang's eyes sink slightly, and the fingers of her hands were tangled together.
"Actually, the master invited me to come back here as a maid..."
"Have you finished eating? If you have finished, I will start clearing away the dishes."
Seeing that the maid didn't want to continue the topic, Qin Zhibo stopped asking and nodded to indicate that it was okay.
At this moment, screams suddenly came from outside the corridor.
"ah--!"
Qin Zhibo recognized this familiar scream as coming from Mao Lilan, with the screams of Yuan Shan and Ye as the harmony.
He immediately stood up and ran out of the restaurant, running towards the direction where the sound came from.
When I arrived at the photo studio, I found Mao Lilan, Yuan Shan and Ye Zhan standing behind the camera tremblingly, looking shocked.
Hattori Heiji and Conan were also staring at a mirror on the photo wall, as if trying to find something in it.
"What happened?" Qin Zhibo came over and asked.
Mao Lilan, Yuan Shan and Ye raised their hands tremblingly and pointed to the wall. Mao Lilan explained: "When we were taking a group photo just now, Mr. Tokura suddenly appeared there..."
"Yes! It's like a ghost!"
The place where Qin Zhibo looked at the two women's fingers was exactly where Hattori Heiji and Conan were observing carefully.
Since the silver mirror was hung on the wall, the perspective of Conan's dwarf was relatively biased, so Hattori Heiji held him in his arms.
Qin Zhibo looked at the mirror and saw the investigation point above at a glance.
【Topographic Survey√】
【A magic mirror】
"Can you please stop talking?"
"Anyway, you must have heard the rumors about vampires before, so you followed the detective here to play, right?"
"Please don't treat this place as a haunted house and keep screaming! Okay?"
The repeated startling behavior of Mao Lilan and Toyama Kazuye caused the wife of Tokura Ernan to completely explode and yelled at the two women very displeased.
When Mao Lilan and Yuan Shanheye heard "vampire", they were suddenly stunned.
Seeing the puzzled looks in their eyes, the old woman and the pretty boy also smiled slightly, "Haha, did you two just come here without knowing anything?"
The two sang together and recounted the death of the maid that happened six months ago.
Mao Lilan, Yuan Shan and Ye felt more and more perceptive the more they heard it, especially when they heard that the maid's neck was left with a vampire-like hole, they all had goosebumps on their necks.
On the other hand, Tokura Sannan looked firm and said calmly: "Anyway, let's split up and look for where the big brother is. If this continues, the big brother might really be treated like a monster..."
As soon as the three men finished speaking, Qin Zhibo, who was standing in front of the mirror, said.
"If you are looking for it, let's start in the room next to this photo studio."
Qin Zhibo pointed his finger on the mirror, and the fingertips were directly aligned with the fingertips in the mirror, without any distance between them.
When Hattori Heiji and Conan saw this scene, their expressions were startled and they understood the meaning.
"This is a two-way mirror, which means that the other side of the mirror can also see this side, just like the mirror in the police interrogation room..."
Everyone came to the room next to the photo studio. It used to be a guest room that no one usually used, but it had been transformed into a personal cloakroom by Tokura Sakimi in the past six months.
Adjacent to the photo wall of the photo studio next door is a huge wardrobe.
Qin Zhibo stood at the door of the closet, holding the door handle of the closet with both hands, and took a deep breath.
When he reached out to open the bookcase and pushed aside the clothes hanging inside, he found a handle on the wall inside.
Pulling open the wooden boards connected by the handles, an oval mirror was revealed.
On the opposite side of the mirror is the situation in the photo studio next door. You can see Mao Lilan and Toyama Kazuha still standing next to the camera, looking around nervously.
Qin Zhibo searched the inside of the closet again and came out only after confirming that no one was hiding inside.
"It seems we are a step late..."
Qin Zhibo said calmly.
Hattori Heiji and Conan looked at the mirror in the closet with slightly shocked expressions.
They were not surprised by this whimsical and scary method.
But when we were taking pictures just now, it was clear that all the people of the Tokura family were gathered together.
And after Mao Lilan, Toyama Kazuye saw Tokura Sakuya's head appearing in the mirror, no one left the room until Qin Zhibo came over.
In other words, if someone from the Tokura family in the photo studio had set up this trick during this period, it would have been impossible to clear away the evidence in the closet.
Judging from the situation in the closet, if you want to achieve the effect that Mao Lilan and Toyama Kazuha just saw, they must at least cut off Tokura Sakiya's head and hang it on the closet.
But now, this head has disappeared...
There are three possibilities for this.
First, the real murderer was a servant in the bungalow, not a member of the Tokura family.
The second is that a servant in the bungalow is an accomplice, but the real culprit is still someone in the photo studio.
Third, Tokura Sakuya is still alive...
Generally speaking, an excellent mystery story should assume that the murderer is a person, rather than having someone with almost no sense of existence as the murderer's accomplice.
Others in the villa felt there was no need to kill Tosakura Sakiya.
Then it might be...
Hattori Heiji and Conan's eyes changed and they immediately ran back to the photo studio next door.
Seeing that Hattori Heiji was back, Toyama and Yeru, who were arranged to stay in the haunted "haunted" room, finally breathed a sigh of relief as they were granted amnesty.
However, when Hattori Heiji came up, he grabbed Toyama Kazuha's shoulders and asked loudly: "Kazuha! Do you really see clearly that the body in the coffin is Toyama Sakiya?"
"ah?"
Before Yuan Shan and Ye could react, Conan, who was in a lower position, also asked.
"Sister Xiaolan, did you find anything special when you found the body?"
"this……"
Mao Lilan squinted her eyes slightly, recalling the scene she didn't want to recall in her mind.
Suddenly, Mao Lilan's eyes changed slightly.
"...If there is anything special, it is that the blood I saw on the collar of my clothes seemed to be a little pink, and the color was different from normal blood..."
"Eh?" Yuan Shan and Ye turned their heads in confusion, "Is that so?"
Mao Lilan nodded slightly, "I remember it was like this..."
Compared to Toyama and Ye, Mao Lilan has definitely seen more blood and has more experience.
After hearing the important clues put forward by Mao Lilan, the eyes of Conan and Hattori Heiji suddenly changed, from shock to calmness.
Human blood will gradually turn from bright red to black depending on the time it is exposed to the air.
The pink color will not be included in this process.
Pink blood is most likely caused by anemia, and cancer is likely to cause anemia.
Mao Lilan's discovery just proves that the blood should be Torakura Sakuya's own.
This shows that Tokura Sakuya himself is most likely really dead...
But if he is dead, what happened in the closet just now is that someone used his head to create that weird mirror phantom.
Because it would be too cumbersome to transport the entire body, and the target is too large to move easily.
And these people in the photo studio do not have the conditions to recover this head...
Then this person can only be completed by a servant of the Tokura family in addition to these people.
But why do this?
Hattori Heiji and Conan held their chins at the same time, thinking about the further possibilities of the case.
Qin Zhibo stood at the door and also heard Mao Lilan's latest discovery after recalling it.
Pink blood…
Sounds reasonable to a cancer patient.
However, if you consider that Tokura Yukiya may be a real vampire, and if the descriptions in literary works are correct, vampires should have a body that is immune to all diseases.
Qin Zhibo was thinking and glanced at the photo wall unconsciously.
Suddenly, a photo hanging on the wall attracted his attention.