Goatee had always believed that with the leader's brilliance, the puzzles he set wouldn't be solved this quickly.
Now that they had been solved so quickly… maybe this was more like one of those mystery novels, where cracking one part just led to the next.
In any case, if they let the detective at the door go now, and the rest of the puzzle wasn't solved yet, it'd be a total blind spot.
Amuro Toru didn't have any plans today. This was, after all, supposed to be part of the Izu Mystery Tour on the schedule. He figured the others were probably the same.
He was about to agree to something—probably something smart and detective-y—but Jiangxia Tongzhi suddenly piped up:
"We've got more than six hours until nightfall. That's a long time. Why not try it now?"
Six hours of ordinary-quality murdery vibes felt like a waste of a full day.
Half a day? Fine.
Conan and Amuro looked over in surprise, eyebrows raised at Jiangxia.
Earlier, Haibara Ai had mentioned the "mirror in the armrest" at the door. Now they had a hole in the study wall, plus a vanity mirror nailed to the desk. All signs pointed to one thing: the villa's mysterious mechanism involved "light."
In fact, in their heads, the two detectives had already drawn up a mental simulation: at night, strong light would shine from the lion-head ornament at the door, bounce between a whole Rube Goldberg mess of hidden mirrors inside and outside the villa, and finally form a focused beam that would hit the Cuckoo Clock and activate something.
But if sunlight interfered with the mirrors outside, then this mechanism clearly wouldn't work during the day.
They remembered Jiangxia noticing the oddly placed mirrors even before the devil puppet popped out of the clock. He'd connected the dots early. There's no way he hadn't figured it out.
While they were thinking this, Jiangxia casually walked to the window and drew the curtains shut.
Amuro and Conan blinked at him, understanding dawning.
"You're not seriously about to…"
Jiangxia calmly pulled the blackout curtains fully closed.
The curtains used to be just normal cloth. But recently, the unlucky granddaughter who'd inherited the villa had gotten spooked by a feeling of being watched and upgraded them to full blackout mode.
As soon as the curtains closed, the room sank into darkness.
Jiangxia picked up the heavy-duty flashlight from the cabinet, twisted the knob, and focused the beam to its narrowest, brightest setting.
He didn't even bother with the lion-head mirror setup outside. Instead, he walked straight to the Cuckoo Clock and studied the vanity mirror and the hole in the wall.
Then, he adjusted the angle and switched on the flashlight.
—Sure, you could recreate a whole setup with mirror bounce physics.
But you could also just shine a flashlight directly on it. Same difference.
Under the beam, the Cuckoo Clock hung there, utterly still.
Jiangxia didn't look surprised. He turned and waved at Haibara Ai.
"Come here. Hold this. Don't move. Keep it at this angle."
Haibara raised an eyebrow but complied, gripping the flashlight in place like he told her to.
The beam kept shining on the Cuckoo Clock.
Everyone else was watching the clock. Jiangxia, meanwhile, casually glanced around the room.
There was a reason he'd called Haibara over to hold the flashlight.
—If this went well, the jewel-encrusted watch was about to show up.
And when that happened, the two robbers were almost definitely going to try and snatch it.
Now, the robbers weren't puzzle people. They'd mostly just been hanging back, not wanting to get in the way while others did the brainwork. They were subconsciously giving Jiangxia space and standing over by the door.
Haibara, being puzzle-apathetic, had also been off to the side—unfortunately close to said robbers.
If she stayed where she had been, give it another minute, and she'd probably get herself honorably promoted to "hostage."
Conan was safe. He was standing directly under the Cuckoo Clock, head tilted, eagerly waiting to see what popped out. A miracle or a mechanical bird, either was fine.
So, by moving Haibara out of range, Jiangxia had helpfully ensured that the closest—and therefore most hostage-eligible—person now was Amuro Toru.
Go get 'em, boss.
Jiangxia silently gave Amuro two big encouraging thumbs-ups in his mind. Same vibe as Miyano Akemi's signature move.
He glanced at the man in the middle of the room—the one with the bandaged hand. The guy caught Jiangxia's look and immediately got twitchy. Jiangxia smoothly looked away and focused back on the clock.
Then, he raised his hand and adjusted the minute hand on the clock, fast-forwarding the time.
According to the "Night" clue from the devil triplets earlier, the villa's mechanism would only activate at night. Jiangxia figured the conditions must involve both time and lighting.
They had already blocked out the sunlight with the blackout curtains, and the flashlight was on target. But the Cuckoo Clock still hadn't reacted.
So that left the time factor.
And since this was an old-school mechanical clock, with no automatic syncing or calibration, it could be fooled easily by just turning the hands. Jiangxia figured "blackout + fast-forward" should do the trick.
Of course, there was a chance the mirrors had some fancy Detective Conan-world science trick going on—maybe light passing through them changed properties, and only that mutated light could trigger the mechanism or whatever...
But luckily, the grandpa who designed this whole mess hadn't planned for someone to solve his grand, intricate light puzzle with... brute force and a flashlight.
If he had, Jiangxia would've just taken the clock apart.
—A little after seven o'clock, the Cuckoo Clock finally reacted.
The small hatch popped open. Instead of the creepy devil from before, a much friendlier-looking pigeon emerged. The chime had changed from a screechy "squeak-squeak" to gentle cooing.
Draped across the pigeon's back like a ribbon was the jewel-encrusted watch.
Jiangxia reached up and unhooked it.
Behind him, the bandaged man let out a delighted shout. The gem sparkled under the flashlight.
"Grandfather left me such a great gift! Thank you for helping me find it!"
"It is quite the gift," Jiangxia agreed, shaking the watch a little and suddenly adding, "—They say the loot from the 'Goblin' bandit group that was never recovered... every piece was worth tens of millions."
The robbers' expressions changed in an instant.
Haibara tensed and gripped the flashlight tighter.
Amuro looked oddly pleased. The Goblin Bandits were once infamous, and the devil puppet that had popped out earlier was the same toy the gang used to leave at their crime scenes. That little horror show was a calling card. So this was confirmation.
Conan's expression turned cloudy. He'd been suspecting something like that too, but couldn't say anything aloud.
Not with strangers present.
He had to play the innocent elementary schooler...
More importantly, Amuro was ridiculously hard to fool. Just being in the same room as him triggered the "my secret identity is seconds away from exposure" alarm.
In conclusion: the organization is truly evil...
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 12/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:2/10*