The Phantom Thief of Heart! But Conan.

The real diary written by Itakura Taku himself and the diary he left behind hoping others would read them are completely different in nature.

The former might really be an emotional outburst, while the latter is very likely to have written a lot of messages that he felt were dangerous to keep on paper and that no one else would know about, but he was unwilling to do so.

I don't know if it will include what happened when Tequila met him two years ago, but it's better than being in the dark.

Thinking of this, Conan tiptoed towards the bag containing the floppy disk, patiently waiting for the other three adults to make a move, and then took the thing into his hands under cover.

There is a pinhole camera in this room. Judging from the route it is set up, it is most likely of some kind of defensive nature. In other words, it was installed in the room in advance because someone had a premonition of insecurity.

But he couldn't gamble on that one percent, one in ten thousand chance, to test whether the victim had been hacked, or whether the camera was actually installed by the perpetrator, which was the real reason why Mr. Itakura had to lock himself in the room...

In short, we must not be the special one in the camera's lens, and we must try our best to make this case look ordinary so as not to attract too much attention from the police.

The location was so close to the city, and it was a private phone call from Mouri Ran and Kogoro that reported the case directly to Ten'e, so Megure Jusan arrived at lightning speed.

"Mr. Itakura is still receiving treatment in the hospital, and his current condition is not very clear." Temporarily refusing to disclose Itakura Taku's current situation to the people present, Megure Jusan turned his head and looked at Chiba Kazunobu who was walking out of the door.

He still had a lot to learn about this unlucky guy whose life was saved by accident, so of course he sent someone over before he walked in.

"We've contacted Itakura Taku's long-term attending physician." Chiba Kazunobu waved the folder. "He said that Mr. Itakura's heart problems have worsened rapidly recently, to the point where he's very likely to have problems if he doesn't take his medication for a day. Mr. Itakura had originally agreed to have bypass surgery after completing his short-term tasks. He even adjusted his surgery schedule, but he didn't expect it to be delayed for so long..."

"So the victim's heart attack was indeed real." Seeing that he had verified the medical history, Megure Jusan breathed a sigh of relief. "If you had a heart attack, you would be useless, right, Mr. Mori Kogoro, the sleeping one?"

"Aren't we waiting for you to confirm the situation? I've already completed my commissions, and I don't want the situation to become more complicated."

Kogoro Mouri quickly distanced himself from the matter and pointed at the three people who were already sitting behind him.

"That's my client."

Megure Jusan cast a scrutinizing gaze at the three people, looked them up secretly, and nodded reluctantly.

The three men were dressed in suits and looked like ordinary office workers. According to the explanation provided by Kogoro Mouri, they asked the detective for help because they couldn't find Taku Itakura.

"Mr. Itakura, even with such a serious heart condition, locked himself in his hotel room. He really doesn't take his health seriously..." Maori Kogoro shook his head in disapproval. "But he was still working until he collapsed. From this perspective, my clients should be content."

Regardless of whether Taku Itakura still has the energy to complete their project, at least his attitude has been shown.

Facing the project coordinator who had overtaken him, he at least chose to work until the very last moment, collapsing at his post...

Thinking of this, Kogoro Mouri looked at Taku Itakura's desk and saw a scene that made his blood pressure soar.

"Conan! What are you doing? You can't be playing on the computer here!"

"I'm not playing, uncle. Look, when Mr. Itakura fell, wasn't his head next to the computer? I just wanted to see if he had written anything, and I found that the screen lit up when I touched it..." When being pulled up by Maori Kogoro, Conan said confidently, "Last time at Mr. Kurokawa's house, didn't Mr. Kurokawa do this before he died?"

That was a past work of Teiji Moriya that he had targeted in front of the Beika Commercial Building. At that time, Kogoro Mori and others had happened to have arrived at the Kurokawa family and were dealing with the murder case of the male owner of the Kurokawa family.

This well-reasoned imitation made Kogoro Mouri choke for a moment, but before he put down the naughty child in his hand, he hit the other person on the head.

This guy, who uses himself as an excuse to do whatever he wants at the crime scene all day long, is really a headache.

Although the action was very impolite, Kogoro Mouri accepted his suggestion and checked Taku Itakura's computer.

Just as Conan said, the computer was not turned off, but it fell into hibernation due to long-term inactivity. The documents and software still open on the desktop remained at the moment when Itakura Taku fell down.

After using his limited computer knowledge to confirm that there was no death information, Kogoro Mouri shook his head and prepared to leave the computer to leave things to more skilled police officers, so he minimized the software in front of him.

It was also at this time that the running program, which was submerged in several windows and could not be seen at a glance, was exposed before their eyes.

A monitor window, no doubt.

It was this room that was being monitored.

"Itakura Taku installed a surveillance camera in his room... Officer Megure, quickly call a technician to check!"

----

Just as efficient as the search, the relevant personnel from the police force arrived quickly and the computer was carefully confirmed and checked by them.

The final conclusion is also two pieces of news.

Good news: The program not only has real-time monitoring capabilities, but also stores past surveillance footage.

Bad news: it only lasts 12 hours.

"This is some kind of infrared motion detection camera. Mr. Itakura Taku only brought a mobile workstation, and mobile computers have limited storage space. Clear surveillance video is very time-consuming, so he set it to automatically clear every 12 hours," explained a technical officer. "It's likely that he knew he wasn't feeling well and was using it to monitor the situation in the room just in case."

The stubborn technician who is in poor health and has to live alone knows that he is powerless and basically cannot beat anyone, so he sets up this surveillance camera to ensure his own safety.

Just like what is often set up for the elderly or pets at home, once the person in the picture shows an obvious fall or abnormal reaction, the program will send a pre-set help message to the designated person to facilitate others to rescue him.

"In the end, wasn't it still useless?" Maori Kogoro was unimpressed by this over-reliance on technology. "When he collapsed, he didn't fall to the ground, but just slumped over the table. Wouldn't that render the surveillance useless?"

Despite complaining like this, Kogoro Mouri still went over to watch the surveillance video retrieved by the technical police.

With just one glance, both his and Megure Jusan's expressions changed.

In the screen, they saw Taku Itakura, with his head tilted to the side, his hands tightly clutching his clothes on his chest, maintaining the same posture as they saw when they entered the room, and crouching in front of the computer.

The problem is, the timestamp in the upper right corner shows that this is surveillance footage from around 4 a.m.

In other words, Itakura Taku maintained this posture until they entered the room at noon.

Megure Jusan was unconvinced and asked the technical police to confirm it twice at an extremely fast speed. It was not until he saw the hotel staff pushing the door in with a changed expression and calling for support that he was sure that this was really a surveillance video and not a still picture.

"He fell ill last night?" Megure Jusan murmured in disbelief. "How could such an acute illness last the entire morning?"

Acute myocardial infarction or arrhythmia is a life-threatening and extremely serious condition. If not treated within a short period of time, the person may die.

How could someone be found still angry after having an attack for a whole morning?

What's even more bizarre is that until he was discovered, Itakura Taku's movements didn't change at all. He didn't even make any attempt to call for help. If it weren't for the obvious change in expression on the face of the man curled up on the stretcher when the staff carried him out, people would have believed that the person lying there was a corpse.

"So, he didn't have a heart attack." Maori Kogoro recovered from his shock and his brain started working. "That action wasn't a heart attack either. He grabbed his collar tightly. He might have passed out in that position."

How could a normal person strike such an awkward posture?

The only possible reason is...

"I'm afraid Mr. Itakura had his hands placed on his chest and was tied up." Megure Jusan followed this line of thought and quickly came to a conclusion. "Then, while he was unconscious, he suffered a heart attack and was unable to move until he was rescued."

"That means the nature of this case is different. This isn't an unexpected illness, but..."

"...attempted murder." Mao Lilan clenched her fingers, and then couldn't help asking the question that concerned her most, "But Dad, since Mr. Itakura was unconscious this morning, then, that phone call..."

Who made that life-saving call to the front desk in the morning to schedule a meal delivery time?

----

As the detectives and police analyzed the case, it became more confusing instead of clearer.

After going to the front desk to confirm, Kogoro Mouri received another somewhat scary news.

"I'm not the first person to call and confirm." Maori Kogoro's eyebrows knitted together. "To find this place, I pretended to be Itakura Taku himself and called the front desks of several hotels. I told them I was a guest who borrowed three kinds of chess at the same time, and that's how I got the room number. But just now, the front desk staff said that a similar situation had happened two days ago."

They also asked about chess and also said that their landline was broken, so they used their mobile phone to contact them.

The hotel staff, believing it to be true, quickly knocked on Itakura Taku's door, and were then scolded by the bad-tempered Itakura Taku for ruining his inspiration and disturbing his work, and he said that he had not made the call.

"It seems that someone found him before you."

Megure Jusan's sharp gaze was cast without hesitation at the three clients who were standing in the corner of the room, whispering to each other.

"Wait, wait a minute, why do you suspect us?" Naito Sadahira immediately complained for himself.

"Yes, we just want to ask Kogoro Mori to help us find Taku Itakura." Ryusuke Soma also said.

"What criminal would deliberately bring a famous detective to their crime scene?" Subeklu shook his head. "Do you think your suspicion isn't strong enough? If it was really us who did it, why don't we just pretend we can't find the perpetrators?"

It is much easier to murder a tech geek who has almost no contact with the outside world and has a weird temper than to murder an ordinary office worker.

No matter what method is used, as long as he is found and killed, according to Itakura Taku's living habits, who knows when his body will be discovered?

It would be completely unnecessary to involve a detective in this matter.

"In that case, let's check Mr. Itakura's other belongings, shall we?" Conan pointed at Itakura Taku's backpack. "I think I saw something with the word 'diary' written on it. Is that Mr. Itakura's own diary? Does it record who has come to see him?"

"Is there such a thing?"

"Now that we have computers, is there still anyone who would go out of their way to write down a diary and then burn it onto a floppy disk?" Kogoro Mouri asked the same question as Conan did at the beginning.

It would be strange if it happened to someone else, but when it happened to a technical guy like Itakura Taku who has a lot of quirks, it didn't seem so difficult to understand...

Megure Jusan bent down to check and soon found the floppy disk that Conan pointed to from the open zipper.

"If I insert this into the card reader, can I read the contents?" Megure Jusan, who was not very proficient in computers, frowned and looked at it.

"But this is quite unreasonable. The thing is so conspicuous. If I were the murderer, wouldn't I find it and destroy it as soon as possible?" Kogoro Mouri had a strange expression on his face.

"Maybe the murderer has not been found, or Mr. Itakura, who had not completely lost consciousness at the time, took it out intentionally." Megure Jusan guessed.

Even though his hands were tied, it did not prevent his legs from moving.

The bag was placed at Itakura Taku's feet. As long as he opened the zipper while he was still conscious and swung the bag upwards, it would naturally increase the chances of someone who came later finding it.

"Okay, let's see what's inside..."

Several people gathered around the computer again, but Conan did not rush forward to confirm the message he had been thinking about for a long time.

He slowly curled up his fingers, clenched his fist, and hid the small memory card between his fingers.

The murder scene might have been recorded here, but for the safety of others present, he couldn't let them see this information related to the organization.

So, I'm sorry, Mr. Itakura, I will use other methods to find the guy who wants to harm you.