Ke Xue: I picked up a bottle of sherry at the beginning.

"I don't have the time..." Hattori Heiji waved his hand, holding a piece of bread in his mouth, and left.

"Haha... As expected of Hattori Heiji, he didn't let me down." Shiraizumi Mashi couldn't help but laugh.

"Alas..." Toyama Kazuha sighed, not knowing what to say to Bu Heiji...

After breakfast, Shiraizumi Mashi drove Toyama Kazuha and Hattori Shizuka to the cinema to watch a movie. After the movie, they went shopping in the mall... The weather didn't clear up until the afternoon.

Shiraizumi Masu received a call from Hattori Heiji, and he went to Haido-cho 4-chome to investigate the arson case. After the rain stopped, the fourth fire occurred. This time it was at the Morokaku family in Haido 4-chome, and a woman was killed.

There was no other way, Bai Quanyi had to make a trip.

So, Shiraizumi Masu drove Toyama Kazuha and Hattori Shizuka back to the hotel first, and then met with Hattori Heiji.

Shiraizumi Masu rushed to Haido 4-chome, but the firefighters had not yet finished their fire-fighting procedures. Hattori Heiji was standing next to the fire scene, checking the situation.

"Hattori-kun, what happened? Did the fire happen right under your nose?" asked Shiraizumi Masu.

Hattori couldn't help but complain: "I came here this morning, and the woman said I was suspicious and sent me away. I didn't expect that the arson case would happen in the afternoon..."

After the hard work of the firefighters, the fire was finally put out and prevented from spreading. However, the life of the hostess of the Morokaku family, Morokaku Ryoko, was taken away, making the fire seem a little heavy.

Shiraizumi Masu showed his ID and entered the scene to investigate with Hattori Heiji.

An older, bearded police officer glanced at Bai Quanyi and said, "Boy, why are you here? This isn't a crime under the Third Degree."

Bai Quanyi said: "Inspector Yumio, don't be so formal, I just want to help..."

Hattori Heiji asked, "Who is this guy? He looks so fierce."

Shiraizumi said, "He's Inspector Yuminaga of the Metropolitan Police Department's First Investigation Division's Arson Investigation Team..."

Shiraizumi looked at Inspector Yuminaga and asked, "Was this incident also arson?"

"Yes, this fire was definitely arson," Officer Yumio confirmed. "The red horse that appeared at the scene was the same model as the previous three arson cases. It's also not available on the market... 1st chome, 2nd chome, 3rd chome, and now 4th chome. That guy set the fires in that order. He must be laughing at us police officers now. But unlike before, this time there are deaths. This won't be so easy to resolve."

Officer Yumio took a puff of his cigarette as he looked at the devastated fire scene. He then turned to Hattori and asked, "By the way, who is this foreigner?"

Shiraizumi Masu said, "He is the son of the Osaka Prefectural Police Superintendent, Hattori Heiji."

Hearing that the other party was so powerful, Officer Yumachi turned a blind eye and ignored him. If it was someone like Kudo Shinichi who had no background, he would have been chased away by him long ago.

At this time, a police officer brought over a wimpy-looking uncle.

"Inspector, this guy was acting suspiciously near the fire scene. I thought he was suspicious, so I brought him here."

The uncle sighed and said, "To be honest, the red horse is mine. I came here just to get the key chain back. Otherwise... there will definitely be a fire. I will even set fire to it because of the key chain..."

Inspector Gongzhang raised his eyebrows and said, "You mean, you set the fire."

The uncle broke down and started crying. "My name is Xuantian 0.2 Delong. I have sleepwalking and I will set fires involuntarily in my sleep. I have seen a psychiatrist but it has been useless. This fire, as well as the previous ones, and the red horse keychain left at the scene were all made by me."

Bai Quanyi asked: "Uncle, why do you do this?"

"I don't know, I really don't know anything!" Xuantian cried and hugged his head, "There is another me in my body. He must have set the fire when I was unconscious. This is Go-chome. If the keychain was here, he would definitely do something else. Please..."

Inspector Gongchang frowned and asked his men to take the uncle back to the police station to find out the details.

The series of arson cases ended so dramatically.

However, Hattori Heiji absolutely did not believe that things were that simple.

Hattori Heiji silently watched the police car drive away, feeling a little uncomfortable: "Is that uncle really the arsonist?"

Shiraizumi said, "I don't know. Let's go to the Metropolitan Police Department and see what's going on."

117. Solve the arson case

The two of them investigated Haido-cho 4-chome, including the antique shop where Genda worked...

Afterwards, the two came to the arson investigation team's department. Inspector Changgong was discussing the case with his men in the room, and there were many evidences on the table.

When Inspector Changgong saw the two men come in, he didn't say much and continued doing what he was doing.

"Genda still can't say anything," Officer Yumachi pointed at several burned red horses and said, "However, these red horses left at the arson scene are indeed the Red Hare on the keychain. According to you, Genda not only visited the victim, but was also wandering around before the fire, so..." Officer Yumachi was lost in thought when he suddenly saw Hattori fiddling with evidence. He hurriedly shouted, "Hey, hey, I got these evidence from the medical examination department with great difficulty. Be careful!"

Hattori picked up the red horse from the first case, examined it carefully, and said, "This horse still has the red rabbit base with the word 'rabbit' on it... Why is this horse the only one that's been burnt?"

Bai Quanyi asked, "Could it be that the base of the Red Hare was ripped off by the arsonist?"

Hattori Heiji frowned: "What do you mean by ripping off the base?"

"If they all have bases, they might be discovered to be Red Hare, and it would be easy to suspect Mr. Genda who was distributing Guan Yu keychains as promotional gifts everywhere..." Bai Quanyi sat down next to him.

"I just checked with Mr. Genda's antique shop in Haido-cho. There's something strange. Mr. Genda has been handing out product descriptions and gift keychains near the antique shop since this morning. But because of the negative reviews, the keychains he's giving out today have been replaced with maneki neko (lucky cat) ones..."

"What's so strange about this?" Gong Chang was stunned. "Maybe he took the wrong one..."

"That's the problem. The pendant is in a box, so it's not surprising that it got mixed up. So when I came here just now, I studied the route of Mr. Xuantian's activities today." Quan Yi spread out a bus map on the table and pointed out the red lines.

"Mr. Genda first distributed key chains in the area around the Morokaku family, right?"

"Indeed..." Gong Chang nodded.

"Then around 5pm, Mr. Genda went back to the antique shop to take a look... but why did he go to the Morokaku family and set fire to them later?" said Shiraizumi Masaru.

"Wait a minute," Hattori looked at the route map drawn by Izumi, thought for a moment, and his expression suddenly changed. "The reason why Mr. Genda went to the Morokaku family again was probably not to set the fire, but because he realized he had sent the wrong keychain and wanted to retrieve it... That's why he hurried to Go-chome after the fire..."

Officer Yumio frowned, lit a cigarette and said, "He looks very similar to the Xuantian I know... In fact, when the fire first broke out, we also suspected Xuantian at one point, but I don't think he's the kind of person who would set a fire."

"Was it during the first Rizen arson incident?"

"Well, he was among the crowd watching the excitement, mumbling strangely to himself as he watched the flames... bothering his father..." Yumio exhaled a long puff of smoke under the gaze of the crowd, lost in memory. "That guy's father was a firefighter. When he was in elementary school, he died while trying to save people trapped in the blaze. So, we thought, maybe Genda set the fire because he missed his father, and he might have imagined that if the fire broke out, his father would rush over..."

"As expected... Genda is not the murderer!" said Hattori Heiji.

"That's because we can't find any evidence, and... he's not the type to set fire to someone else's house. He's not that type of person." Gong Chang looked tired, shook his head, stood up and left the room, saying, "I'll go ask Xuan Tian again."

Shiraizumi Masu and Hattori Heiji looked at each other and followed Yumachi away.

Hakusen Masu and Hattori Heiji split up into two groups. Hakusen Masu went to ask Genda, while Hattori Heiji went to Genda's house to check the situation. Hakusen Masu secretly gave the key to Genda's house to Hattori Heiji.

In the interrogation room, Xuantian sat alone with his head down, looking depressed and resigned to his fate.

A policeman stood outside in distress and said to Officer Gong Chang, "He still can't explain anything. He just insists that it was another him who set the fire."

"Hmm." Officer Yumio nodded and signaled the police to leave. He looked at the exhausted Genda in the interrogation room through the glass with a heavy expression.

"If we can't find any other clues, we'll have no choice but to send him to trial..." After a pause, Gong Chang sighed and turned to Quan Yi: "Officer Bai, do you know why I believe him?"

Quan Yi was also a little curious and guessed, "Is it because of Xuan Tian's firefighter father?"

Yumio didn't deny it, nor did he nod. He just recalled, "When I was investigating Genda, I once called him to the park and talked to him. After 30 minutes, he didn't say anything. He just sat on the bench with a gloomy face, just like now..."

"But when I left, I saw him from a distance, leaving the bench and desperately searching for something in the surrounding grass. He gave up when it started to rain. Seeing his look of relief, I understood. He was looking for my cigarette butt, the cause of the fire that killed his father..." Gong Chang silently stubbed out his cigarette, his eyes earnest. I can't imagine a guy like him setting fire to someone else's house, and I don't want to think about it..."

Bai Quanyi looked at the silent Xuantian in the interrogation room, and his understanding of this cowardly uncle deepened.

His father's death probably became a knot in Xuantian's heart, so the real murderer found his weakness and exploited it. In this way, the suspects, whether they were psychiatric police officers, feng shui masters, or fortune tellers, could potentially control Xuantian mentally.

"I can't guarantee that I can solve the case...but, let me talk to him first."

Quan Yi nodded and walked into the interrogation room.

……

Rishon Town, Genda family.

When Quan Yi arrived at the door in Officer Gongchang's police car.

Hattori Heiji said with a smile: "I have already found the criminal's method of lighting the fire."

Shiraizumi looked at the smug Hattori and nodded, "Then how did you create an alibi? Have you figured it out?"

Hattori did not continue to be complacent, his eyes were piercing as he said: "We checked the scene again. There were fragments of white light bulbs at the fire point, with brown scorch marks and black round marks on them. There were also ashes from burning paper towels everywhere in the scorched areas. The criminal should have wrapped paper towels around the 100W light bulb and then inserted a match. Once the surface temperature of the light bulb is high enough, the match will automatically ignite..."

"The surface temperature of a 100W bulb can reach 218 degrees, which makes it easy to ignite a match. The criminal must have tampered with the bulbs in the warehouse beforehand, and then sprinkled oil on the floor. He then placed the red horse with the base removed next to the window. The ignition time can be adjusted by the amount of paper towels wrapped around the bulb..."

Hattori looked at the Genda family and smiled: "This is the criminal's automatic ignition device. The most obvious evidence is the faint light of the white woven lamp in front of the shadow of the red horse printed on the curtain next door! The next step is to find out how the criminal manipulated Genda and the final evidence..."

"I see," Gong Chang thought, "According to what you said, it seems that it can indeed ignite automatically, but the marks on the light bulb could also have been formed accidentally during the fire. Moreover, if such a device was used, then wouldn't all three people be possible?"

Bai Quanyi walked into the entrance hall and was attracted by the shoe prints in the corridor at first sight. He took out the shoes from the shoe cabinet in the entrance hall and tried them on. The shoe prints of Xuantian were about the same size.

"Xuan Tian lives alone in such a big house..."

"Well, he lived with his mother after his father died. I heard that his mother also passed away last year." Gong Chang changed into slippers at the entrance and looked at the shoe prints with a frown.

"Are these shoe prints all from Xuantian?"

"Just as I thought," Uncle Maori followed Conan and took out the muddy socks and the shirt with burn marks from the trash can next to him. "Yumi-sama, Genda said that when the sleepwalking was serious, there was another person who set the fire. What he said might be true..."

"It's too early to say that now," Quan Yi stood up and said, "Perhaps this is also the trick of the real murderer..."

Now the most crucial alibi has been explained, which is the automatic delayed ignition.

In addition, he has roughly figured out the motives of several suspects. Feng Shui master Soga was threatened by the deceased Ryoko's wife with a love video, and female fortune teller Gondo was going to get a large inheritance from her recently deceased father after Ryoko's death. The will left the inheritance to the person who inherited the Morokaku surname, so originally only Ryoko, who had a son-in-law, could get the inheritance...

As for the son-in-law who married into the wife's family, the mental police officer Zhu Jiaoming, although he would not get the inheritance due to his wife's death, he was not without motives.

I heard that Zhu Jiaoming has always wanted to demolish the house to build his own hospital, but Liangzi, who owns the house, disagrees. In addition, Zhu Jiaoming is likely to know about Liangzi's affair...

A typical case in the Conan world, the real murderer must be one of these three people.

Quan Yi held his chin with his hand, and the details of the whole process flashed through his mind rapidly.

"Hey, Shiro-kun," Hattori called out after rummaging through the shoe cabinet for a while, "Come here!"

"Is there any problem?" Bai Quanyi asked.

"Look, this is the phone bill receipt on the shoe cabinet. Isn't it strange that he spent 30,000 yuan in one month? It doesn't seem like Xuantian would call often."

"Yeah." Bai Quanyi nodded.

"Now that I think about it," Hattori stroked his chin and recalled, "It's the same with that fool Kazuha, who often makes long phone calls. Why do women like to make phone calls so much?"

Quan Yi didn't respond, but turned his attention to the vase in the shoe cabinet.

"Got it, there's a bug in the vase! This vase seems to be the same kind as the decoration in the Morokaku family's entrance hall..."

"Is it available in other places?" Hattori Heiji looked surprised.

Then, Izumi and Officer Yuminaga stood together and watched silently as Hattori rushed into the inner room to empty the trash can.

"Officer Gong Chang, let's first check the origin of this vase." Bai Quanyi said to Officer Gong Chang.

"Found it!" Hattori shouted from the inner room, "It's on the shelf next to the trash can, and also in the small cushion under the crystal ball!"

"This is a lucky crystal ball sold by a female fortune teller in the building in front of Beido Station," Shiraizumi recognized the crystal ball. "Everyone says that fortune teller's predictions are very accurate..."

"So it's that fortune teller Gondo?" asked Yumio.

"I'm afraid it's not just her." Izumi leaned against the doorway, his eyes scanning the crystal ball cushion that Hattori and the others had found. "Both the bugs in the vase and the cushion use batteries, and their reception range is limited. They must have been installed recently. The murderer wouldn't use such an unstable eavesdropping method."

Hattori looked at Izumi in astonishment: "You mean..."

"Generally speaking, the phone bill wouldn't be as outrageous as 3 yuan. Especially for someone like Xuantian, who doesn't have many friends and is single, he shouldn't call home very often," Quan Yi said with a smile. "Then, the real reason can only be one: the criminal was eavesdropping on the phone line, so he kept the phone connected..."

Gong Chang frowned and said, "So this person is very likely the real murderer, but in the end we still don't know who it is..."

"I think I already know who it is."

"If you don't know...what?! Already know?!" Gong Chang almost choked, pointed at several eavesdropping devices and looked at Quan Yi with wide eyes, as if to say, "You're kidding me."

"You know it just like that?!" Hattori Heiji was surprised.

"It was actually very strange from the beginning, wasn't it?" Shiraizumi analyzed. "Mrs. Ryoko said she saw a suspicious person and asked the detective to investigate, but then she suddenly changed her story... Either she's really paranoid, or... she already knows who that suspicious person is?"

Hattori's expression changed slightly. "What she said to us was false. I can be sure of that. But if she knows the identity of the suspicious person..."

"Let's review the motives of the three suspects," Izumi continued. "Fortune teller Gondo had a motive to fight for the inheritance. Feng shui master Soga's motive was that Ryoko's wife threatened him with a tape of their affair. And then, Ryoko's husband, psychiatric officer Morokaku Akira, had a motive because his plan to demolish the house to build a hospital was rejected. He also may have known about Ryoko's affair with Soga...

"There's nothing wrong with the motives of the other two. Only Zhu Jiaoming's has a problem, and that's the inheritance. Mrs. Liangzi's father passed away, and Zhu Jiaoming was just about to inherit the inheritance. If Mrs. Liangzi was killed, Zhu Jiaoming would get nothing. He could completely wait until the inheritance was inherited before taking action. So his motive is actually very questionable. If he is the real murderer, it can only be because of some unexpected situation..."

Quan Yi paused, then raised his lips slightly and said, "For example, if Mrs. Liangzi caught me and threatened me..."

"Are you saying that the suspicious person Mrs. Liangzi saw was Morikakui Akira?" Gongchang snorted, his face darkening. "Even if that's possible, that doesn't rule out the other two, right? You're only talking about Morikakui Akira as the murderer. In my opinion, the other two are more likely to be the murderer."

"What if we add this?" Quan Yi smiled, took out a small cushion as evidence, and pulled out a small plastic bag from inside the cushion under Gong Chang's wide-eyed gaze.

"What is this?" Gong Chang was puzzled.

"This is the message Mrs. Liangzi left before her death." Quan Yi smiled, with a gleam in his eyes.

Hattori snatched the plastic bag and looked closely at the base of the "Red Hare" packaged inside: "So that's what it is..."

"What's going on?" Gong Chang was still confused.