"Huh? Getting smarter, eh?" Senichi raised an eyebrow. "I thought you'd be in a hurry to go and check the situation."
"Heh, if you hadn't discovered something, you wouldn't have said 'I smell the scent of a case,'" Hattori chuckled. "Others may not know how sharp your sense of smell is, but I do. If it weren't for Officer Senichi actually sensing something in the storage room, you wouldn't have said that."
With that, Hattori Heiji's expression turned serious. "Could it be... the smell of blood?"
"No, it's not. It's just the smell of paint. But don't you find it strange to have it here in this context?" Senichi smiled and took the lead, walking into the storage room. "It's very likely that the culprit set up this mechanism to carry out a trick."
"So, this is what Officer Senichi found?"
Entering the dim storage room, Hattori Heiji followed Senichi's instructions and removed the top part of the high jump box.
Just a quick note about the so-called high jump box, it might be easier to understand if you think of it as a vaulting horse. "Jump horse" is a game that children often play.
One person bends over, supporting their knees, and others cross over the back. The difficulty increases as they gradually raise the height. A vaulting horse is a prop made up of a trapezoidal wooden box, which is a safer alternative.
After all, if someone is supporting you from below and you're attempting a high jump, a misstep could cause both people to fall. The vaulting horse helps mitigate that risk.
Naturally, the vaulting horse isn't a fixed single box; it can be disassembled into layers to increase or decrease the height.
Of course, the middle of the vaulting horse is hollow, and when stacked to a certain height, opening the top layer allows space for a person to hide easily.
When Hattori Heiji removed the top layer of the high jump box, they saw a dummy dressed in kendo protective gear, neatly arranged inside the box, along with the scattered red paint.
"I told you I smelled the scent of paint, but I didn't expect it to be used for a dummy," Senichi remarked as he looked at the dummy inside.
"Since a dummy was set up, it means it was meant to replace someone's body..." Hattori Heiji furrowed his brow and then said, "This is part of the plan to transfer the body and create an alibi by making it seem like the person wasn't present."
"Let's go check over there first... The bathhouse is probably in chaos by now," Senichi patted Hattori's shoulder, urging him not to linger here.
"Yeah... From the moment you discovered this trick, I knew that Tarumi was probably in grave danger," Hattori Heiji sighed. "Back then, when you said you smelled the paint, I wished it was just an accident, someone accidentally spilling paint...
But now, this dummy, wearing kendo protective gear, soaked in blood like paint, with 'Hakamada' written so prominently on "Tare". This clear identification appearing here indicates that it's probably a part of the plan by that unknown culprit!"
By the way, the "Tare" mentioned is the lower part of kendo protective gear, which covers the lower abdomen and hips. It looks like a belt, with rectangular plates on the left and right, and the central plate.
In competitions, names are often written on them since, once they put on the face mask, it becomes challenging to distinguish the participants, so it helps identify them.
As they were on their way to the bathhouse, Hattori Heiji also explained to Senichi the quarrel he had witnessed earlier among the students from Shinnai University.
"Tarumi said he wanted to kill Hakamada?" Senichi pointed to the name on the blood-soaked dummy's armor. "Isn't that exactly what's written on this protective gear?"
"Yes, that's one of the reasons why I believe Tarumi is in serious trouble," Hattori Heiji sighed.
However, when the two of them arrived at the bathhouse, even though they were prepared mentally, seeing the scene still weighed heavily on their hearts. Even with strangers, the passing of a life is always a cause for sighs.
Tarumi had indeed met a gruesome death. Inside the shower room, the showerhead continuously sprayed water, but as it passed over him, the colorless water turned into a vivid crimson.
No matter how much water sprayed, it couldn't wash away the bloodstains on his body.
His entire body was covered in sword wounds, and in his embrace, there was a samurai sword suspected to be the murder weapon.
"It seems this is the culprit's scheme," after inspecting the body, Senichi got up and approached Hattori Heiji. "Having the students from Shinnai University go to the storage room to testify that they saw Tarumi's body there. Afterward, amidst the chaos, he moved the body to the bathhouse to create an alibi and remove suspicion from himself."
"But since we've already discovered the hidden props inside the vaulting horse, the culprit has no way out. After all, for this plan to work perfectly, the culprit must have done that to ensure the method is flawless," Hattori Heiji replied indifferently.
"This time, the culprit has run into you, and it's like they're in for a lifetime of bad luck. I initially wanted to see if I could surpass you, but now it seems unnecessary."
"Then why not go and compete instead?" Senichi smiled. "When I arrived, it was already the semifinals, and the finals should be starting soon, right?"
Hattori Heiji was momentarily taken aback but then chuckled. "Alright, I'll leave this to you. It just so happens that I have a formidable opponent in the kendo competition."
"Good luck," Senichi waved and smiled, though he didn't seem to have high expectations for the outcome of the competition.
If we were to talk about Hattori Heiji's only rival in kendo, it would undoubtedly be the character Soshi Okita from Gosho Aoyama's other work, "Yaiba"
Regarding their strength...
Well, I've previously ranked each character's battle power level. Hattori's battle power level in official terms is B+, while Soshi Okita, a character from another Gosho Aoyama series, is somewhat of an extra...
His level of wielding a wooden sword is A+!
How the heck is he going to fight with such a big gap in their levels?
When it comes to wielding a wooden sword, his strength is even slightly higher than Bourbon and Shuichi Akai's by one "+" grade.
Well... watching the match should still be enjoyable, and seeing Heiji getting beaten up will probably be quite priceless...
With mischievous thoughts in his mind, Senichi decided that when Conan arrived, he would use a digital camcorder to record this "precious" scene.
Speak of the devil and the devil arrives. Shortly after Inspector Toyama arrived at the sports arena, Conan and his group also arrived at the gym. Coincidentally, they crossed paths with Senichi.
"Officer Senichi, what are you doing here?" Ran expressed her surprise when she saw Senichi smiling and exchanging greetings with others.
Meanwhile, Conan looked around and couldn't shake off a bad feeling that had crept into his mind...
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