Chiba and his team rushed over, naturally with some discoveries.
In the restroom on the fifth floor, they found items suspected to have been worn by the assailant during the crime: gloves, a coat, and a hat.
However, the fifth floor where the incident occurred was relatively secluded, and few people went there. When these items were discarded, no one saw a suspect resembling the perpetrator, and naturally, the stolen document was not found.
In addition, Chiba and others had fruitful results in investigating the suspects list provided by Norihisa Kisugi.
Because the company was on the upper floors, the investigation went smoothly.
According to inquiries, at the moment when Katsunori Chujo was killed, most of the staff were either resting in the company or eating alone outside. Among these people, 27 had clear alibis.
After excluding these 27 people, the number of suspects was further narrowed down to 31.
As for the document snatched from Katsunori Chujo by the killer, the detectives were conducting a thorough search on the eighth to eleventh floors.
"Senichi-kun! We found words with bloodstains on the pedal!!"
Just as Senichi checked the list, the shout from Takagi rang out, attracting everyone's attention.
When Senichi, Conan, and the others hurried to the pedal of the escalator, they saw the faint blue "□" shape on the pedal.
"It looks a lot like the character '口' from Chinese characters. However, if we associate it with the previous three shapes '○×△,' the possibility of it being a square should be greater," Takagi speculated as he looked at the shape on the pedal.
Comparing the trace on the deceased's file bag with the bloodstain on the pedal, the place with the bloodstain on file bag matched the "□" shape on the pedal perfectly. It could be said that this was the complete "death message" left by the deceased.
"□○×△"!
This was the final message left by the deceased, Katsunori Chujo.
However, Senichi keenly noticed that the "□" symbol on the escalator pedal was significantly larger than the other three.
"Do you think this message is meant to combine these symbols?" Sonoko, who liked to participate in reasoning, quickly expressed her opinion, pointing to the list above. "Look, combining '□' and '×' makes the character '田.' In that case, those with the character '田' are highly suspicious."
"Oh! That makes sense!" Jodie nodded and expressed her opinion, "But if you look at the shape, Mr. Asai's character '井' is also formed by two overlapping cross shapes."
However, obviously, Sonoko's speculation was unreliable; she was also a clue excluder comparable to Kogoro Mouri.
Any reasoning the other party came up with could basically be excluded from consideration.
Nevertheless, her reasoning this time was not entirely useless. Looking at the names on the list, Senichi seemed to be deep in thought.
Beside him, Conan, with a pensive expression, began to activate his brain, contemplating intensely.
This time, the conditions had once again reached a completely fair stage. Whoever could decipher the code first would be the first to find the killer!
For Conan, this was a rare opportunity to surpass Senichi. He had to seize it!
"Hey, you two," just as the two were deep in thought, Jodie proactively approached, "Have you thought what '□○×△' means?"
"Not at all." Conan, interrupted in his contemplation, looked helplessly at Jodie sensei.
"Perhaps it's really as Sonoko and Ran said, those symbols represent something," Jodie said with a smile and gave an example, "For example, in the Department of Defense in USA, ordinary people call it the 'Pentagon' because the building is shaped like a pentagon!"
Looking at the two speechless individuals, Jodie showed a bright smile and continued, "In the USA, there are countless examples of using a certain shape to describe special objects. For instance, the official residence of the President is called 'White House' because it is mostly white, and the oval-shaped office ('Oval Office') is the president's office, and there's also the FBI, the most important of them all."
At this point, Jodie, with a meaningful smile, looked at the two, "This refers to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I wonder if it gave you two good references?"
'I don't know if it's a reference or not, but you're practically giving us a blatant hint. It's too conspicuous.' Senichi smiled continuously on the surface, but internally, he was sarcastically commenting.
Clearly, Jodie had already set her sights on Conan and had even started testing him with some of her own information.
However, Jodie was right about one thing. Perhaps these symbols "□○×△" represented something.
Wait, four symbols?
Senichi suddenly thought that many names on the list also consisted of four characters.
Although this was common for people in Japan, Senichi, coming from a traditional background, was more accustomed to three-character names, so he was always a bit mindful of names with more than three characters.
Could it be that the symbols "□○×△" represent names!?
With this thought, Senichi's brain surged like a tide, uncontrollably starting to work in a frenzy.
Thinking from another perspective, if the victim couldn't contemplate a complex message in their final moments, it must be something simple and straightforward, like a name that could directly point to the culprit.
The victim likely had little time before their death, so they must have hastily and urgently written down the name of the perpetrator.
With this in mind, Senichi couldn't help but look again at the four-character name on the list in his hand.
Scanning the list, aided by his powerful memory and extensive artistic experience, he quickly abstracted the symbols "□○×△," finding a perfect match with one person's name on the list.
"Bunta Kuniyoshi! This guy is the culprit!" Senichi said in a low voice.
"Huh?"
Hearing Senichi suddenly accusing someone, everyone wore expressions of confusion, and Sonoko, in particular, looked puzzled, saying, "Found the culprit? But why him?"
"It's simple. Just cover the upper half of this name, and '○×△' appears, right?"
"But doesn't the character '太' look nothing like it?" Sonoko looked at the character on the list with hesitation.
"After all, this is a standard printed font. If it's handwritten, the last stroke of '太' could be a bit longer, forming '△,' right?"
"But why cover the upper half?" Sonoko questioned, "Is there any basis for that?"
"Don't forget, there were documents inside the file bag. If the victim wrote the upper half of the name on the exposed material, and later the file was taken away, naturally, this situation would arise."
Senichi then pointed to the "□" character on the file bag, "As for this, because the victim was in a critical condition at the time, it's possible that the character '国' was abbreviated to '口.'"
"Some people simplify characters like this in shorthand. Combined with the three characters that follow, it's easy to lock in on the real culprit."
"Oh! It's Bunta Kuniyoshi!! Detective Senichi, you're like Sherlock Holmes!" Jodie praised, "Truly a renowned police detective of Japan!"
"You're too kind."
Politely acknowledging Jodie's praise, Senichi smiled, then excused himself and rallied the team to head towards the company on the eighth floor.
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