Conan: "…"
Oh- Oh no.
Ichijō Mirai's acquiescence was so confusing that Conan gradually let his guard down without realizing it, and only now reacts with urgent introspection and reflection: one, is it too unbecoming of a child to realize that Minagawa Katsuhiko and Minagawa Sasumu aren't brothers?
First, was it too much for a child to realize that Minagawa Katsuhiko and Minagawa Sasumu were not brothers? No.
Minagawa Sasumu's meaning is quite obvious, and an intelligent child can really hear it.
Second, is it too much of a child's fault to realize that Ichijō Mirai eats everything until someone else has used it for a while and there's nothing wrong with it? No, it's not.
Even Minagawa Sasumu, a strange child, was silently observing, and realized that Suzuki Sonoko had a crush on Ichijō Mirai.
Third, did you realize that Tanaka Naomichi's poison didn't kill Minagawa Katsuhiko, and that he was not acting like a child? No.
The two cigarettes in the evidence bag are too obvious.
But it's necessary to make a patch that the elders smoked cigarettes often and were familiar with them.
Fourth, is realizing that the real murderer was Mrs. Minagawa not like a child?
No, he didn't have time to tell!
Conan calmed down, rubbed his head, "Huh?"
"I want to be a detective!"
He puffed out his chest in a very childish manner, "Detectives are awesome, like Brother Ichijō and Uncle Mouri, they get super attention wherever they go."
"And they can solve crimes and find the real culprits!"
"My classmates and I also formed a very powerful detective club, oh, last time we even cracked the code map together, successfully found the 'treasure', even Teacher Kobayashi praised us really professional detective group it."
"Brother Ichijō," Conan lowered his voice again and forced himself to be excited, mimicking Kojima Genta's excitement, "did you also find the murderer?"
"It was Mrs. Minagawa, wasn't it?"
"Mrs. Minagawa is dead, and she's still washing coffee cups! And she fed Sasumu a cake before, so Brother Minagawa wasn't poisoned because of what he ate, but because of what he didn't eat, right?"
"Because he didn't eat the cake."
Saying it in one breath, Conan maintained his excitement and lifted his chin, mimicking Kojima Genta's tone, "Right, right, right? I'm a great detective!"
Adding, "You can drop the 'little', I'm not little anymore!"
He mimicked, like a bright but childish schoolboy, thanking his new classmates for the first time from the bottom of his heart.
He waited nervously for Ichijō Mirai's reaction.
Ichijō Mirai didn't change his expression, not even the amplitude of his smile, and patiently listened to Conan's long list of words before he smiled and complimented, "Well, you're a very good detective."
He didn't care about the so-called map or the so-called detective team, he only cared about one thing, "You said you wanted to be a detective."
"Can a detective be involved in the police's international tracking of criminals?"
I'm not sure.
But a detective will never try to contact the criminal he is pursuing every holiday to persuade him to surrender. Nor will he persist in pursuing the criminal day after day for more than ten years, more persistent than Hachiko.
He wouldn't even have a steady girlfriend, leave a date suddenly, go to the office to ponder over the clues of the criminal, or wake up shouting the criminal's name in his sleep, would he?
And he wouldn't be so obsessed that even his own child knows the name of the criminal his father is tracking, would he?
Ichijō Mirai contemplated Conan, scrutinizing the nervous child: intelligent, perceptive, agile, childlike.
He doesn't seem to be very persistent.
...Okay.
Conan tries to shake off the tension and the cold sweat, "No, I don't think so."
He pretended to be distressed and thought seriously, "I haven't encountered an international case yet, has Officer Megure ever encountered one?"
If the murderer fled across the border, the police in charge of the case might pursue him across the border.
But Ichijō Mirai's criminal record doesn't show Ichijō as a murderer.
He stroked Conan's head, his smile less gentle and more casual, "Maybe."
Then he raised his voice, interrupting Megure Jūzō and Mouri Korogō who were talking about 'The real murderer must be Watanabe Yoshimi!', "Officer Megure, this kid has found the real murderer."
"It's Mrs. Minagawa."
Megure Jūzō and Mouri Korogō sniffed, "What?!"
"Mrs. Minagawa?!"
Conan: "???"
"!!!!"
Immediately, he nodded his head in triumph, once again possessed by Genta, "Yes, I found the murderer together with Brother Ichijō!"
All the adults who saw Conan's expression and heard Conan's tone of voice automatically translated: yes, Ichijō Mirai found the real murderer while coaxing a child.
Mouri Korogō was the first to react, ignoring Conan and looking at Ichijō Mirai suspiciously, "Huh?"
"The murderer should have been Yoshimi Watanabe, who delivered the chocolates, but how could it be Mrs. Minagawa? She made them, but everyone ate them."
Conan jumped up with his hands up, "I'll say it, I'll say it, let me say it, Brother Ichijō!"
"Sister Sonoko says you're super good, you must have realized that already, but," he grabbed Ichijō Mirai's wrist on his knee, and became very childish and pitiful, "but I want Sister Ran to praise me, let me say it, okay?"
Letting Ichijō Mirai say it, Conan was afraid that he would say 'Conan found xxx, Conan found xxx, Conan found xxx again'.
It'll make headlines.
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
He paused, and raised his hand as subtly as possible to shake off the clingy kid, "OK."
Conan breathed a sigh of relief, and when he spoke again, his tone was still lively, "Brother Minagawa was poisoned because of the cake."
"It's because Brother Ichijō was so handsome that I couldn't help but pay attention to him, and because of Sasumu's cavities, that I realized there was something strange about the coffee and cake."
He recounted Mrs. Minagawa's silent urging of Ichijō Mirai to drink coffee and eat cake, and then recounted Minagawa Sasumu's very different experiences with chocolate and cake, pointing out the supporting evidence, "Look, Sasumu's got a toothache."
Megure Jūzō and Mouri Korogō turned their heads to see Minagawa Sasumu, who was covering his face and sobbing.
"There was poison in the coffee and an antidote in the cake," Conan added, "Everyone ate the poison and the antidote, but Minagawa-brother didn't eat the cake and didn't take the antidote, so he died from the poison."
"And Mrs. Minagawa was washing the coffee cups, she hasn't finished washing them yet, we can tell that from the tests, right? Even if she did, there's still drug residue in the sink."
Everyone in the neighborhood turned their heads to the kitchen.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Minagawa was still washing coffee cups.
With Conan's explanation, the people around her quieted down and became less noisy, so that the kitchen, where the living room could not be heard clearly, could also be heard.
The two police officers in the kitchen looked at each other subconsciously and then at Mrs. Minagawa.
Mrs. Minagawa's hand paused for a moment, then continued to clean the coffee cups as if she hadn't heard them.
Officer Megure unconsciously touched his head, somewhat skeptical, "Yes, remembering to clean the cups at the scene of a murder..."
It's a suspicion of eliminating a clue!
He made an immediate decision, "Quick, no matter whether it is or not, go get the cup!"
A police officer obeyed, took the evidence bag and went to the kitchen to get the cups.
Conan breathed a sigh of relief, and continued to try to balance the quick information about the case with the childish, and then a bit of a punch, "I knew it when I saw it... very clever, isn't it, Officer Megure."
And he urgently went to observe Ichijō Mirai's expression.
But it's so beat up.
So beat up that Mouri Korogō, with a black face, hammered Conan right in the face, creating a big bump. "Gee, how could you know so many clues and not tell us!"
He also grumbled a bit, calling out Ichijō Mirai's last name in a rusty manner, "What's the point of playing detective with a kid, Mr. Ichijō?"
"That kid is a pain in the ass, next time ignore him!"
Conan silently covered his head, his eyes became dead eyes, and laughed dryly: "Ha, ha, ha, Uncle Mouri thinks I'm smarter than you, and is getting back at me."
He went to see Ichijō Mirai again.
Given that Conan's head was bulging again, Ichijō Mirai only nodded the air this time as he went through the process of touching his head perfunctorily, "Not playing games with him."
"Conan is very perceptive."
Conan breathed a sigh of relief: it wasn't a skeptical 'why is this kid so sharp, it's not a guy pretending to be a kid, is it?' He had the attitude of a kid pretending to be a kid.
He perked up again, proudly voicing, "Like Uncle Mouri, I'm smart!"
Conan's proud childish tone transformed Ichijō Mirai's statement of fact into a childish speech.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Minagawa, who hadn't had time to wash all the coffee cups, took a few steps back and let the police come and take the evidence in silence.
When the police had finished extracting the evidence, she closed her eyes and leaned against the kitchen counter, barely supporting herself with the countertop, and spoke wearily, "...It was me."
"I killed Katsuhiko."