"You certainly led us on a merry chase last night."
"I assume that the person piloting Helicopter Seven for the past two days has been your loyal assistant, the old butler, Mr. Jii?"
There was no doubt about it: during the previous night's performance, the Phantom Thief had successfully deceived everyone. However, tonight, perhaps due to the weather, the show had been cut rather short.
"Oh?" Kaito Kid glanced at Conan, curious to see if the boy had truly seen through the mechanics of his trick.
Identifying the flaws in his Jirokichi Suzuki disguise was one thing—that was simply a matter of Kid not knowing the old man's quirks well enough. But the magic trick was his pride.
"Let's start with last night's 'Air Walk'..." Conan began his deduction.
To him, it was far from a miracle.
"First, there were the two scratches I found on the roof of the office building today. They looked like they were made by a metal tool. The marks were fresh, and I found identical ones on the roof of the building directly opposite."
"I didn't expect that old man to rent out every single office building in the vicinity," Kid admitted with a sigh. "The sheer number of companies inside one tower alone... that man's financial bullying is truly something else."
"You manifested out of thin air at the start by using a steel cable connecting the two buildings," Conan continued. "Then, Helicopter Seven, which had been circling nearby, flew directly over your head. Its spinning rotors were meant to 'prove' that there were no wires or mechanisms above you."
"The next step: before Inspector Nakamori and I could reach the rooftops on either side, you retracted that inconspicuous steel cable and switched to specialized, ultra-fine wires suspended from the belly of Helicopter Seven, which followed your movements perfectly."
Conan's expression turned into one of pure exasperation.
The quality of the equipment Kid used was incredibly high—all of it crafted by the hands of Professor Agasa. The level of these 'magic props' was so advanced that they left virtually no room for suspicion.
"Exactly. Pretty impressive, isn't it?" Kid nodded, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips.
Not just anyone could pull off a leisurely stroll through the sky while suspended by only two thin threads.
As they spoke, the three-wheeled motorcycle continued to roar down the road. Kid's hand never wavered from the throttle; he didn't dare slow down, knowing full well that the moment he stopped, this detective might put a tranquilizer needle in his neck.
"Heh. It was certainly convincing," Conan remarked, glancing at their surroundings. He had no idea where they were anymore.
As for the finale last night—the disappearance over the museum...
With Helicopter Seven acting as cover, Kid only needed to use the smoke screen to change out of his white suit, let the winch pull him up, and slip into the chopper.
Tonight's "Phantom Thief" was nothing more than a dummy designed to draw the police's fire. It was likely another of Professor Agasa's inventions—a puppet with highly realistic walking motions, dangling from Helicopter Seven the entire time.
"The reason the video feed cut out tonight... was it because of the rain?" Conan asked thoughtfully.
"The actual window for the magic show is only two or three minutes. I didn't expect it to run head-first into the peak of the storm," Kid said, glancing up at the sky.
The job was done now, and the rain had finally stopped.
Over the past two nights, the footage from Helicopter Seven seen in the broadcast van had actually been pre-recorded and digitally altered—including the silhouette of the Phantom Thief. Kid had gone through all that trouble to prevent anyone from finding clues by enlarging the footage.
While the rain tonight was sudden, many people in the crowd below had raised their umbrellas. If the pre-recorded footage had continued to play, the discrepancy would have been obvious. Kid had no choice but to cut the signal and blame 'interference.'
Furthermore, the wind and rain had caused the puppet to sway unnaturally, exposing the trick and making Helicopter Seven the primary suspect.
"You don't seem worried about Mr. Jii. He might be surrounded by now," Conan pointed out.
"Heh. They're probably in a state of total chaos. There are 'Helicopter Sevens' everywhere..."
Conan had slipped into the motorcycle's sidecar at the museum's back exit, so he hadn't seen the aftermath. Every helicopter had been tampered with; the stickers on their tails were designed to peel off, revealing a '7' underneath.
If there had only been ten or so choppers, Jii might have struggled to escape. But Jirokichi Suzuki had insisted on deploying dozens...
"This could be called a 'Blue Wonder' as well, don't you think? This aerial escape act!" Kid felt his phone vibrate twice in his pocket before going still. He knew Jii had successfully vanished.
"The blue of the sky?"
"The gem called the 'Blue Wonder' refers to the deep blue sea," Conan said, glancing at the Golden Goddess statue beside him.
"The sea and the sky... these two shades of blue are like a detective and a thief. They seem as far apart as heaven and earth," Kid mused with a smile. "But at their core, both are just rude intruders who use a key called 'curiosity' to pry open the secrets people have buried deep in their hearts."
Perhaps we look different, but in essence, you and I are the same.
"The blue of the sky and the sea are entirely different," Conan retorted flatly. "One is the result of Rayleigh scattering, the other is reflection. Their principles are fundamentally different. Don't go overgeneralizing."
"Surely you've learned that in science class by now?"
Conan didn't actually intend to arrest the thief tonight; he still owed the man a favor. As the "debtor," he needed Kid to bring up the subject so he could justify putting his tranquilizer watch away.
"That's not the point at all..." Kid looked at the Great Detective with a look of utter disbelief.
His metaphor had been quite poetic, regardless of the physics, but this guy had just ruthlessly crushed the mood!
Kudo Shinichi... truly the most famous 'dense blockhead' in Beika.
That's what Tsuneo—the mechanic—had told him once.
However, the more difficult the audience, the more likely they were to become a loyal fan in the end.
"No, thinking like that is way too melodramatic..." Kid muttered, staring at Conan's face and shaking his head.
The Kudo family, the Kuroba family, thieves and detectives... it was all a mess.
"Hey! Watch the road!" Conan shouted. The three-wheeled motorcycle had just clipped the side of a parked car, nearly spinning out.
"I'm leaving this gem to you, Great Detective," Kid said, reaching for a switch on the dashboard.
If Jirokichi Suzuki hadn't issued a public challenge, he wouldn't even have looked at this jewel. He had to admit, though, the old man's ride was top-of-the-line.
With a mechanical click, the three-wheeler suddenly split into two. The sidecar—containing the Great Detective and the 'Blue Wonder'—detached and skidded safely along the pavement as the main motorcycle accelerated away.
Kid had already slowed down significantly before the release, ensuring Conan would be unharmed.
As a primary school student, Conan had once again "protected" a treasure from the hands of the Phantom Thief. In tomorrow's newspapers, the thief would once again serve as the mere backdrop for the boy's heroic feat.
(End of Chapter)
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