Inside a coffee shop, Kurosawa Hoshino and Ran sipped their drinks while listening to the woman across from them speak.
"My name is Shinmei Kaori. My father is Shinmei Nintaro, the author of the Detective Samonji series."
"Mr. Shinmei is your father?" Ran was both surprised and delighted. She picked up the book Kaori had offered to give her. "Ms. Shinmei, I really love your father's work. Could you perhaps have him sign it for me?"
"I'm afraid that's impossible. My father and mother have been missing for over a month." Shinmei Kaori lowered her head, her pale hands twisting together, her voice filled with unease.
"Missing?" Ran asked doubtfully. "Wasn't the sequel to Detective Samonji still being updated over a month ago?"
"Yes. My parents suddenly left home a month ago and haven't come back. Although the novel has been updated, it's always been sent to the newspaper office by fax—there's never been any phone communication. I suspect they've been kidnapped."
Shinmei Kaori stared at Kurosawa Hoshino, her watery eyes filled with tears. "Kurosawa-kun, I'm at my wit's end. I've searched everywhere I can, and I've reported them missing to the police, but no matter what, I can't find them."
"Ms. Shinmei." Kurosawa Hoshino finally spoke. "In the past month or so since they disappeared, have you received any extortion calls or messages?"
"No."
"Not at all?"
"That's right."
"Is the novel still being updated normally?"
"Yes."
"That's interesting." Kurosawa Hoshino stroked his chin with one hand, deliberately showing an interested expression. He pretended to frown and think for a moment, then asked, "Ms. Shinmei, I remember Detective Samonji was a novel from ten years ago. Everyone already considered it finished. Why did your father suddenly start writing a sequel? Have you noticed anything different about this sequel compared to the previous ones?"
"Something different?" Shinmei Kaori murmured, then paused. She picked up her bag, pulled out a stack of papers, and placed them on the table. "Kurosawa-kun, something is definitely wrong. I don't know why, but this time, my father wrote a provocative passage at the beginning of the sequel, challenging detectives nationwide. The gist is that he's included a coded message at the beginning of each chapter, wanting to see if anyone can decipher it before the sequel is finished."
"Let me see." Kurosawa picked up the manuscript from the table and began to read it seriously.
Shinmei Kaori and Ran held their breath, not daring to move an inch, afraid of disturbing him.
About three minutes passed. Kurosawa read through the coded messages at the beginning of the seven novel manuscripts in his hand and slowly said, "Ms. Shinmei, I won't say anything else for now. I've deciphered an address from these codes."
"Where is it?" Kaori asked excitedly.
"Beika City Grand Hotel, Room 2047."
"I'll call the police right away."
"No need to call the police. It's not what you think. You should go and see for yourself. There's still time."
Kurosawa remembered that in the original story, when Conan and the others arrived at the Beika City Grand Hotel, Shinmei Nintaro had already passed away—a rather regrettable episode. But now, having encountered Kaori so far in advance, Shinmei Nintaro was at most lying in a hotel hospital bed, suffering from illness. He shouldn't be on the verge of death.
"There's still time?" Shinmei Kaori's eyes were full of astonishment and confusion.
"Yes. At least I haven't deciphered any dangerous information from the current code."
"Then I'll go now." Kaori stood up, about to leave, then stopped. "Kurosawa-kun, can we exchange contact information?"
"Sure."
After a short delay, Shinmei Kaori hurriedly left after exchanging contact information by phone.
"Hoshino." Ran nudged Kurosawa, craning her neck to look at the novel manuscript in his hand, asking like a curious child, "How do you decipher the code? Can you tell me? I want to know what it says too."
"No." Kurosawa pushed her head away.
"Don't be so stingy."
"I don't want to tell you right now."
"Hmph. Stingy. Fine, I won't eat the dessert you promised, but you tell me how to decipher the code."
"Heh. Still no." Kurosawa certainly remembered how to decipher the code, but he just wanted to tease Ran.
"I'm ignoring you." Ran angrily grabbed the Detective Samonji novel left behind by Shinmei Kaori on the table and strode out.
Kurosawa sighed and quickly chased after her. Thankfully, he didn't lose Ran because of a scene from a drama where the waiter stops him to pay the bill—Shinmei Kaori had already paid.
Finally, after running for a while, he grabbed Ran's hand and forcefully pulled her back.
"Ouch! What are you doing?" Ran exclaimed, stumbling into Kurosawa's arms. She looked up at him with displeasure.
"Teaching you how to decipher the code, of course." Kurosawa smiled helplessly, pointing to the title of the first chapter. "Look, the title is written half-vertically, meaning that every two characters form a word. Now, take the first character of each pair of columns on the first page and put them together to see what you get. Of course, this only applies to the first chapter. The following chapters will require other methods."
"Really?" Ran, disregarding their current intimate position, stared at the manuscript for a while. Her eyes widened, and she blurted out, "Hurry up and save me! Oh no—if it's a distress signal, then Ms. Shinmei will be in danger if she goes to that place you just mentioned!"
After saying that, she paused, staring at Kurosawa in confusion. After a long while, she muttered, "If that's the case, Hoshino, you should have called the police. So the later chapters weren't a cry for help?"
"Right."
"I thought some fanatical fan had kidnapped Mr. Shinmei and was forcing him to update at knifepoint. Hoshino, just tell me—what's really going on with Mr. Shinmei?"
"I think Mr. Shinmei orchestrated all of this himself. He probably wanted to see what the answer to the code word was when a reader said it to him."
"Why make it so complicated? And even fake a disappearance and kidnapping?"
"Ran, don't you understand?" Kurosawa lowered his head until his forehead touched hers. He said softly, "Mr. Shinmei is probably in the final stage of his life. That's why he's doing all this."
Suddenly, Ran understood everything.
Why did the detective story of Samonji, thought to be finished ten years ago, suddenly get a sequel? Why did he provoke detectives nationwide while writing it? And why did he disappear again?
It turned out that all of this was because Shinmei Nintaro's life had reached its final stage. This was his last act of willfulness. His final wish.