Conan seemed to have an idea, but he was still missing the spark. He kept thinking, but nothing came.
Chhh~
?
It was the broadcast. Everyone perked up their ears, wondering what the captain was about to announce.
"Uh, hello, dear audience." The voice was young. Definitely not the booming voice of the captain. Who was it?
Everyone froze. None of them expected Kaitou Kid to be on the broadcast.
"Welcome to the masquerade hosted by me, Kaitou Kid."
Whoa! Countless shocked eyes turned. The host was Kaitou Kid? What was he planning?
Then Kid's voice continued: "Originally, I wanted to make a stylish entrance and then steal something. But I didn't expect a murder to occur at my masquerade. For that, I truly regret it." His tone was right on point. "But as the host, I absolutely can't let the killer walk free. So I've decided—Kaitou Kid will conduct the reasoning and reveal the truth to the world."
What? Kaitou Kid was going to solve the case? Conan's face looked like someone suffering from food poisoning.
Mouri shouted even louder: "You thief! Don't be so shameless. You can reason? Even a sow can climb a tree before that happens!"
Conan heard Mouri's words and thought, 'You should really take a good look at yourself instead.' Still, Conan was curious to see how Kaitou Kid would go about reasoning this case.
"Alright, everyone, I'll begin!" Kid coughed twice, signaling he was about to start.
Everyone leaned closer, listening to the thief's deduction show.
"First, this case hinges on two things: the murderer and the murder weapon."
That first line immediately made Mouri explode again: "Nonsense, we all know that. If we knew how the murder weapon was brought onto the ship, we'd already know who the killer was."
Kid spoke back like he could hear Mouri clearly: "Then you're wrong, because this case can't be handled that way. We need to assume a suspect in a case where there seems to be none, and then prove that suspect guilty."
No detective or policeman would ever do that. Unless a suspect was openly arrogant and could be completely confirmed, the principle was always 'innocent until proven guilty.' Detectives were supposed to collect evidence and reason out the killer's identity. Pointing fingers at someone with no basis wasn't deduction—it was prejudice, emotional bias steering the investigation. That was exactly what detectives must avoid.
Because if the detective's assumed suspect was the wrong person, it would lead to a wrongful conviction. A detective should uphold fairness, not judge based on personal feelings about who looked guilty.
But Kid had no such concern, because all the evidence, as he saw it, pointed exactly to his assumed suspect.
"As expected of just a thief. Do you know how many innocent people you'd frame if you kept reasoning like this?" Mouri said.
"Listen to me first, Detective Mouri," Kid replied calmly. "The facts will prove I'm not wrong. First, let's assume the killer was someone from the planning company."
The four members of the planning company all changed expressions. "Detective Mouri, how can you let a thief label us as suspects?" Taiichi said, agitated.
The others felt the same way. Suddenly being made suspects for no reason was unbearable.
Mouri looked embarrassed. This wasn't him speaking—it was the thief saying it! He hadn't said anything at all.
Conan stayed silent. He didn't agree with Kid's approach, but he was still willing to hear what tricks he had up his sleeve.
"Detective Mouri, the four of us boarded with the president," the victim's wife Yumiko said. "When we came on, we didn't bring any weapons. Not even a kitchen knife. We couldn't even have hidden a pair of chopsticks. If we had, everyone would've seen."
"Yeah, exactly!" Ampei nodded repeatedly. "We can all testify for each other. We boarded empty-handed."
Finally, Onmi added, "Besides the registration form and pens, we didn't bring anything at all. It's true, Detective Mouri, please believe us."
Mouri tried to calm them down and then shouted at the broadcast: "What you're doing is slander!"
"Hehe, really? But what if the killer really is among those four people?" Kaitou Kid said. "If I go by my assumption method, the murderer is someone from the planning company. Then what does it matter whether they brought a weapon onboard today or not?"
Conan's whole body trembled. A flash of light struck his mind—he understood, he understood it all. Yes, if the killer was someone from the planning company, then during the cruise ship's decoration process they could have hidden the knife anywhere on the ship before the party even started. When it was time to act, all they had to do was take it out. That was it.
If he had followed a normal line of thought, it would have taken much longer to come up with that. But following Kid's way of thinking, it suddenly made sense.
Once the suspect was confirmed, an investigation could begin. The case wasn't actually that complicated.
Kid's deduction made the company staff turn pale, because with this method, they really were the most suspicious.
"But what evidence do you have that the weapon was hidden beforehand?" Onmi shouted.
"Of course there's evidence. Conan-kun in the ballroom, please take out the fiber you picked up from the bloodstains."
Conan froze. He still didn't know what that thing was.
"This is a loose thread from the black sails your company used to decorate the mast. The killer hid the weapon in the leftover canvas. Right before the murder, they accidentally pulled off a piece of fabric in their nervousness without noticing. After the crime, it stuck to the knife handle, fell off with the blood, and landed on the floor."
This could easily be verified with testing. Conan thought, 'So it was an important clue after all. Seems my eyes weren't too bad.'
"Then who's the killer?" Mouri was already half-convinced by Kid.
"…" The broadcast went quiet for a moment. Kid was building the suspense. "The murderer is Watanabe Yumiko, the wife of President Watanabe!"
"No way it's the president's wife!" The employees refused to believe it. "Why would the vice president kill the president? That makes no sense!"
"When Detective Mouri was investigating, I did some investigating too—on your company's finances. I discovered your company had massive losses."
"Impossible! Our business has always been good!"
"Of course. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked your company to plan this event. But when I looked into your personal accounts, I found that only the vice president's account had frequent large transfers in and out. My final conclusion was that she made illegal investments and lost money. To cover those losses, she embezzled company funds. That may have been her motive for murder."
"Don't joke with me! I admit my finances have problems, but can that prove I committed murder?" The culprit was still struggling.
No, both Mouri and Conan knew that wasn't enough.
Kid knew it too, but he had a trump card. "Stop denying it. The evidence is right here on this ghost ship. The ghost of the party has already possessed you. No excuse will save you. To make sure you could kill smoothly, you gave the victim sleeping pills so he couldn't fight back. In the place where you hid the knife, I already found the pill bottle. Your fingerprints are all over it. It's clear you planned this killing for a long time. That bottle has always been with you, which is why it has so many prints."
Defeated, the killer dropped to her knees. "I bought the pills under a fake name. I was waiting for the prescribing doctor to forget me. While waiting, I kept taking out the pills again and again, staring at them. I never thought the bottle would be found. I should have thrown it into the sea, but with so many people on deck for this party, I was afraid someone would see me toss it and suspect me. So I chose to hide the bottle. My whole plan was to blend in among hundreds of people, making it impossible for a detective to single me out. But once I entered the detective's line of sight and suspicion fell on me, just like Kid reasoned, exposure was only a matter of time."
"I was confident I could pull it off even with Detective Mouri present. Who knew the party I planned so perfectly would become the key to my downfall."
It turned out the president had slipped a crime notice into Mouri's invitation letter. The victim had originally wanted Mouri to investigate his wife's embezzlement. But instead, the wife struck first and killed him.
Fate really plays tricks.