The Romance Novel with the Unexpected Conclusion

Chronology
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Episode 759-760 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}})
Information
Title:	The Unexpected Result Of Romance Novel
Japanese title:	意外な結果の恋愛小説 (Igainakekka no Ren'ai Shōsetsu)
Original airdate:	November 22, 2014 (Part 1) November 29, 2014 (Part 2)
Season:	23
Manga source:	Volume 83: Files 4-6 (876-878)
Case
Cast:	Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Sonoko Suzuki Masumi Sera Inspector Megure Wataru Takagi Unknown child
Case solved by:	Conan Edogawa Masumi Sera
Next Conan's Hint:	Old postcard (Part 1) Shoulder bag (Part 2)
Music
Opening song:	DYNAMITE
Closing song:	Muteki na Heart

Cast

Characters
Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Sonoko Suzuki Masumi Sera Inspector Megure Wataru Takagi Unknown child Ayumi Yoshida (background) Ai Haibara (background)

Case

Situation

Part 1

Conan, Ran, Sonoko and Masumi walk down the street while talking about the red woman case. They ask her about her self defense techniques, to which she says that her brother used to send her tapes which she watched many times. She tells them that her mother still lives in the United States, which is a reason why she's now staying in a hotel, since her brother didn't want them to live together. Sonoko makes a remark about the cost of living in a hotel, but Masumi tells her that a friend of her father is taking care of it. The groups makes the decision to visit the hotel she is staying at, after which she cancels plans which she had to meet up with her brother.

They ride the elevator up to the 30th floor, where she is staying, and as they leave the elevator Sera mentions that she plans to move out of the hotel soon. In the floor's lobby they see three men apparently waiting. Sera explains to Suzuki that they are waiting for a manuscript of a famous author who also lives in the hotel. Keigo Hiura, a romance author, introduces himself to the group as they pass by his room. After a short exchange with Ran, he invites the waiting men into his suite to eat. Shortly after they gaze upon the food, further room service arrives bearing a wine bottle. Keigo then explains that the person who eats the most will receive the manuscript, which will be tested by weighing on a scale. More food is set to arrive; Beika sushi, pizza, chinese food and donuts. While they are eating, he will take a bath, so they should be cautious that he doesn't leave and do something. The girls are hanging out on the balcony and Conan is curiously looking around the suite. He spots a room which he wants to enter but Masumi interrupts him, saying that the room is in a mess and that he wouldn't want to trip over her panties. While the author's guests are leaving, so that he can finish writing the manuscript, they discuss his success and what an important role in it his assistant, Chiaki Minazuki, plays, who rents a room below his. Some magazines are suspecting the two of being a couple, two of the men state that their publishing houses have even received threats to keep that "man eating beast" away from him. The girls have ordered room service, pastry, sweets and tea to keep them cheerful while they discuss boys and love, with Conan, who joined them, questioning whether he should really be part of it. They then ask him whether he likes someone. Masumi, being very specific, asks if he likes a girl which he met a long time ago and can't forget. Sonoko believes he likes Ayumi, but Ran thinks it's Ai who has caught his eye. At 6 PM, as they are getting ready to leave, they hear the bellboy scream. Conan drops his backpack and the group runs towards the source of the scream. Suddenly a hand opens the door to Masumi's suite.

When they arrive at the lower storey, they see a confused bellboy and the victim, Chiaki, lying on the floor with strangle marks around her neck with Yoshikawa lines. Sera concludes that she has been dead for approximately two to three hours. Keigo arrives at the door with a Nichiuri publisher following him shortly after, who says that the author just wanted to buy cigarettes. After seeing her dead, the man assumes that it has to have something to do with the threats which they received. Hiura yells at him, asking why he hasn't told him anything, that he had the whole day to do it and that during that time he was just peacefully writing his novel. Conan and Masumi seem to believe that he is the culprit.

The bellboy tells the police that he has spotted her when he was bringing champagne which was ordered to be brought exactly at 6 PM. The key card to the room was on the floor and the door was slightly open. Keigo, who ordered the champagne had trouble with the last page of his novel, so thirty minutes before the whole happening he wanted to go for a smoke and stride through the floors, when he arrived at the scene he was just returning from buying a pack from the vending machine and was climbing the stairs which helps him come up with new ideas. Conan makes a remark that during that time the author wasn't doing anything in particular, finding it strange that he knew that she was murdered while he was writing his book, since it could have also happened afterwards. The author explains himself by saying that she didn't arrive at his room three hours earlier to give him some documents, and when he saw her corpse he assumed her death to be the cause why she didn't come. The publisher then explains, together with Hiura, that they were invited to his room and ate there with more takeout food arriving during the time the murder apparently happened and that there was no possibility for the author to just slip through the door and commit the crime, since the guests were the ones who paid for the food. At 4 PM the guests left and waited outside of the suite which they watched over during the whole time. Keigo came out only once to give a finished piece of work. The three manuscripts are almost finished, but he is stuck on the last page of the third one. At 5:30 PM he printed out everything, gave it them and went to buy cigarettes. The publisher was reading the manuscript when he heard the shout, Hiura then called him with the assumption that something had happened. Megure questions the men if they know anyone who holds a grudge towards Chiaki, to which the publisher mentions the threats. Keigo says that there was suspicion of them being a couple since they were photographed together, which is also why his wife divorced him. He claims to have relied on her help a lot, saying that she was partially responsible for the book being finished, and that they even had plans to make her an author next year.

When leaving the scene, they see that a lot of people have gathered on the floor. Conan spots someone in the crowd who looks like Sera but appears to be a middle schooler. He tries to find her, but is interrupted by Ran. He immediately connects her with the girl from the mobile phone. Sera tells the group that the author is the murderer, saying that the door couldn't have been used and that even though one would have to be very brave, the balcony is the only other way. She asks Conan whether he thinks the same to which he agrees.

Murder
	Location: Hotel Victim: Chiaki Minazuki Cause of death: Strangulation Suspects: Keigo Hiura

Part 2

Takagi asks Conan and Masumi if they have taken shampoo bottle caps away from the crime scene, but they haven't, since they only reached the door and didn't go further. He also mentions that somebody has thrown over the table, which landed in the victim's suitcase in the room with beer which was spilled in it. He mentions that the suitcase was quite large, even though there weren't many things in it - clothing, make up, a laptop, a bag and an old post card. The twenty year old post cast was written by Hiura, stating that if he was to use the story he would use the receipient's name for the protagonist. It was adressed to Outa Jun. Ran quickly mentions that Outa Jun is, in fact, the name of the protagonist in the author's book "The cellphone, the sea and I". She quickly explains the plot of the book to the group. A scratched mobile phone is found on the beach, a model which hasn't been released yet, with the message "How old are you?", after a few exchanges via messages between the person who found the phone and the one who was sending the messages, it can be concluded that the person is sending messages from the future. The answer to the question who was sending the messages was "The cellphone, the sea and I", which the protagonist at first didn't understand, but soon she replied with the exact message. The meaning of that message is to be revealed in the new book.

Takagi mentions that the author has invited the publishers to eat in his suite when they asked him for the manuscript, but, had he been in his position, he would've just bowed and apologised due to the pressure, but also says that it would be strange for Hiura to do something like that since he is bald. Conan asks Takagi if the author is already back in his room, but Takagi says that he's still with the police force as he's a suspect and the forensics aren't done with the room yet.

Hiura is getting angry at the police for not dropping their suspicion for him, stating that he simply couldn't have committed the murder since he was in his suite at the time of the murder, which the publisher confirms as they were eating there from 3 PM to 4.30 PM, also, the author says that he isn't James Bond to be able to use a rope to get to the lower storey via the balcony, pointing out further that the balcony is the line of sight from the table where the publishers were eating.

Conan and Masumi begin their reasoning to reveal the culprit and the trick he used.

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Keigo Hiura. Amongst many of the deliveries which he has ordered to his room, Minazuki came to the suite disguised as room service who delivered red wine. As it is usual for red wine to be decanted before serving, it wouldn't be too unusual to lead the service person into one's kitchen. The publisher mentioned that even though he saw the female deliverer arrive at the suite, since they were too focused on eating as much food as possible, they couldn't have noticed her leaving or staying in the suite. Masumi explains that while the publishers were eating in the main room, Keigo has strangled the victim in the bath. He asked her to wait there for him and take off the hotel page uniform, since it wouldn't be easy to undress a corpse. With the help of Takagi, they reconstruct Hiura's method of transporting the corpse to the lower suite. He had put her in the big suitcase after murdering her, and by using a rope and a special knot he easily, after some practice, was able to lower her on the lower balcony after the guests have left. Keigo would hand out manuscripts to the publishers to make it look like he was working on them. At 4.30 PM he left in order to buy cigarettes, but went to the victim's room to place her in front of the door for the bellboy to see her once he delivered the champagne. She explains that the reason beer was spilled in the suitcase was to diminish the smell of the corpse, her wet hair and shampoo. He has removed the shampoo bottle caps from his room since the victim had used them earlier and he wanted to replace them, which he didn't do in time, and he still carried them on him. As conclusive evidence Sera mentions the page uniform which they found on another floor in the trash, which could easily be tested for the culprit's and victim's DNA and sweat.

Keigo admits to the crime, saying that the "man eating" rumours about her were false, instead, she was the one who declined him many times since he was married. He also admits that the book wasn't his opus, but instead it was her's. He got the idea from an old post card, which Takagi mentioned earlier, and after mentioning it to Minazuki, she wanted to choose the title for the book and gave more and more input regarding the story. When he asked her why she did all of it she would just say that one day he would understand.

Conan explains the meaning behind the title. When "Denwa, umi watashi" (でんわ, うみ わたし) (cellphone, sea and I) is translated from Japanese to English and the word order is switched, it can be read as "I, sea tel" which with Romaji pronounciation can be combined and read as "Aishiteru" meaning "I love you". The person who sent the cellphone back in the past was probably her future husband. Keigo says that it is a childish code, to which Conan replies that it doesn't surprise him since it was thought up by a child.

Conan further explains that Minazuki (水無月) is another term for the sixth month of the calendar, June, and that the "Aki" part from Chiaki (千秋) combined with it give Autumn. With both of the words combined and read again it can be pronounced as "Outa Jun" (おおた じゅん), concluding that Outa Jun has been Chiaki Minazuki's pen name.

On the way back Conan explains the meaning of the book name to Ran and Sonoko. Suddenly he hears what appears to be a transmission from a bug he planted, but quickly it turns into an uncomfortable sound since Masami has destroyed the bug with a wrench. The unknown child mentions that she hasn't seen such a bug before, that its range isn't the greatest due to the battery but nonetheless it is interesting to be used in such a way. Sera asks the child if she likes him yet, to which she replies that she's still far away from trusting him, but should the moment arise, Masumi should tell him that she's her little sister from outside the territory.

People

Keigo Hiura
	48 years old Novelist

Chiaki Minazuki
	Victim (strangled) 30 years old Hiura's assistant

Gallery

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Trivia

• When Masumi tells the group about watching jeet kune do tapes which her brother sent her, she is depicted wearing the same yellow dress which Beatrix wears in Kill Bill. (1)

See also

• Season 23