THE HOST
From a huge and dark CCTV monitoring room, the mysterious host watches carefully the computer’s room which has turned into a bloody crime scene. He/She gets incensed at none of those detectives’ being able to find out the treasure, killing each other very rapidly instead. Suddenly, the computer’s room’s spy camera, located in the wall lamps, turns off and someone named « The Seventh Detective » types on the computer’s keyboard, asking the host to come and meet him in the dining room as he’s found where the treasure is. The host then leaves and runs towards the dining room, in complete confusion, as none should be alive by now in the mansion and only 6 detectives have been invited to the party. As he/she hesitates before pushing the room’s door, Conan turns up behind him/her and says it can happen sometimes that a murderer fakes their own death in order to walk freely along and kill other people incognito, which is the case here as Furuyo Senma pretended to die in the car explosion but actually survived, and is the true eerie host and murderer.
THE MURDERS
Conan says Senma got off the car after activating the time-lapse explosion, and hid behind bushes, then went back discreetly to the mansion while everybody thought she had perished in the bombing. Senma answers she actually spotted the bomb mechanism in the car and moved out just in time to avoid death ; she got seriously dizzied though and it took her a great deal of time to walk back to the mansion ; she’s arrived just now. As she claims only fate could decide which person would get a tails and get into the car, Conan replies she did have the intention of flipping for it and already had a coin in her pocket. She put it tails over the back of her hand and hid it with her other hand while tossing the coin she picked among Conan’s ones. She left that coin falling on the ground and concealed it with her foot while pretending to grab it and put it over her hand, but actually just revealed the coin over her hand afterwards, ensuring she would get into the car and fake her death. She had set a bomb in the maid’s car way beforehand, proving she’s the host, as she’d actually come earlier to the mansion, when none had arrived yet. The fact is Senma again resorted to the 10-yen coin she had used earlier to test the oxidization reaction in Oogami’s tea.
Conan explains Senma had the perfect timing and opportunity to kill Oogami, and only Oogami, as she had put cyanide on the upper part of the handle of everyone’s cup, which means everyone could have been poisoned when connecting their right or left thumb to their mouth. Only Oogami died because he had the twitch of biting his nails when tense or reflecting on something, which occurred when the mannequin told the spooky story about Karasuma and the enigma. Oogami had told Ishihara to serve dishes or tea in such order, something Senma knew and then she also knew when the maid would bring tea and teacups, and she set beforehand the mannequin’s voice to tell the story at that moment, and to announce Oogami’s death not long after, as she knew he would die very soon. Senma says Hakuba had told everyone to wipe their cutlery and so just in case (which actually was useless), but Conan replies they hadn’t thought about the secret place where poison had really been left, and adds Oogami didn’t do it as he and Senma were accomplices and were the real organisers and hosts of the scavenger hunt. Therefore, he didn’t expect Senma would kill him. She probably recorded words on the tape that Oogami hadn’t told her to when they planned the evening, explaining why Oogami got tense at that moment.
The Mercedes was a car either Oogami or Senma had drove up to the mansion, in order to make Ishihara believe the host had been in the mansion since the early morning. But in order to leave the place and come back afterwards as a « guest », Oogami or Senma imperatively needed an accomplice which had hid and parked further down the mountain to give a lift back to the other. Senma claimed her car had broken down because she was waiting for Kogoro Mouri to come, needing to check if that man she wasn’t acquainted with would smoke during the evening and then endanger himself, since the poison on the cup would end up on his fingers and kill him if he ever connected his fingers to his lips when smoking. Which is why she asked him not to smoke during the party as she allegedly hated it and didn’t want him to die. Mogi died because he was ignorant of that fact and lit a cigarette with poison all over his fingers. Senma though had planned with Oogami for another person to die on that night: Ishihara. Indeed, Oogami or Senma had spotted, during the weird job interview, Ishihara’s tic of biting her nails, and hired her immediately, intending to use her own twitch to cause her death, just like Oogami, since she would get poison on her fingers when laying the cups or clearing them. Which is why Ishihara was the only one chosen: they were expecting someone with that twitch for the job.
Senma killed her accomplice Oogami and faked her death in order to watch the detectives killing each other – or surviving – while looking for and finding the mansion’s treasure. She attracted the detectives here hoping they would eventually find it, lured by Kid and the strange enigma. Senma needed to have the secret code deciphered and was even ready to kill them all right after, including herself, explaining why guns had been put under each guest’s pillows and the presence of the poisoned needle inside the computer’s room, when the detective knowing where the treasure is would leave the room after telling it to Senma, and die straight away.
THE MOTIVES
Senma wanted to do the exact same thing Renya Karasuma did 40 years ago: attracting people to his mansion, hoping they would find his treasure, then killing them all. This happened just before his death and way before the secret auction sale. Conan says he deduced it when reading at the end of the bloody message on the piano the name « Kyosuke Senma ». Senma confirms Kyosuke to be her father, a famous archaeologist who had been invited to the mansion, on Renya Karasuma’s request, 40 years ago. Karasuma had inherited a fabulous treasure from his mother, along with her Twilight Mansion, and he had recently found a clue hinting at the fact that the treasure could be hidden somewhere in the mansion. Karasuma’s mother had told his son to do anything he could, even sacrificing his own life, to find it, as she had never found it neither. And Karasuma, aged nearly 100 and fearing for his upcoming death, asked an archeologist to come along and do the same, telling him and expecting the same from him. Senma’s dad got really well paid by Karasuma, but some day he vanished into thin air, only sending Senma’s family a letter and his last wages. Senma read again the letter some day, and when putting it under a lamp’s light, she realised it had been pierced with tiny needle holes, hinting at a secret code. Senma deciphered it and understood what happened to her father : Karasuma had actually invited a very large group of archeologists that he expected to retrieve his treasure, only giving them the secret code he had in his possession, the enigma with the king, princess and knight. She read Karasuma completely lost patience and killed the archeologists one after the other, as they had still not found it and he was on the brink of dying. Karasuma had the intention to silence everyone without exception anyway, even if the treasure were found. Senma didn’t tell the police about it as twenty years had passed now when she read the letter again. Karasuma had died long ago, his family had slipped off, after losing all their prestige, and Twilight Mansion had gone through other hands since then.
Two years ago, Senma met Oogami and made the mistake to tell him about it, and the latter thought about an improbable idea : he quickly found where the mansion was, and invited Senma to search for the treasure with him there, to no avail. Afterwards, they ran into debts to acquire the mansion and search it deeper. Up against it, Oogami told Senma about inviting some other great detectives to the mansion, in order to have them find it in their place. Oogami thought about a « And then they were none » death game, during which he and Senma would fake their death and wait for the others to kill one another while racing for the treasure. Oogami said he would pretend Kaito Kid had organised the whole thing and were the serial killer, something which would attract whichever private eye. At first, Senma didn’t want to kill people for real, but Oogami said it would be more exciting if they were really in danger, if the maid was really killed due to her twitch, and this would even prompt them more to search for the treasure, in order to survive, and they would lay all responsibility on Kid. But Oogami never considered Senma would kill him using his own twitch, in order to do just the same as what happened to her father 40 years ago, and to punish Oogami in a way for his cruelty.
Oogami got tense and bit his nail as Senma had recorded some words he didn’t expect on the tape: Oogami had in fact planned to kill the maid after dinner, but Senma had planned the record to be right when they would be having tea instead, therefore killing Oogami. The maid was supposed to die after dinner, when she would have cleared the table and come back into the room to listen to the spooky story, bite her nail, and die immediately. Ishihara wasn’t here during the story as it was still tea time, then she couldn’t die straight away and Senma had done it on purpose to murder Oogami first instead. Senma also killed Oogami because he had lied to her and intended to kill everybody including herself, in order to keep the treasure only for himself; he expected everyone to kill each other with the guns he had put under each guest’s pillow. Senma suppressed him then to leave more time and opportunities for the detectives to find the treasure, whereas killing them all would have thwarted all of her plans. But actually she notes everything ended up just like 40 years ago.
THE ENIGMA AND TREASURE
Though, Conan says Kyosuke Senma had actually deciphered the code : Conan indeed explains her it’s weird there’s only one clock in such a huge mansion, in the dining room. Climbing on the hearth, Conan reveals « The night when the two travellers gazed at the sky » means both hour and minute hands must be turned clockwise (or unclockwise) up to « 12 » which is midnight, as if both hands were pointing and looking at the midnight sky. Kyosuke Senma had left a bloody message on the piano, referring to the « trump card », which implies the enigma has to do with a card game then.
The king with his treasure refers to the king of diamonds, the princess pouring tears into the Holy Grail refers to the queen of hearts, and the knight stabbing himself refers to the jack of spades. This means to move both clock hands towards where the card faces are looking : left for the king of diamonds and queen of hearts, right for the jack of spades. You then have, according to the direction, to move the hands as many five-minute intervals forward as it corresponds to each card’s value : 13 for the king of diamonds, 12 for the queen of hearts, 11 for the jack of spades, in that order.
Conan does so and suddenly the clock comes off the wall and falls on the floor, and its layer of lacquer then gets chipped off on its upper part, disclosing gold under it. Conan realises this heavy clock is in solid gold, and Senma laments her father and so many other archeologists lost their lives for a mere little round item covered in gold.
Senma can’t tell Conan how to escape Twilight Mansion as she reveals there’s actually no way to reach civilisation again ; she intended to commit suicide in the mansion after finding or not the treasure and after everyone had been missing or died, and lied to Oogami to lure him into preparing their ploys.
THE REVELATION
Senma overhears people behind her saying that they were convinced she would never tell the truth about how to leave the place, even to a seven-year-old boy. She turns around awe-stricken and realises all the guests faked their death just like her (except Oogami of course; using ketchup as fake blood, imitating death or fainting, etc.). Mogi survived even if he smoked as he had found out about Senma’s trick with poison way before just daring to light a cigarette. Ishihara seems alive too, implying Senma probbaly put poison on cups after she had laid them on the table, and she didn’t clear it afterwards as Oogami had suddenly passed away. They reveal Conan had advised them to play dead, while he, as a plain kid, would confront the murderer who wouldn’t mind telling a kid the truth and how to escape the manor (as she might have thought none would ever believe a kid and actually none could escape). They also pretended to kill each other not to be killed by Senma if they confronted her or revealed her ploy aloud. The only « bad thing » they did was to really put Ran and Ishihara to sleep, fearing they might not stand the fake death scene or screw up the plan.
They’d known Senma was the murderer since the tails-or-heads thing, when she hurried to pick Conan’s coin first, doing it between her index and middle fingers only, because it was a bronze/copper one and if she or anyone had touched it with their poisoned fingers, there would have all noticed the oxidization reaction and would have accordingly discovered the truth. They realised Senma was very suspicious then, and found out about how the poison was given when noting Oogami had bitten his nail before dying. Senma stares at Conan and gets it that he fooled her into telling him the truth and disclosing herself.
As everyone wonder how to leave the mansion, they hear the sound of a roaring police helicopter Hakuba had called : he had in fact pasted the huge white X-shaped cross on the roof of Ishihara’s car before they left, in order for his Watson hawk to spot it when aloft, tracking down the car, and when the car blew up, Watson probably just followed the road and found another car, and someone may have found the message tied and wrapped around its leg, and called the police, telling them to go and help the survivors. Hakuba didn’t tell them earlier about it as he wasn’t sure if Watson would come back or even find someone on his way, as hawks don’t usually react like homing pigeons do. Conan overhears a strange but huge cracking sound standing out against the helicopter’s blades’ humming sound, probably originating from the mansion.
As everyone leave Twilight Mansion aboard the helicopter at dawn, Ran comments on Kid’s absence after all, while Senma tells Mogi she chose to fake her death as she thought these brilliant detectives would surely find what she failed to discover with Oogami. As she comments on the fact she’s been bewitched by Karasuma, she rushes to the helicopter’s door and leaps into the void. Kogoro leaps as well and catches her, revealing he is Kid in disguise, hang-gliding. Kid says to Senma she’s too old and mature to play that kind of acrobatics, but she calls him a moron, saying she actually saved him : Conan and Hakuba knew that Mouri was Kid and especially Conan was targeting Mouri with his stungun watch in the helicopter. Kid actually made the mistake not to smoke a single cigarette at the mansion, even far away from Senma and before dinner, while Kogoro Mouri is a notorious heavy smoker. She leapt both to die and to apologise for using and soiling Kid’s name to attract the detectives to the mansion, and then having him look like a murderer to the others’ eyes. Kid says Hakuba and Conan are just like an old mistress he tries to avoid systematically as much as possible. He adds that he gives up on Karasuma’s treasure as it is way too big for his small rucksack, and, saying so, he ties Senma to a string connecting her to the helicopter, escaping once more, and leaving her and the people aloft beholding Twilight Mansion’s walls and painting crumbling and going to pieces, disclosing a wonderful golden manor, shining like the sun, explaining the term « Twilight/Sunset ». The clock had actually set off a mechanism, that suits very well Renya Karasuma, who « always sees and wants more and more ».
Ran still wonders where her dad is, as Kogoro wakes up in the gas station, almost unclothed and tied up to the station’s mechanic, wondering what the heck is going on…
