The Client's Message
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| Episode 689 (Int. Episode {{{int-episode}}}) | |
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| Title: | The Client's Message |
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| Japanese title: | 依頼人からのメッセージ (Irai-nin Kara no Messēji) |
| Original airdate: | March 2, 2013 |
| Season: | 22 |
| Manga source: | TV Original |
| Cast: | Conan Edogawa Ran Mouri Kogoro Mouri Inspector Megure Wataru Takagi |
| Case solved by: | Kogoro Mouri (via Conan) |
| Next Conan's Hint: | Candy |
| Director: | Yasuichiro Yamamoto |
| Screenplay: | Atsushi Maekawa |
| Storyboard: | Susumu Nishizawa |
| Episode director: | Minoru Tozawa |
| Animation director: | Chiemi Hironaka |
| Opening song: | TRY AGAIN |
| Closing song: | Hitomi no Melody |
Cast
Gadgets
Case
Situation
On the rainy night, Kogoro, Ran, and Conan are riding in the rental car talking about the person who requested Kogoro to investigate if her boyfriend was cheating passed away. The person's name is Kaoru Sasamori and she fell down a flight of stone stairways. It happened three months ago when four people were at the funeral of Kaoru Sasamori. The four people are Takashi Sasamori (Kaoru's older brother), Hikari Tsuge (Kaoru's ex-lover), Mariko Noguchi (Tsuge's manager), and Kazumi Ishikura (Kaoru's friend). It started when Takashi angrily accused Tsuge as the murderer pushing Kaoru down the stairs which he saw him do it. The police already investigated and the misunderstandings were solved but it doesn't fool Takashi. Tsuge denies every word what Takashi said because he claims that he did not kill Kaoru. Back in the present, Kogoro is going to Tsuge's house because this morning, Tsuge contacted to Kogoro saying, "About that time's murderer, I'll tell you, so please come."
On the next stop, when Kogoro talks to the officer of what's happening, the officer said there was a landslide ahead. The right road is inaccessible. They were going to Tsuge's house so they can take the left road. Kogoro is not the only one who's invited but the three other people that made a commotion at the funeral are also coming. When Kogoro arrives at Tsuge's house, Takashi and Noguchi were there also. They brought umbrellas which they won't get wet in the rain. Noguchi enters the house to look for Tsuge. Ran notices Kazumi coming from her car without bringing an umbrella because she forgot to bring one so Ran helps her not to get wet more often by going under Ran's umbrella. While Conan is checking Kazumi's car, he heard a scream and when the group went inside the house, they found Tsuge dead with the head injury which made the pool of blood.
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Kogoro checks his wrist and confirms that he's dead so he told Ran to call the police. He also orders the rest of the people to leave the crime scene. Before they're about to leave, Noguchi requests Kogoro for not touching Tsuge's art piece. Kogoro understands it so he will inform the police about it. While Conan is investigating, he notices three pieces of tape on the floor. Only on the tape there's no dust. That means there was something on it earlier. He also notices the screen and the art piece. The word that's labeled at the bottom of the art piece says, "Demurrer", so Conan thinks it meant "to object" or something.
While the police investigates the crime scene, Takagi confirms that the victim is Hikari Tsuge. His real name is "Ritsu Hikage" and he's 33 years old. His profession was a sculptor and Hikari Tsuge is an anagram from Ritsu Hikage. An anagram is where you rearrange characters to make a different word. The cause of death was an occipital blow leading to intracranial injury. What may seem to be the murder weapon, the hammer, was on the ground nearby, but the fingerprints have been wiped clean.
Megure begins the conversation with the three people. Everyone was told by the victim that he will tell who the culprit is from three months ago so they were all invited to Tsuge's house. Though, when they all arrived, Tsuge wasn't breathing anymore and the culprit had already left. According to the officer from the checkpoint, the atelier's path was not crossed by a single person, apparently. To begin with, excluding U-turns, only four cars drove up the slope. The four cars belonging to Kogoro, Takashi, Noguchi, and Kazumi. Meaning the culprit could be among them. For coming to Tsuge's house, there's only one path and ahead there's a checkpoint. In the rain, going down the dark slopes is risky. This would be truly called a closed circle. The ones who got to Tsuge's house were her with Conan and Kogoro and the rest came afterwards. Takashi was leading, behind Takashi was Kazumi, and lastly Noguchi. They all went inside together and found the corpse. At the checkpoint, when Kogoro, Ran, and Conan were heading toward the atelier, what the officer said, "You guys, too?" meaning there was a person who was ahead of them who went to the atelier. About the type of car or driver, they could ask the officer about it. About that, he remembers they were four cars. As for what type of car or driver, he can't remember. In other words, if they can organize the story, this is how it went down. From the beginning, there was only one car at the atelier and that's Tsuge's car. Then Kogoro's group arrived, next is three cars and now it's four cars. However, according to the policeman, there was a car in front of Kogoro. That means the culprit's car arrived first and murdered Tsuge. For the time being, he left the atelier and hid elsewhere. Until everyone came, he waited, then appeared as if nothing had happened. The question is what's the motive and Kogoro deduces that the culprit's motive is to silence him. From Tsuge, three months ago, the culprit heard that he will reveal who the murderer is, so the culprit came to Tsuge's house as soon as possible and murdered Tsuge. In other words, this case's murderer may be the same one who murdered Kaoru Sasamori. The three suspects are Takashi, Noguchi, and Kazumi.
Takashi claims that he's not the culprit and he says one day, he made a promise to his sister to have a meal. But the shoot got prolonged. Takashi was a bit late and when he went to the meeting place, he totally saw Kaoru got pushed down by the stairs and went to her.
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He was certain that he saw Tsuge who was on top of the stone stairs. So he jumped to conclusions that Tsuge was the culprit. About the motives, Kazumi mentions that Kaoru told her about Takashi and Kaoru didn't get along because they were disputing over their parent's inheritance money so Kazumi suspects Takashi is the one who pushes Kaoru down the stairs. Another motive, Noguchi explains Tsuge had another woman other than Kaoru. Who that other person to have it investigated, she hired Kogoro. The other woman is none other than Kazumi Ishikura. Kazumi also didn't know to think that Tsuge would go out with Kaoru. It happens this: Kazumi received a message on her phone from Kaoru saying, "I was proposed to by Tsuge! What should I do?" So when Kazumi went to Tsuge, she made a big argument with him about breaking up with Kaoru because Kazumi is supposed to be Tsuge's lover. Takashi reveals this from her sister: Noguchi was trying to pay Kaoru to break up with Tsuge but she refuses the payment. Fed up seeing Tsuge not working, Noguchi began to look for a different client, a different artist, is what Takashi heard. If that happens, she'll have to pay a huge penalty.
Conan asks Takagi if he could take him to a spot where the car hides so they went to the woods by riding a car. As Conan gets out, he passed by the cabin and found something that the culprit took away from the crime scene.
