“It’s not quite the same. The old guy is afraid of something else.”
“Uh-huh… If you say so. You never cease to impress me. You just met Fukuzawa, and yet you’ve already seen right through him. I guess you can never underestimate the power of skill users, huh? What was it again? ‘The ability to uncover the truth’?”
“Yep,” confirmed Ranpo with a relaxed nod. “But you don’t believe that, do you?”
“Wait, wait, wait. Of course I do,” the officer replied in a panic. He then assumed a fake smile in a troubled manner. “Heh… I guess the cat’s out of the bag?”
“You wouldn’t even need to be a skill user to see through you. You mentioned that I had ‘just met Fukuzawa,’ which meant you called headquarters and found out that he and I first met this morning during the case of the murdered CEO. Why? Because you wanted to know how good I was.”
“I’m impressed. I underestimated you.”
“I don’t blame you. I don’t like being doubted, so…how about I prove to you that I’m a skill user?”
Ranpo pulled out a pair of black-framed glasses from his pocket—his priceless gift from Fukuzawa.
“Oh, are you sure? What a treat. Feels like I’ve got a front-row seat to the honored skilled detective’s show.”
Ranpo put on his glasses with a sigh, then looked out the window.
“This car isn’t going to the police station, is it?”
Silence. Ranpo and the officer exchanged glances through the rearview mirror until a few moments went by.
“Sigh. You got me,” admitted the officer as he scratched his cheek. “I should have mentioned it before, but I got a call over the radio earlier. They told me there was an accident and to bring the great detective with me.”
“I see,” said Ranpo. His tone conveyed no indication as to how he was feeling.
“But you wouldn’t need to be a skill user to guess that much, right? I mean, I’m not doubting you, though. I just thought that since the police station was near the train station, it would be pretty obvious that we weren’t going there.”
“You’re exactly right.” Ranpo grinned. “Shall we raise the bar, then? How about this? You’ll ask questions about today’s incident, and I’ll use my skill to answer. If I get stumped, you win. If I uncover all the mysteries, I win. How does that sound?”
“Oh, now we’re talking! It doesn’t matter whether I win or lose because this is going to be fun! There’s no reason for me to say no! Can I start?”
“Be my guest,” Ranpo said.
The officer then pondered to himself for a few seconds while tilting his head.
“I’m sure this is something everyone wanted to ask, but…” The officer tapped the steering wheel with his finger as he spoke. “Like, you remember that man in the suit who was tied up onstage? The one who used the fake name. How was he captured and carried to that spot behind the screen?”
“Using a rug,” replied Ranpo while pushing up his glasses with a finger. “There were a few long-haired rugs near the theater entrance, right?”
The officer looked up while rubbing his chin with a finger. “Oh… There were, now that you mention it.”
“After the panic, one of those rugs went missing,” claimed Ranpo. “The floor was bare, and there was a faint but strange smell coming from where the rug used to be. What’s that stuff called again? The stuff you find in paint and plastic that has that weird smell…”
“Organic solvent?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” Ranpo nodded. “It was faint, but I smelled the same thing coming from the man who was tied up. In other words, the criminal wrapped that man up in the carpet and carried him there. The smell was probably coming from an adhesive. The criminal used a spray adhesive on the carpet to catch that suited man as he tried to escape. Then he used some drug to knock him out before rolling him up in the rug and taking him away. That man must be really good at running away for someone to go through that much trouble.”
“Hmm… Well, the stage was very hectic after the incident with ambulance crew and performers cleaning up blood and whatnot, so I guess if someone came walking through with a rug, they wouldn’t really stand out… But why? I know the accomplice was probably the one who carried him, but why would he go through all that trouble?”
“It wasn’t the playwright.”
“Huh?”
“The playwright didn’t even lift a finger. In fact…he was probably killed before the play even started,” Ranpo added as if it were obvious. A change came over the officer’s countenance.
“Th-that can’t… Then who?”