There was a piece of words engraved on the side of the stairs, which were drawn with sharp objects, with hideous words. Hattori Heiji even saw a little despair from it:

[That man pretended to be me and wanted to seize the treasures in the castle...]

The last word has not been engraved, but it is enough to express the meaning of the engraving person.

Hattori Heiji squatted down and carefully observed these few short lines of words.

The words have fallen a lot of dust, which means that these words have existed for a long time. And spending so much effort to leave handwriting in such a place means that the person who engraved the words cannot leave, and may be imprisoned here.

Those who pretend to be writing can seize treasures... This means that the person who left these words has a good status and is likely to be a certain owner in the castle.

But when Hattori Heiji was looking for Conan just now, he did not forget to collect clues from the castle - this family is small, and if there was a big incident in which a certain owner was kidnapped, he would definitely hear some news.

But Hattori Heiji had never heard of similar situations at all.

His eyes stopped on the word "fake" on the wall, and suddenly his spine became cold.

...Perhaps the original owner has been replaced in some way, so the other servants know nothing about this.

The means of replacement are nothing more than plastic surgery and disguise.

For short-term fraud, you can use disguise.

But basically all the people in this family died, and only a few people currently live in castles. Judging from the idea of ​​engraving, "counterfeiting" that lasted for such a long time is more likely to be plastic surgery.

...So who was replaced?

The stepson of Mamiya Miyaki is more likely to be. His parents have passed away, and no one is familiar with him.

But after thinking about it this way, neither Mamiya nor the old lady were too familiar with her.

Also, is there a deceased wife? For example, someone suddenly found that her wife was replaced and set fire in anger, which led to the mischief and shoddy person who unfortunately died in that fire?

Wait, mentioning fire...

Just as he was thinking, Shirashi's slightly shocked voice suddenly came from behind him: "Look at this."

Hattori Heiji was stunned and ran over quickly.

Shiraishi is not like the kind of person who is surprised. Combined with the previous experience of finding mechanisms, what shocks him must be some very useful clues.

Sure enough, Hattori Heiji looked along Shiraishi's pointing and saw a small grey ball of thread.

He squatted down, and under the complicated gaze of Shiraishi next to him, he picked it up with a professional spirit and twisted it, and concluded: "It should be the hair."

These hairs have begun to rot, and there is also a lot of dust on them, which is dry and terrifying, like dead hair.

But the break is relatively new, as if it was just pulled.

Combined with the color of his hair, Hattori Heiji immediately circled a person in his guess, the old lady.

Before, although he also included the old lady in the suspicion list, he felt that the possibility was not too high.127

If you want to imprison a person, even the elderly with inconvenience in legs and feet, it takes a certain amount of effort, and it is difficult for peers to operate. Moreover, disguise is risky, and many clinics may not accept elderly patients.

——In other words, the impostor should not be the old man, but the younger one.

So, who would be willing to have plastic surgery to become an old lady, huddled in a wheelchair every day, and pretended to be Alzheimer's disease?

Even if you are trying to make money, compared with your youthful appearance and freedom, is a treasure with uncertain content really that important?

However, the hair in front of you shows that the truth may indeed be so absurd.

This made Hattori Heiji a little confused again - did this impersonator already know the content of the treasure and believed that it was a treasure that could make him lose his youth, appearance and freedom?

"...The brain circuits of these prisoners are really hard to understand." Hattori Heiji threw away the ball of hair, pointed to the engravings he had just seen, and told Shiraishi about the situation he had guessed.

"So that's how it is." Shiraishi nodded after hearing this and began to "reason". "Since she is dressed as having difficulty in legs and feet and likes to stay in the room, she should have a lot of free time to move around. From the perspective of the surroundings..."

He shook the flashlight around, illuminating the path that was everywhere, and continued:

"There must be more than one place to enter this secret passage. The old lady may have been using these secret passages to enter and exit the castle.

"Today, she found that Mr. Mamiya had let outsiders come in, followed us alertly, and then found a child entering the secret passage... In this way, Conan might have been captured by her." Shiraishi tried hard to lead the situation to this side.

And it's not a lie, it's actually a fact.

"Yes, but she can pretend for so long, maybe she has other helpers in the castle, and we have too few people." Not many people can fight, Hattori Heiji added in his heart and continued:

"I have contacted my dad's colleagues before and start a large-scale search when they come."

As he said that, he glanced at his phone: "Now we have to find the exit first. The underground signal is too bad and we can't contact them."

Shiraishi has no objection.

On the way to find the exit, the two chatted briefly, and Shiraishi took the opportunity to spoil it quietly, and pieced together the idea of ​​Hattori Heiji's prototype.

Hattori Heiji's curiosity in this regard was satisfied, and he finally began to think about the meaning of the chessboard again.

Shiraishi also needs Hattori Heiji to send the information to the "Old Lady".

He said thoughtfully: "I think the information hidden in the chessboard may be related to that master."

Shiraishi actually only remembers the results, but not the exact reason.

But a young detective like Hattori Heiji who is competitive and still has a very demanding face should not be like a supporting actor like Meguro Police Department. After hearing the conclusion, he immediately came over and asked "Why, why, why?" and he would think about it himself first.

In terms of setting, Conan and Hattori Heiji's reasoning ability is not much different.

In the original world line, Conan was able to find out the answer after spending a while in the first world line. It was unreasonable that Hattori Heiji could not even think out when he heard the prompt.

Of course, if he really couldn't think of it and chose to leave his face and ask Shiraishi questions because he was worried about the safety of his companions, Shiraishi planned to say, "From the description of the servant and Mr. Mamiya Man, the old man is a *%*#@ person" - here we apply a few unscrupulous and harsh professional terms to conduct a mess of personality analysis, and finally it means that the secret code set by the old master is probably related to him.

Fortunately, Hattori Heiji didn't let him spend his time.

The Western high school detective indeed began to think about it himself, and after a few minutes he punched it into his palm, he suddenly realized: "So that's how it is!"
Chapter completed!