Chapter 18: Eagle-Eye Vision [An Experiment in Prediction and Pursuit ꉂ(ˊᗜˋ*)]

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The sea wind before dawn had not only roused Kogoro Mouri from his sleep; it had also sent a chill through everyone aboard the Hatamoto family yacht.

Akie Hatamoto’s body still lay at the stern of the deck, though Mouri had covered her with his coat.

“I’m afraid she was already dead when I arrived,” Mouri said with a long sigh.

He had never imagined that so much could happen while he was drunk. Even the old patriarch had been murdered in his cabin.

“The fatal wound was a single stab to the chest. It was delivered very quickly, but for some reason the knife was pulled out only halfway…”

“Whew!”

Gao Mo stood deep in thought beside Natsue Hatamoto and the others, his peripheral vision sweeping over everyone at the scene. With the arrival of Tatsuo Hatamoto—the last person to appear—there had been no further movement.

The artist Ichiro Hatamoto, the suspected murderer, was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Ichiro?” Mariko, his mother, realized it at the same moment and cried out in panic. “Why hasn’t Ichiro come? Hurry, go find him!”

The couple did not linger. They hurried back into the cabin.

Conan followed them, but Gao Mo called out to Natsue and Ran, stopping them in their tracks. “You’d better not run around at a time like this. Let them search.”

After lifting the coat to examine Akie’s body, Gao Mo exhaled softly and took the initiative to activate his Eagle-Eye Vision.

A headache.

He had no desire to get involved in this case, but as he recalled it, Akie Hatamoto was not supposed to have been murdered…

The murderous intent was spreading.

They could not delay any longer. If the case was not solved quickly, things might spiral completely out of control.

Whoosh!

As a faint light flickered in his eyes, countless details from the darkness flooded into Gao Mo’s mind.

Akie’s posture in death. The patterns of blood spatter. The tiny abrasions on the railing…

The scene had apparently been chaotic at the time of the incident, as though three people had been present.

There was too much extraneous information.

As for what had actually happened, his observation-based supernatural ability could not reconstruct the sequence of events backward.

“Is that…”

At the very last moment, Gao Mo noticed streaks of blood on the outer hull. Faint traces of blood particles seemed to lead downward.

But when he tried to examine them more closely, dizziness began pounding through his head.

At the same time, a lethal threat came stabbing toward him from behind like a needle.

It had come…

Enduring the vertigo, Gao Mo spun around, but found nothing.

Using supernatural power could amplify murderous intent, yet if the other party deliberately concealed it, determining its source was extremely difficult.

Damn it.

So every one of them was hiding murderous intent?

From the corner of his eye, Gao Mo watched Shoji Hatamoto and Tatsuo Hatamoto—the only two people remaining.

He could not tell whether the killing intent was directed at him or had something to do with Natsue.

Was it one of the two? Or did both men harbor designs on Natsue…?

“Whoosh, whoosh!”

The wind at the stern grew louder.

After a while, Mariko and her husband returned to the deck looking utterly lost. The older woman no longer wore the aggressive expression she had shown earlier; her entire heart was consumed by worry for her son.

“We couldn’t find him. How could we not find him?”

“My Ichiro…”

“Stop crying!” Tatsuo snapped in disgust. “Maybe your Ichiro was the one who killed Akie. He’s never been right in the head. He probably hated me for bullying him…”

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“How could Ichiro possibly do such a thing?” Mariko exploded. “I think you’re the one who killed Akie! I heard every word of your argument. You were afraid Akie would divorce you, weren’t you? She’d already found another man!”

“What nonsense are you talking about? I argued with Akie, yes, but no matter what, I’d never kill anyone! Besides, it’s not as if I could inherit anything!”

Tatsuo hurled back an insult and turned toward Gao Mo.

“And Natsue and the others were there at the time. How could I have slipped away and killed Akie?”

“We went to the storage room afterward to check on Mr. Takeo,” Ran and Natsue explained together, arm in arm.

“Regardless, I was in my room the whole time,” Tatsuo spat. “It was obviously Ichiro. Why else would he be hiding?”

“What kind of thing is that to say? Hiding?” Mariko wiped away her tears without stopping. “Something may have happened to Ichiro!”

Nearby, Kogoro Mouri listened to their quarrel with a splitting headache. The aftereffects of his drunkenness were beginning to set in as well; a gust of cold wind swept over him, and his stomach churned violently.

“Stop arguing. Until we reach Tokyo, everyone should stay in the dining room. Once we arrive, we’ll leave everything to the police…”

“No!” Mariko rejected the suggestion flatly. “Something may have happened to our Ichiro. How can we sit around and hide?”

“I’ll go look for Ichiro,” Mouri said wearily. “You all stay in the dining room. Is that acceptable?”

“Our Ichiro may be terrified. Hurry!”

“I know!”

After calming the Hatamoto family and ushering them into the dining room, the mustached detective finally noticed that Gao Mo had been standing beside the railing all along.

“What is it, Kido… Mr. Butler?”

“Uncle, you slept in the dining room the whole time. Didn’t you notice anything?” Gao Mo’s gaze remained fixed beyond the railing.

He was no detective. His only supernatural skill was Eagle-Eye Vision.

Finding clues did not necessarily mean he could make use of them. He always felt that something was missing.

As a detective, he was scarcely any better than a complete amateur.

Mouri’s Detective Notes were of no help either, and might even have led him in the wrong direction.

“I think I heard something,” the mustached man said, his stomach feeling worse by the moment as his complexion shifted repeatedly. “The sound of someone falling into the water…

“But I probably heard wrong. What matters now is finding that Ichiro fellow. Otherwise, who knows what kind of uproar that family will cause.”

“You should rest, Uncle. Ran and I will handle the search.”

Gao Mo withdrew his gaze and turned toward the dining room.

The Hatamoto family had nearly been wiped out. Only three members of the direct line remained, along with two men who had married into the family.

It was almost as though they had been cursed.

“Be careful, then,” the mustached man said. He was too exhausted to object, though he continued to watch the people in the dining room warily. “If I had to say who is most likely to be the murderer, it would be Tatsuo Hatamoto. I’ll keep a close eye on him.”

Tatsuo Hatamoto?

Gao Mo had indeed noticed the vicious look in the kept man’s eyes.

Even as a man who had married into the family, Tatsuo made no effort to conceal his covetousness toward the Hatamoto fortune.

Considering his relationship with Akie Hatamoto, it was hardly strange that Tatsuo had directed murderous intent at Gao Mo earlier—even though Gao Mo had done nothing.

He also had a sufficient motive, whether for killing the old patriarch or Akie…

“Butler Kindaichi, my sister is getting restless again.” Shoji Hatamoto emerged from the dining room with an expression of helplessness. “I’ll help search for Ichiro. The ship still isn’t safe, so Miss Ran and Natsue should remain in the dining room.”

“There’s no need. They’ll be safer with me.” Gao Mo had no intention of letting his bodyguard out of his sight.

“Safer?”

Shoji stared at Gao Mo’s slender figure in surprise.

His delicate, scholarly air was so pronounced that he gave off not the slightest impression of being able to keep anyone safe.

“Then I’ll come along too. With me there, even if that Ichiro bastard is the murderer, he won’t dare do anything reckless.”

“…”

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He had been underestimated again.

Gao Mo lowered his face and walked ahead.

Once they returned, he would have to train properly. He was not short of money for the time being, so he could hire a personal trainer to help strengthen his body.

He also needed to advance his combat profession as soon as possible.

He was not Conan. He could not rely on Ran to protect him every time.

…

The passenger cabins.

Conan walked out of Ichiro Hatamoto’s room, resting his chin on his hand.

The art student’s room was filled with countless sketches of Natsue. She looked even more beautiful than she did in person, like a goddess radiating light.

Conan did not understand what Ichiro had been thinking, but the breadcrumbs found at the crime scene were indeed connected to the art student.

There was even bread on the drawing board, used as an eraser.

Furthermore, after reexamining the scene, Conan found that the breadcrumbs there contained traces of charcoal as well.

The question was—where had Ichiro Hatamoto gone?

Was he also the one who had murdered Akie Hatamoto…?

Conan leafed through the memorandum Gao Mo had given him. He now had a rough outline of the case, but many questions still remained.

The old patriarch had once flown into a rage because the art student was fond of Natsue. He had even called him “a toad lusting after a swan.”

There was certainly a motive for killing the old man.

But why had Akie been murdered?

Conan’s thoughts turned to Tatsuo Hatamoto.

Perhaps there was a second murderer.

“Conan!”

Ran arrived in the passenger cabins with Gao Mo and the others. Seeing Conan deep in thought over the case, she released a long sigh of relief.

“Honestly, where did you run off to? Stop making everyone worry!”

“How is it?” Gao Mo stepped up beside Conan. “Do you know who the murderer is?”

“The person who killed the old patriarch, Gozo Hatamoto, was definitely Ichiro.”

Conan answered instinctively, already lost in thought.

“The murder weapon was Young Master Shoji’s kitchen knife. Two knives went missing in total—one was found with Miss Akie, and the other is very likely with Ichiro. But…”

After a slight pause, Conan suddenly broke into a cold sweat beneath Gao Mo’s smiling gaze.

Damn it. Whenever he entered a deductive state, he forgot that he was supposed to be a child.

This man was deliberately testing him…

How despicable!

“More than one murderer?” Gao Mo seemed to have caught a glimmer of insight, and the clues gathered by Eagle-Eye Vision resurfaced in his mind.

What if Ichiro had not been hiding at all, but had been murdered alongside Akie?

There was no reason a murderer could not himself be killed by another murderer…

“Butler Kindaichi.” After checking every cabin, Shoji shook his head. “We’ve searched every place where someone could be hiding. Shall we look down by the engine room? I think Ichiro is most likely hiding somewhere deserted…”

“Clack!”

The moment he mentioned the engine room, all the corridor lights suddenly went out. The entire ship plunged into darkness.

“A power outage?”

Gao Mo spun around at the sudden sensation of lethal danger. A flash of insight streaked through his mind, and under the guidance of Eagle-Eye Vision, he hurriedly pulled Natsue closer to Ran.

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