Chapter 147: Catching the Culprit
"Chief, you were fretting over this all day yesterday, weren't you? You even complained I wasn't taking it seriously enough. So I gave it some thought, and I decided you were right—letting things slide really wouldn't do. That's why I asked a detective friend of mine to help out... And, well, that's the whole story." Charlotte explained, her gaze drifting off to the side.
Honestly, she was feeling a little awkward right now. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined her editor-in-chief would make the exact same choice she had—and that the two parties would end up colliding head-on like this.
Sure enough, the moment Mouri Kogoro learned that Charlotte had hired a detective of her own, the threat of a rival made him bristle, and the admiration he'd been basking in just moments ago evaporated on the spot.
Conan: Heh. What you were admiring just now was obviously Charlotte's face, wasn't it, old man?
Oblivious to Conan's silent commentary, Kogoro turned to Charlotte and asked, looking distinctly put out, "So then, Miss Charlotte—what's the name of this detective friend of yours? Perhaps I know them. We could even compare notes sometime."
Hmph. He'd love to see just which detective fancied his chances of stealing a commission from him.
Charlotte shook off her embarrassment in short order and broke into a bright, energetic smile. Far from taking offense at the pique in Kogoro's voice, she gazed up at him with something close to reverence and said with a grin:
"Actually, my friend does know you, Detective Mouri. She's mentioned you to me before. She said you're light on your feet, and that you keep your talents well hidden..."
A crack shot from his days at the police academy, by all accounts an even better marksman than Furuya Rei—though to this day, hardly anyone knew it.
"...Extraordinarily gifted, with stamina that defies belief..."
Truly—a man who could take a thousand-plus tranquilizer darts and come away without a scratch.
"...And a talent for solving cases that no one alive could hope to match..."
Which was true, in its way: at any crime scene, any suspect Detective Mouri fingered was guaranteed not to be the real culprit.
"In short, a great detective who truly lives up to the name!" Charlotte concluded. "I used to think she was laying it on thick, but now that I've met you in person? Not a word of it was exaggerated. If anything, she was being modest."
Conan: "..."
He genuinely hadn't expected to live long enough to hear anyone sing Uncle Mouri's praises this highly. Is this Miss Charlotte for real?
Ran, for her part, was plainly delighted to hear her father praised so warmly—and even Kogoro, once he'd heard Charlotte out, let his little sulk go and threw back his head with a roar of laughter:
"Hahahaha! Your detective friend has quite the eye, doesn't she? That's right—I, the Great Detective Mouri Kogoro, am indeed extraordinarily gifted!"
He was, after all, the man who could crack cases in his sleep—the renowned Sleeping Kogoro. Hahahaha.
The more Kogoro turned it over in his mind, the more certain he became that both Charlotte and her friend were women of excellent judgment.
"Oh, that reminds me, Miss Charlotte—you still haven't told me your friend's name."
Asking the question a second time, his tone had warmed considerably; not a trace of the earlier irritation remained.
"Oh, her name's Natsume Xiayu. You know her, don't you, Detective Mouri?"
"Eh?!"
Never in their wildest dreams had the three of them expected Charlotte's detective friend to be Xiayu.
At the mention of big sister Xiayu's name, Conan instinctively began studying Charlotte's outfit with fresh eyes, hunting for that familiar Vision ornament.
To his surprise, however, there was no Vision to be seen on her anywhere. Determined not to have missed it, he even contrived to circle around her for a second look—still nothing.
That was strange. He'd assumed that anyone who knew Xiayu, carried an aura that set her apart from ordinary people, and gave off much the same presence as Xiangling or Lisa would surely be wearing a Vision too.
Or had he simply been overthinking it? Was Charlotte, like Nahida, just someone who happened to know Xiayu?
"Mm-hm, that Xiayu. You do know her, right, Detective Mouri?" Charlotte repeated patiently.
"We do know her, it's just... I never imagined you'd be friends with Xiayu too. Beika really does feel like a small world sometimes—you run into familiar faces everywhere you go," Ran marveled.
"Oh, that's right, Miss Charlotte..."
"If we're all friends of Xiayu's, then there's no need for the formalities, Ran. Just call me Charlotte."
"Then... Charlotte, if you've taken on Xiayu as your detective, where is she right now?" Without giving it much thought, Ran hesitated only a beat before switching to the name as instructed.
"Oh, Xiayu? Right now she's tailing that suspicious man who slipped me the threatening letter a little while ago. She's planning to use him to trace things back to the mastermind," Charlotte replied, as breezily as if she were reporting the weather.
"WHAT?!"
The three of them cried out in astonishment all over again—and this time, Editor-in-Chief Takeuchi joined the chorus.
"Did I not mention that? Xiayu and I have been together this whole time. When we spotted the suspicious person, the two of us chased after him together—it's just that Xiayu said something like this only needed her, so I came back first."
The four of them—Kogoro, Ran, Conan, and Takeuchi—shook their heads in perfect unison: no, she most certainly had not mentioned any of that.
By the time Takeuchi Koichi registered what Charlotte had actually said, he had already launched into another fretful lecture:
"Charlotte! How is it that your friend is just as reckless as you are?! Going after him all on her own! That Miss Natsume can't be much older than you, surely—what if something happens to her out there, chasing him by herself?!"
Just as Takeuchi was spiraling into worry, a hand clapped him on the shoulder several times. He turned to find Mouri Kogoro standing there.
Wearing a look of utter seriousness, Kogoro patted the man's shoulder and said, "Relax. If it's the Natsume Xiayu I know, then the one you ought to be worrying about is that suspicious character."
Takeuchi didn't quite follow. He looked to Ran and the others in bewilderment—only to see Ran, Conan, and Charlotte all nodding at once, in wholehearted agreement with Kogoro's assessment.
Conan, meanwhile, let out a faintly dispirited sigh.
Man... With big sis Xiayu's skills, the moment she picked up that suspicious guy's trail she was guaranteed to shadow him without being spotted and follow him straight to his accomplices—if he had any, that is. And if he didn't, she'd bag the culprit just as easily.
Which meant that from here on out, this case had no more need of him. Ugh.
Conan couldn't help but sigh once more.
Sure enough, about ten minutes after the group followed Charlotte up into her apartment to rest, her phone rang.
It was Xiayu—calling with the news that the culprit behind the threatening letter had already been caught, by her own two hands.