Chapter Fifty-One: The Dog’s Keen Sense of Smell (Please Vote, Please Bookmark)

"What? It's you, Ryoko! I'm meeting a girl, do you mind not messing around?"

"That's right, she's that high school girl from last time. Such naive girls are really hard to come by these days."

"As for creatures like women, you just need to sweet-talk them a bit, and they're yours for the taking. Hehehe..."

Listening to the long-haired handsome man's brazen words, both Suzuki Seimei and Mouri Ran felt their knuckles pop.

Their fists were hardening!

Who knew if this fellow Wakaoji's skull was harder than a utility pole? Hopefully, he wouldn't get himself killed shortly!

Kisaki Eri noticed the coffee cup in Mouri Ran's hand, which was already showing cracks, and shook her head rather helplessly.

If her daughter accidentally beat someone to death later, she should probably be able to handle her not-guilty plea, right?

"That guy is a dead man."

Conan, who was also eavesdropping, felt the terrifying murderous intent radiating from Suzuki Seimei and Mouri Ran. He even had a faint hallucination of malevolent ghosts appearing behind them, and cast a sympathetic glance at the still-oblivious Wakaoji.

Ah!!!

Just as Wakaoji was about to suffer a severe beating, a terrified scream suddenly echoed from the restroom.

"Oh no!"

Suzuki Seimei's expression changed drastically. He turned his head and scanned his surroundings, only to find that the woman wearing sunglasses was nowhere to be seen.

Conan, who had been waiting to watch a good show, reacted like a reflex. He leaped up, churning his short legs, and rushed straight into the restroom.

"Conan..."

Seeing Conan suddenly dart forward, Mouri Ran was slightly startled before hurriedly rising to chase after him.

Suzuki Seimei and Kisaki Eri did not hesitate either, closely following behind toward the restroom.

Conan was the first to rush into the restroom. Following the gaze of the terrified cafe employee who had collapsed to the floor in shock, he saw a large amount of fresh blood pooling from beneath the door of the innermost stall.

Something had happened!

Based on Conan's experience, an ordinary person losing this much blood would undoubtedly be in mortal danger.

Conan rushed hurriedly to the stall door and pushed hard against it, only to find that although the restroom door wasn't locked from the inside, something was blocking it, preventing him from pushing it open.

Bang!

Drawing upon the power of his high-tech sneakers, Conan's jumping ability temporarily skyrocketed. He leaped up and latched onto the top of the stall door, finally catching a clear view of the scene inside.

He saw the woman wearing sunglasses collapsed in an arched position right at the entrance of the stall. A massive amount of fresh blood sprayed across her chest, her wallet and cosmetics case were scattered all over the floor, and a blood-stained dagger lay right beside her corpse.

"Ran-neesan! Call the police quickly, someone is dead in here!"

"Oh... oh..."

Hearing that a murder case had occurred, Mouri Ran no longer had the bandwidth to question why Conan was here. She hurriedly dialed the emergency police number.

Damn it!

Suzuki Seimei cursed inwardly, turning his gaze toward Wakaoji, who was still rubbernecking at the restroom entrance, and mentally added another tally against him.

If his attention hadn't been captured by this fellow earlier, Suzuki Seimei could very well have prevented this tragedy. He would definitely have to teach this guy a severe lesson later.

However, compared to a piece of scum like Wakaoji, Suzuki Seimei despised the murderer, Donan Juzo, even more right now.

Daring to commit murder right under his nose—this was simply showing zero respect to him!

Taking advantage of the fact that everyone else's attention was entirely focused on the victim, Suzuki Seimei secretly retrieved a five-hundred-yen coin, channeled his "Wealth-based Ability" to convert it into financial power, and infused it directly into his nose.

Under the enhancement of this financial power, Suzuki Seimei's sense of smell was vastly upgraded, surpassing even many well-trained military tracking dogs.

Hiss...

Suzuki Seimei took a deep breath, and then... almost threw up on the spot.

Don't forget, this was a restroom!

The combined assault of urine stench, the metallic smell of blood, and body odor flooding his nasal passages all at once was truly an overwhelmingly pungent sensation.

Subjected to such violent stimulation in his nasal cavities, Suzuki Seimei uncontrollably shed two streams of crystal tears.

It was way too intense!

Enduring this nauseating discomfort, Suzuki Seimei quickly distinguished the distribution of the bloody scents within the restroom.

Aside from the intense bloody odor emanating from around the victim, there was one other person in the restroom giving off the exact same scent of blood: Donan Juzo, who had been pretending not to know the victim.

Found him!

Following the direction from which the bloody smell emanated, Suzuki Seimei's gaze instantly locked onto Donan Juzo's fingers—or more accurately, the bandage wrapped around his finger.

Idiot! Daring to hide the murder weapon right here, just wait to die!

Suzuki Seimei cursed silently in his heart, rubbed his chin, and began deducing the murderer's criminal process.

Upon learning that the culprit was Donan Juzo and that he had used the bandage to carry out the murder, Suzuki Seimei quickly worked backward to reconstruct the entire sequence of the crime.

Woo-woo-woo~ Woo-woo-woo~

After receiving Mouri Ran's emergency call, Inspector Megure and his police force quickly arrived at the cafe.

Once the forensics officers finished taking photographs and gathering evidence, Inspector Megure allowed them to remove the victim's body and began inspecting the interior of the restroom stall.

There was a window in the innermost restroom stall, and the exterior of this window connected to a deserted alleyway.

Combining the conditions of the scene, Inspector Megure quickly reached a preliminary conclusion: this murder case was most likely a robbery-homicide.

If Inspector Megure guessed correctly, a thief must have initially sneaked in through the restroom window intending to steal the victim's money, only to be accidentally discovered by her.

Fearing that his identity would be exposed, the thief strangled the victim, then drove a knife into her heart to ensure she was dead before escaping through the alley behind the restroom window.

"That's not right! Inspector Megure, your deduction has a flaw." Just as Inspector Megure was about to instruct Officer Takagi and the others to search the alley for clues, Suzuki Seimei suddenly reached out and tugged on his sleeve.

Hearing Suzuki Seimei's words, Inspector Megure did not feel angry at all. Instead, he bent down and asked, "Seimei, did you discover something?"

Although Suzuki Seimei was only an elementary school student, given his previous instances of helping the police solve cases, Inspector Megure no longer treated him as an ordinary child.

"Inspector Megure, don't you think that windowsill is far too clean? If the killer really escaped from there, shouldn't there be some footprints or bloodstains left behind on the windowsill?"

"Hmm... That is indeed rather strange. Judging by the spread of the blood sprayed by the victim, the killer should have gotten a considerable amount of blood on themselves as well."

Hearing this, Inspector Megure quickly realized something was amiss and said thoughtfully, "If the money in the wallet was intentionally taken by the killer just to mislead us, then the culprit is most likely a customer inside this cafe."