Drinking coffee, Chiba sat on the sofa and looked at the thin man in front of him - if the ID he showed was genuine, this was the Nishimura Police Department of the Criminal Division of the Hokkaido Police Headquarters Forcibly Committed Crime Search.

"How?" Ash Hara, who was sitting next to him, asked.

"Do you mean this case or ......," Qianyu asked tentatively.

"Yourself," Gray Plains glanced at the coffee cup in Chiha's hand. "You may not be very sleepy, but your body probably needs a lot of rest."

It was already more than four o'clock in the morning when Ash Hara was woken up by Chiba, which meant that Chiba, who had been monitoring Keitaro Izumo, had not closed his eyes for more than a whole day since 6 o'clock in the morning the day before. This is quite a burden for a small child - in fact, Qian Yu used to rely entirely on the auxiliary unit to barely stay awake, and the stimulation function of the auxiliary unit and the coffee he was drinking now can suppress the sleepiness signals, but they cannot solve the physical fatigue behind the sleepiness.

"I know," Qian Yu sighed. "I'll go to rest when this case is over, anyway, we should still have more than seven hours to drive from Sapporo, and as long as the case is solved here, I should have a chance to catch up on sleep."

As they spoke, Conan suddenly led Officer Nishimura towards them, and then passed by them, apparently heading to the cabin where the man might have jumped out of the car.

……

Car 9.

"In other words, you were shot and suppressed by the prisoner, so you were forced to hide, so you were not able to confirm with your own eyes that the prisoner actually entered the carriage?" Officer Nishimura asked.

"Yes," Conan nodded. At least I can't guarantee 100% that the prisoner actually entered the carriage - but again, the door of the carriage did suddenly close just as we were about to run, so I judged that there was a high probability that the prisoner would jump out of the car, at least more than if it was still in the carriage. But you are right, it really cannot be ruled out that the murderer did not jump out of the car, but only created these illusions through some means to make us think that he jumped out of the car. ”

"Yes," Officer Nishimura nodded. "In any case, I have asked the police in this state to cooperate with us to complete the blockade of both ends of the entire Seikan Tunnel, and it is impossible for the prisoners to escape."

"So the question is, why did the prisoner choose to jump out of the Seikan Tunnel?" Conan frowned. "We entered the Honshu end of the Seikan Tunnel at 4:52 a.m., and the prisoner shot Mr. Keitaro Izumo at 4:53. Eventually jumped off the train before 4:55. Although only three minutes had passed, at the speed of the Big Dipper 3, the place where he jumped was at least 2 kilometers away from the exit on the Honshu side of the Seikan Tunnel, which meant that as long as the police could block the end of the tunnel within 10 minutes, he would not have been able to escape. If I were a prisoner, I would have chosen to commit a crime before entering the Seikan Tunnel or immediately after exiting the Seikan Tunnel, and then escape directly from the open railway. ”

(This period of time deduction made me feel like I was autistic...... Kogoro Mori himself said that it was already 4 o'clock, so I originally planned to set the time to 4 o'clock...... However, the schedule given by Kiko herself in the original book indicated that the train would enter the Honshu entrance of the Seikan Tunnel at 4:52 and leave at 5:44, so I set the time to be close to 5 o'clock. ）

"And if he falls and is injured, even if the police come and catch him alive." Chiba and Gray Plains also walked over from the other side of the carriage. "As long as you land in the wrong position and break the bone in your leg, you may not be able to get out of this tunnel even if you give him an hour."

"These two imps are your friends?" The Nishimura Police Department frowned.

"yes," Conan nodded. "They're all my friends, and they're all very smart people."

"......," Officer Nishimura said, raising an eyebrow. So, let's do it for a while and see if the police on the other side of the state can get something out of it. Until then—"

"Let's take a look at the passengers in the other carriages," Conan said. "Judging from the fact that the passengers in these carriages did not move at all, most of them did not know what was going on."

"Makes sense," Officer Nishimura glanced at the compartment next to him. "If it's a trick to pretend to jump out of the car and actually hide in the box here, then it should be a better choice to investigate all these passengers."

As he spoke, he knocked on the cabin next to it, which was labeled B7. "Hey, anyone?"

After knocking for a long time, the door was opened, and a woman with a rather unhappy expression slammed it open. "Who? Do you know what time it is? ”

"I'm very sorry, but I'm Officer Nishimura of the Hokkaido Prefectural Police," Officer Nishimura said calmly. "I'm bothering you so early because there's a case on the train just now."

"Case?" The woman was stunned. "What happened?"

Just then, Chiba caught the sound of another door being opened—right ahead, and quite close.

The design of the B-class single carriages of the Big Dipper is quite interesting with a 2-up-2-down setup - all the compartments are divided into two tiers, and are evenly distributed by 12211221 in this way. The woman's box 7 is on the first floor, while 8 and 9 are the two nearest second-floor boxes, leading to the ground level via a staircase.

There is no doubt that the sound of the door opening came from one of the two boxes.

"Excuse me, is something happening?" A sleepy-eyed man appeared at the top of the stairs a few seconds later—the secretary Chiba had seen earlier, reprimanded by Keitaro Izumo.

"......" Chiba frowned slightly—because according to the simulation results of his auxiliary unit, Officer Nishimura's knock on the door just now should be enough to wake up the lady who was sleeping in box 7, but this knocking sound is unlikely to wake up the person who is sleeping in the box a few meters away.

In other words, either the secretary slept very lightly, or he had just woken up.

"Uncle," Conan said to the secretary. "May I ask which is your boss's cabin?"

"He's in cabin 8, which is next door to mine," the secretary replied. "It's on top of this, too."

"So, do you know this aunt?" Conan nodded, then pointed to the woman and asked.

"He's our boss's wife." The secretary replied again.

"What the hell is going on?" It was as if the woman had lost her patience. "If it has nothing to do with me, I'll go to sleep!"

"Just now, someone was shot," Conan's gaze flickered over the woman and the secretary's body as he said suddenly. "The person who was killed was Mr. Keitaro Izumo."