Detective Conan - Chapter 719-721

Chapter 719: A Request from the Bottom of the Pond

Chapter 720: The Kappa's Curse

Chapter 721: The Kappa's True Form

A DC chapter with kappa as a suspect? This one is pretty good! 

Chapter 719 highlights:

• The case began with a strange letter that made its way to Kogoro.
• The letter says "Dear Mouri Kogorou-sama, As a great detective, I request of you with your great deductions to somehow clear my name of the crime of murder that was placed upon me eleven years ago. I'll go into further detail early in the morning of the 24th of January, at the Koura Ryokan in Kuchibashi Village, Gunma Prefecture, which is near the scene of the incident." The letter is signed by someone named, Tatezato Mika.
• Mouri also consulted the help of Yamamura from the Gunma Police but it seems that there weren't any murder cases near that Ryokan eleven years ago and that there isn't a fugitive name Tatezato Mika, so it is safe to assume that this would be an alias.
• While on the way to Ryokan they stumbled upon a man who is also on the way to the Koura Ryokan. He is Tokubi Rokurou and asked for Mouri if he can ride with them. Mouri said that that he doesn't mind. 
• Well Tokubi is an elementary school teacher in a school near that area a long time ago. He used to walk around that area and the take in the scenery of the area. The number of students at that school started decreasing and the school closed down, so he quitted and became an artist. 
• Tokubi also asked for a favor to Mouri. Before heading to the ryokan, he visited a gravesite of one of his students. The child is Numayama Tatsuhiko. He was swept away to a pond downsteam. It was raining hard that day.
• As they arrived at the scene, they met Araiwa Kazuki, Tatsuhiko's classmate. The gravesite was made by Tatsuhiko's classmates. Instead of his remains, the classmates buried things that reminded them of their time together. 
• The gravesite was built near the river where he was swept away that caused his death, exactly 11 years ago. 
• Tatsuhiko's shoe was found in the river where he was swept away. Police investigators say that Tatsuhiko was likely playing in the river and got his foot caught between the rocks which prevented him from moving when the rain started falling hard and harder and eventually swept him away.
• Araiwa and Tokubi went to the exact spot to point out to Mouri the exact spot where the boy was stucked, but unfortunately, Tokubi slipped so both of their clothes and bagged ended up getting soaked.
• The art supplies of Tokubi seem to have survived but his sketchbook didn't. As for Araiwa, his things were inside a vinyl bag so they're pretty much dry and safe. 
• Suddenly, Tatsuhiko's father, Numayama Banzou came and is furious about the people visiting the area. He kicked the gravesite and said that his son died 11 years ago and that they should just forget about it.
• Well, the father is also the host of the ryokan that are going to.The ryokan was built on a high ground. It seems that if you will use binoculars from the window in the attic, you would have an extensive view. 
• At the ryokan, there is really no one name Tatezato Mika and the receptionist also has no idea about a murder case that happened 11 years ago. 
• Someone by the name Nohira Bousuke says that THERE is a murder and the culprit is a Kappa. 12 or 13 years ago, people started saying that they had seen the kappa and people from television and magazines even came to gather information. And around that time, a kid got swept away by the river and caused a huge uproar. Because of that rumour, the ryokan became packed with visitors who wanted to catch a glimpse of the kappa.
• Reports of kappa not being seen caused the hotel visitors to decline.
• Ran starts to realize something. Tatezato Mika if you split the characters and rearrange them, will orm the characters Kappa! This leads them to the realization that the kappa was the one who wrote the letter to Mouri. 
• Later that night, Ran, Mouri and Conan went back to the river because she dropped her phone. 
• As Ran found her phone, a human figure caught her eye and saw the kappa. When Mouri and Conan checked, it seems that nobody is there. 
• Next morning at breakfast, everybody got shocked by the news that the Numayama is found dead, soaked in water that has a pungent smell and he is clenching his deceased son's belongings to his chest. 

Chapter 720 highlights:

• In a room without any moisture, the cause of death of Numayama who was found soaking wet is DROWNED TO DEATH. Furthermore, judging rom the exterior and interior of the victim, he may have been drowned at some polluted pond and then transported here.
• But Conan says that it looks like the culprit brought that smelly water at the ryokan because he found a rolling water bucket in this attic. 
• So most likely, the culprit brought that smelly water in that bucket and submerged Banzou-san's face into it. After drowning him, he splashed the water over the body. 
• It seems that Numayama is always at the attic because every morning after waking up, he'd come there and keep watch over the river from the window. Using the binoculars, he keeps watch to makes sure that no one else met the same fate. 
• The shoe found in Numayama's corpse was the Tatsuhiko's LEFT shoe. It was his RIGHT shoe that was caught in the rocks. 
• It was also found out that Tatsuhiko was found wearing only his swim shorts.
• The smelly water that was all over Numayama smelled like the pond that Tatsuhiko was found floating in. It seems that long ago, it was a pond used for agricultural purposes. But after Tatsuhiko's accident, it stopped being used and turned into an illegal trash dumping site and would off an awful stench. With this, the people gave the pond a name, the Kappa's Dwelling, Hell Swamp!
• Everybody's belonging are also search since if the culprit used the bucket to bring that smelly water into this ryokan, it would attract attention and they'd be found out immediately due to the smell. So in order to transport the water, they'd need to put it in a airtight container. Furthermore, the stair to the attic are behind the restrooms and anyone could go to the attic by pretending to go to the bathroom.
• The victim's estimated time of death is between 6AM and 7AM. 
• Tokubi's bottles of colored ink are checked and each of them is pretty much full with ink. There are big bottles that are 60 milliliters and small bottles to be about 15 milliliters. He also has a white container that is also half full of paint and is about 100 milliliters in volume. At the time of the crime, he is still sleeping in his room until the ryokan personnel finished preparing breakfast and came to wake him up.
• As for Tatsuhiko's classmate, he woke up at 6:30AM and took a bath. In his items, the only things that water could be poured into are those 500 milliliter bottles. One is still half full and the other's seal still hasn't been broken yet. 
• Nohira's things are camera tripod, digital voice recorder and a notebook computer because he is  investigative journalist. He is there to pursue local ghost stories from various places but he wasn't able to gather much material.
• He is also using a standard film camera so he has a lot of film canisters that could definitely transport some water. But that would be impossible because he is on the phone from 6AM-7AM talking to his editor-in-charge. They are discussing what to do about the lack of material for the kappa story. 
• His camera broke because it got soaked from the rain. Last night, he was out taking pictures outside when it started pouring hard. 
• Mouri also narrated to Yamamura that they went out to get Ran's phone last night and that she saw the kappa. Since she failed to take pictures, Tokubi volunteered to draw him. 
• But Conan is wondering some things. He found it strange that someone in the water bucket would have required at least a liter of water, but they cannot find the container where the was transported. 
• He also finds it weird that Tatsuhiko was only wearing his swim shorts and even if he were going cold-weather swimming, why would wear his shoes? He also noticed that the shoes has green stains on it. 
• The drawing is done and indeed, Tokubi is talented. But Conan noticed something else and he has already seen everything else..

Chapter 721 highlights:

• Conan solves the mystery of the drowning trick as he puts Yamamura to sleep.
• It is odd to think that aside from Nohira who has an alibi, for Tokubi and Araiwato have someone who was familiar with the contents of their baggage prior, they wouldn't have been able to escape the eye of suspicion.
• All of those events were a plan for this murder trick. In short, Tokubi is the culprit!! He was the one who called Mouri witha letter under an alias and then caught a ridein Mouri's car, having ambushed him on the road to the ryokan. 
• He then wanted to visit the gravesit of Tatsuhiko by the riverside so that he has his opportunity to fall into the river. 
• Tokubi has nine 60 milliliter bottles and sixteen 15 milliliters bottles, which could be a total of 880 milliliters after including the 100 milliliter squirt bottle. If you fill all of the containers to their maximum capacity, it would come out to about a liter, which is enough to put in the bucket and drown someone with. 
• As he is painting what Ran saw, he is using those colored inks of his. He used multiple colors and the colors he didn't use perfectly match their labels. BUT, he didn't used the squirt bottle. 
• Normally, water is used to dilute the colored ink. Otherwise, they're too concentrated and using them without diluting them, such small bottles would be used up in no time. However, Tokubi, without using any water was able to complete the picture. 
• That's because the undiluted colored inks were only inside the dropper attached to the lid of the colored ink bottles. And after the crime, were diluted using tap water. He sucked the color into the dropper beforehand, so the inside of the bottle was empty and if he filled that void with the water from the pond.
• After using that water for the crime, he mixed the undiluted colored inks from the droppers with tap water to provide color. At first glance, it would seem to be just colored ink. Of course, before the crime, the tips of the droppers were sealed with tape to prevent the colored ink from mixing with the pond water. 
• As as proof, when he checked his baggage after falling in the river, Tokubi didn't take his colored ink out o their cases. 
• After the crime, meticulously cleaning out so many bottles in such a short amount of time is by no means possible. It must have remained inside the diluted colored inks, remnants of the pond water. That's why he took a chance and proposed using them to paint a picture in order to impress that the contents of the bottles were, without a doubt are colored inks. 
• Tokubi seems to admit his crime and remembered that after school on the day before Tatsuhiko was swept away by the river, he saw Tatsuhiko desperately looking for paints that other students had left behind. He thought the child wanted to paint a picture, so he gave him a new paint set. But after a few days, after the river swept him away, the father returned that paint set to him. Since it looked as if none of the colors had been used, he decided to just keep in memory of Tatsuhiko.
• But a few days ago, Tokubi realized that something is unusual about the paints. The green pain had been replaced with another brand. 
• Tokubi dug up the grave constructed by Tatsuhiko's classmates and saw the shoes with green stains.
• He was convinced that the reason the green paint was there was because Tatsuhiko painted his whole body green. He was ordered by his ather to dress as a kappa and loiter around by the river in order to attrack customers to the ryokan. 
• But he is wrong! Conan thinks that Tatsuhiko decided on himself to dress up as the kappa. 
• Well, Araiwa was actually with Tatsuhiko on the day of the unfortunate accident. Around that time, rumors o the kappa was a fake so Tatsuhiko thought o dressing as a kappa. It was raining but he still continued to do so. Tatsuhiko asked him to call the ryokan guests to see him.
• But as Araiwa is on the way to the ryokan, the rain poured really hard and decided to come back to Tatsuhiko. But when he got back, his foot was already stuck between the rocks. Araiwa called Tatsuhiko's father for help but Tatsuhiko is already nowhere to be found. 
• They started looking up and found him downstream in that pond. The father asked Araiwa to not to tell everyone about this thing so that nobody else will think of doing the same. 
• The father is also secretly going back at night every time he is destroying his son's gravesite. 
• And so all that is left unsolved is the identity of the kappa ran saw...and it's no other than Nohira who was out last night to get some pictures and ende up falling in the river.