Detective Conan - Chapter 728-730

Chapter 728: Air on the G String

Chapter 729: Genius

Chapter 730: The Secret of the Diary

I thought this will be a bloody case but I was hooked so much! The starting page of Chapter 728 is already a good teaser. I really thought something bad will happen to the REAL kids. 

Chapter 728 highlights:

• Again,the children is with Professor Agasa. They are stranded on a mountain because Agasa's car broke down.
• Since the towing car has no room for all of them to fit in, Agasa will go down and rent a car and he will just come back and pick the children up.
• It is expected that they will just wait for around 1 hour but it is already hour and a half and Agasa hasn't returned yet.
• It has started to rain and Conan suggested for them to go and check some villas and ask if they can take cover from the rain.
• They are still trying to get hold of Agasa and it turns out, Agasa forgot that he had put his wallet and cellphone in Haibara's backpack since he didn't want to lose them while on their way. So he went home to get money and it will take 2 more hours for him to arrive.
• Disappointed, the kids needs to wait for a longer time. They suddenly hear someone playing piano from one of the villas. The music being played is Air on the G String by Bach.
• They decided to went and ask if they can take shelter from the rain.
• They rang the doorbell and no one opened the door, even though the piano stopped. The door is also opened so decided to open.
• When they opened, they found a bunch of scattered potato chips all over the hallway, suggesting that a kid is inside.
• They also found the piano room but no one was there. Conan, having a perfect pitch noticed that the piano has a note that is slightly off. Meanwhile, Mitsuhiko saw a tall figure looking at them.
• Conan says that it is the owner so they need to greet him. But as he opens the door, he found a push cart by the door.
• They found light inside the kitchen and found a table with half-eaten food and a wine glass that is being toppled over. A diary was also found.
• They found entries that suggest that someone kidnapped a small boy and held him prisoner in this house.
• Lightning strucked and the lights went off. At the same time, the piano was once again played. The REAL kids got scared and wants to run away. Genta gets tripped over by a coffin on the ground.
• Conan thinks that Air on the G String didn't come into the limelight 100 years after Bach died, so it's possible that the kid is inside inside the coffin, dead.

Chapter 729 highlights:

• Conan decides to open the coffin and take a look so he gets Haibara to keep the REAL kids away. What is inside the coffin is something not a child shoud see.
• But good thing, the coffin is empty and it brings the possibility that the kidnapped boy hasn't been killed yet. 
• Conan wants to call the police but his phone is inside the backpack. But unfortunately, all of them left theirs as well.
• Then, the song was once again being played. And since they still have an hour until Agasa arrives, Conan just decides to find for the kidnapped boy. 
• And since the piano is being played, then it means that the kidnapper can get to them. 
• Conan deduced that their is only one culprit since the diary only used first person singulars and there are no indications that there are accomplices. Besides, there was only one wine glass on the table. 
• The culprit hasn't come to capture them since the culprit doesn't want their face to be seen. If he fails in the attack, then they can escape and tell the police about the situation. Probably, that is also the reason why the piano was played in the dark to give a spooky aura to the place and chase them out.
• Based on Conan's deduction, the culprit is not the owner of the villa. It makes more sense that the culprit broke into the house and invited the boy while pretending to be the villa. 
• The music is still playing. Ayumi says that even though it is dark, the music is still well played. Haibara says that pro have sometimes memorized the placement of the keys. 
• They are now inside the child's room and surprisngly, it is a girl's room. Conan finds a portable game system left and some maps drawn at the back of newspapers. 
• The map is not a code but treasure maps from Monster Getter III game. Genta says that when playing, players need to draw out the map since it will be hard to remember it while playing the game.
• So, this leads to the conclusion that the child was confined in this room the whole time and had to play games. 
• Ayumi finds something shining and see hot watter coming out. She also found a photo.
• Back at the kitchen, they found out that the table with left over foods is the only area that was scattered. Then, Genta realizes that Ayumi is not with them. 
• Conan says that it is possible since the music is still playing. But taking a second hear, Conan recognizes that it's not a sound from the piano, since the out of tune note is not being played. Perhaps, it is a CD on an loop to give the impression that someone is still playing the piano.
• Looking for Ayumi-chan, they are surprised to see that Ayumi is just near the area and she saw the photo. 
• The photo was a family photo. It seems that the family is a family of musicians and the date printed on the photo was one year ago. The photo is probably the owners of the villa. 
• Conan starts to be bothered.
• First is that the entry from March 21 was ommitted. There was a nentry on March 20 that reads "Two  days left" and the entry from March 22 that reads "One more day". Also, the March 24 entry that reads rainy is strange. 
• The March 24 entry has a wine stain and since it has been soaked in and stuck the pages together, it should have been written more than an hour before Conan found it since it hadn't been raining foro an hour by the time they got there.
• Another thing that bothers Conan is the stain on the March 24 page. Some areas are oddly out of place. After it had been wet once, for some reason, it ended up getting wet again. 
• Bothe of the staples in the middle have also be pried apart and the holds have been enlarged. And two of the pages are sticking out from the edge when you close the book.
• Then Conan notices that on the page after the one that was sticking out, there's traces of something having been written. He rubbed that paged with pencil lead.
• They found traces of the treasure map being drawn. Conan gets a clue of what happened but he needs some proof. And for that, they have to the piano room and let the answer reveal itself. 
• So they went to the piano room and they found that their bags were not there anymore. No one is also there. They have also confirmed that the sound of the piano was from the CD. 
• Conan sat on the piano's chair and Ayumi says that the height of the seat is not quite right for Conan. He needs to adjust the height from the dial under the cover. 
• And with this, Conan finally understood this case through! 

Chapter 730 highlights:

• Conan comes up with a plan. Ayumi-chan will play the piano while everyone will sing a cheerful song. 
• And indeed, the hide and seek game comes to an end and a child comes out from the dark.
• The kid is Onoda Keita, 7 years old, a first grader in Haido Elementary School. 
• Conan guessed that they are playing hide and seek with a kid because of the sentence written in the diary. The sentence that talks about Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven being born in the same era. At first Conan thought it was referring to the famous musicians but Chopin was born 60 years after Bach passed away, so you can't really say there were geniuses born in the same era.
• It was a mystery as to who this was referring to until he saw the picture that Ayumi picked up. Conan realized that the person who was kidnapped was the same age as the young girl in the picture, a piano genius! 
• The kidnapper probably wanted his own daughter to win at the Beckham International Music Competition being help at the end of the month so he kidnapped this boy and confined him in his own villa. So that means that the culprit is the owner of the villa since the picture also suggest that the piano room in the photo is the same with the room they are in. 
• The girl in the picture was Chiaki-chan and her father was the one who took Keita. But Keita says that he wasn't abducted. In fact, he was saved by the dad because he had the chance to play and have fun. 
• So that explains why there are snacks on the hallway, playing with the push cart and playing games. These are the things he cannot normally do because his mom would get mom. 
• Even though he had fun, the piano room was left clean because he is trained to be that way. His mom said that music spirits live in the piano room so after playing, he always return the height of the chair to its original position and removes the pedal extender. 
• That was the reason Conan was uneasy because even though he was sure that the performer was a chid, the height of the chair wasn't set to a child's height and since because he didn't realize that the chair was adjustable.
• It was also revealed that the diary was messed up. Because Keita ran out of paper to draw on his maps, he drew in the diary without thinking. He switched the pages in order to take out the page with the treasure map on it. 
• The protruding two pages from the edge of the diary is a proof that a page was switched. Pages in a diary are cut so the pages are even, so if a page from the back is inserted into the middle, it would stick out.
• The staples in the circle also tell a story since they are pried apart. The treasure map was drawn on the right hand side of the March 24th page with the wine stain and on the back side, the entry for March 23 should have been written. But if he had just removed that page, what he had done would've become obvious when it came time to write the next entry. That's why he brought the page from March 21 and placed it after March 23. Changed it from 21 to 24 and splashed wine on it like the original. 
• So in other words, the kidnapper initially planned to kill him at first but gradually decided against it. Conan asked for the torn page and realized that something is wrong. He asked Keita where the man is and Keita was only instructed that his mom will pick him up and not to let anyone in the house till then. 
• Ayumi then remember the hot water flowing in the hallway. They rushed to the bathroom because the kidnapper probably decided to commit suicide by slitting his wrist in the bathtub. With the hot water flowing, the blood wouldn't clot and it'd be easy to suffer a fatal level of blood loss. 
• The door is locked and a child's strength is not enough to budge the door to open. So Conan placed marks on the wall and uses his football to hit the markings to knock down the door. 
• Inside, they found the man unconscious but still breathing. His wound is shallow and he lost less blood as expected, so if first aid can be performed, he can be saved. But he still needs to be brought to the hospital.
• Good thing, Agasa arrived just in time and he will transport him to the hospital by car. He knew that the children are here since their backpacks were lined up by the entranceway. Keita-kun lined them up since he wanted them to leave quickly. 
• Agasa also met Keita's mom while on the way. The mother and son are reunited and the mother is so happy to see her son alive. 
• The mom is convinced that the kidnapper saved Keita since his mom always confined him to practice and so he cannot play and have fun. 
• The kidnapper was taken to the police as soon as he was released from the hospital. Well, he truly intented to commit murder and even prepared a coffin so there's no leeway for taking extenuating circumstances into consideration. But Keita's mom put a good word for him so the case didn't turn into a public mess. In the end, the one who messaged the mother and called her to the villa was the culprit after all. 
• Chiaki will also not know about his father's fate until she's older since her parents had divorced half a year ago anyway. 
• Chiaki also didn't joined the competition because she is worried about Keita's disappearance. 
• Conan thinks that Keita wants to be free from the pressure of being a genius.