The gray-haired young man moved nimbly through the crowd.
The police haven't come yet. Tourists who were forced to stay in the hotel began to commotion. Complaints in different languages overlapped, and the empty hall echoed with the bustling noise of a wet market.
Kawakamiji listened to a few words.
A man who calls himself a business tycoon is complaining emotionally to the security guard about the "poor management of the hotel" that has delayed his business worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Kawakami lowered his head, naturally avoiding the waving hands of the business tycoon, and glanced at the other person's collar.
The tie had been soaked repeatedly with sweat, leaving several inconspicuous marks. It seems that this "business tycoon" is in financial distress.
Tsumugi Kawakami politely cared about the other party's financial status for half a second before moving on.
Near the hotel service front desk, Mao Lilan is assisting hotel staff in maintaining order.
They moved the dividing pillars placed at the front desk to the entrance of the corridor on the right and put up a simple dividing line.
Reina Mizuna was standing in an inconspicuous corner aside. She was still wearing sunglasses and a mask, and was talking to a man in a suit.
From the white mark on the man's ear, it can be seen that he is also a staff member of Nippon TV Station.
White marks are color differences caused by uneven exposure to sunlight in different parts of the skin caused by long-term wearing of headphones.
The two seemed to be arguing about something. But Reina Mizuno, as the reporter and the first person to discover the crime, obviously couldn't leave yet.
In the staff logistics room in the right corridor, all the employees in the break room were called out and stood in a row next to the service desk.
"Judging from the degree of blood coagulation, the time of death was less than half an hour. The cause of death was that the brain stem was hit by a sharp object."
Kudo Shinichi walked out of the corridor, followed by a well-dressed but inexplicably decadent middle-aged man. That was Maori Lan's father, Maori Kogoro.
Kudo Shinichi could speak some simple French, so he explained this sentence to the hotel manager in English.
"Half an hour, are you Japanese detectives sure?" The hotel manager, a young man with a pale complexion who kept rubbing his hands, asked with some doubts.
"Of course." Kudo Shinichi replied quickly.
Because the case occurred in a hurry, they did not wear professional forensic gloves and could only conduct the most superficial inspection without damaging the body - visual inspection.
"I, Mouri Kogoro, swear in the name of a detective that I will never make a mistake." Moori Kogoro, who was behind Kudo Shinichi, said unhappily.
The hotel manager felt relieved. At first, he was still suspicious of the Japanese detective and his underage assistant————
Well, now he has doubts too. But a detective is better than nothing.
If death lasts only half an hour, he can let the stranded tourists leave. Otherwise, keeping them locked up will cause great losses to the hotel.
Within half an hour? Kawakami Tsumugi, who slipped over, caught the key word.
Half an hour is not long, but in a sense it is too short.
According to the hotel's response, the employee was the one responsible for the incident.
It's peak working time in the hotel, and there are people coming and going in that corridor all the time. At the same time, from the clothes of the employees who were called out, it can be seen that some people are changing shifts, and there is no possibility that the rest room will be idle.
According to the structural diagram he memorized, there was no toilet or any other place where he could be alone for a long time in that corridor.
So why was Reina Mizuna the first person to discover it, and not the hotel’s own employees?
And the smell of blood was so strong, it was probably very close to the entrance of the corridor.
So the location where the body was found... couldn't be the vent.
The hotel structure diagrams on Google don't even have the vents marked on them. Kawakami felt very sad because the reasoning could not proceed due to lack of information.
It's like the resources are half down and the network is disconnected.
Kawakami Tsumugi waved hello to Kudo Shinichi who saw him, and stood aside calmly.
The hotel manager is calling the surveillance cameras. There are three surveillance cameras that can cover that corridor:
One is installed around the elevator on the left, diagonally across the corridor; one is installed at the end of the corridor, overlooking the entire corridor; and the other is installed in the logistics room.
Unfortunately, the camera at the end of the corridor is under maintenance. Even the scaffolding used for maintenance is leaning against the wall.
Tsk, a case, a perfectly broken camera, and a detective who happens to be around the crime scene——
Kawakami was so excited that he smelled the lingering smell from Miwa Town.
It must be just a coincidence... Can the bad luck in Yoneka Town spread so far?
"Oh, what a coincidence..." The hotel manager looked annoyed.
Even so, the corridor entrance can still be observed through other cameras. The manager set the surveillance to ten times speed. All the people coming and going were hotel employees, and no one else entered that corridor.
The hotel manager immediately used the intercom to notify the hotel security and let the tourists who were left behind go.
"Excuse me, why is that camera being repaired?" Kudo Shinichi asked.
"The wiring is aging." The manager replied seriously. "The cameras in our hotel are replaced every five years, in batches. That camera was supposed to be installed after the maintenance staff finished their meal. I didn't expect this to happen."
"Is that so..." Kudo Shinichi frowned and pondered for a minute, then suddenly raised his head and asked Kawakami Tsumugi, "What do you think?"
"I haven't seen the scene yet." Kawakami rolled his eyes, "How can I see? Can you tell me where the body was found?"
In fact, just based on the information disclosed by the hotel manager, Kawakami has already made many guesses.
There are two possible situations for killing: impromptu and premeditated.
The murderer probably saw the surveillance maintenance being carried out today and rushed forward; it is also possible that he made a lot of preparations to take other people's lives and killed him with one blow.
If it is the latter, the person who planned the incident may be an old employee who has worked in the hotel for more than five years, and it is not ruled out that the murderer got this information from an old employee...
It could also be a certain colleague - no, according to his intuition, it is very likely to be a certain colleague.
There were too many uncertain factors, so Kawakami didn't tell the little detective his inference.
"The body was inside the wall, stuffed...in a mezzanine near the wall, next to the drainage pipe."
Kawakami once again lamented the benefits of being a detective. Cross the blockade with the little detective and sneak into the crime scene.
In order to make repairing water pipes more convenient, some space was reserved at the main sewage pipe during the construction of the hotel.
It is rectangular, runs through the entire building, and has a base of about 30 square centimeters. The connection part of the water pipe is in this part of the space.
When the repairman opens the door, he can directly repair and replace the water pipe connections without damaging the wall.
The victim was a thin waiter, female, wearing a hotel service uniform. She was facing inward, her whole body filling the small space.
Her head hung weakly, resting on two drainage pipes about 10 centimeters in diameter. From their angle, they could just see the bloody back of her head.
