A motorbike roared up to the campsites. It skidded to a stop as the driver expertly threw his weight, shifting the cycle nearly 90 degrees. "Yo, K-
Conan-kun!" he called cheerfully, taking off his helmet.

"Is that--" Ran began.

"Hattori Heiji," finished Hakuba, taking in Heiji's mode of transportation critically.

Heiji looked at him in disbelief. "What's he doing here?" he asked Conan,
not bothering to lower his voice.

Kaito and Michael exchanged amused glances.

Kazuha slipped off the back seat. "Hello, Ran-chan!" she called cheerfully.
"Who are your friends?" She looked over at Kaito's group.

"Actually," Ran confessed, "I only know Saguru Hakuba. One of Conan-kun's friends invited some of his classmates to come along too."

Kaito stepped in and helpfully supplied introductions. "Koizumi Akako,
Nakamori Aoko, and Keiko," he said, pointing to each in turn. "I'm Kuroba Kaito, and he, of course, is Saguru Hakuba." He jerked his thumb at Hakuba.

"Nakamori?" Ran wondered. "Are you by any chance related to Inspector Nakamori?"

"Yes," Aoko said, smiling. "He's my father."

"Really!" Ran exclaimed. She and Kazuha were soon deep in conversation with the other girls.

"Other than the girls," Michael mused, appearing right next to Kaito, "it's beginning to looking familiar."

Kaito grinned. "As long as it ends differently this time."

Michael nodded soberly. "I certainly hope so."

--

"This path would have been about the only way to reach the fortress," the tour guide explained. "So it was relatively easy to defend, even with only a handful of men."

Michael looked about in awe. The passage, cut by hand straight through a tall cliff, was barely wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. It looked to be about seven feet tall. Not the best place to pick a fight, he decided, unless you were using a dagger or some similar weapon. A sword or bow would quickly become a liability in such close quarters.

They moved on, towards the interior of the cliff. Around a sharp ninety-
degree bend, they came upon a narrow flight of stairs cut into the wall and supplemented with a decidedly modern steel railing. "Watch your step," the guide warned. "These stairs will often get slippery if water seeps down in here." He flashed his light over the edge.

Everyone gasped in amazement. There was a huge, though of course only dimly lit, natural cavern; the floor was about two stories below. Scattered along the walls of the cavern were a couple dozen small rooms and passages;
some were natural passages, while others looked to be man-made. All in all,
it was a veritable maze.

"As you can see," the guide said, gesturing towards the honeycombed wall,
"it's very easy to get lost in here. So, please, don't get off the trail.
If you lose sight of the railing, you might be lost down here for a long time."

"I heard that the caverns are haunted," spoke up Keiko. "Have you seen any ghosts?"

"No," said the guide, chuckling. "But I have heard some weird noises, and other people say they've seen them. It seems that many early explorers would come in here, usually underequipped, and get lost. Sometimes they couldn't find their way out; others, if they did find their way out, would report strange sightings of moving lights in other parts of the cave,
people screaming, or something similar."

"The light could have been caused by a pocket of gas being ignited, say, if a rock in the ceiling were to fall to the floor and cause a spark," Conan suggested.

"And people screaming could have been wind rushing through a small gap"
Mitsuhiko added.

"That's what most people think," the guide agreed. He started to say something, but a strange look flickered across his face as he looked down a side passage. He glanced quickly at his watch and then back up. "Stay here.
I thought I just saw someone moving around. They may be lost." He pulled a roll of twine out of his pack and tied one end to the railing before heading off into the darkness.

He was back in a couple of minutes. "It was a professional caver," he said.
"He was hired to help map out the caverns." With a shrug, he continued on the tour.

"EEE-EEEEYAAAH!!" Ran, Kazuha, and Aoko screamed in unison, rounding a corner just ahead of everyone else. Conan and Heiji dove for the front,
expecting the worst.

Just off the path, a small stream ran down deeper into the cavern. In the bottom of the stream was a man. He wasn't moving.

Heiji vaulted the railing quickly; Conan ducked through it. "He's dead"
Conan said after feeling for a pulse.

"It's the ghosts!" Kazuha shivered.

"Ahou!" Heiji scolded. "There was no ghost. This man was murdered."