Happy early Thanksgiving! Review please. :)
"You're telling me," spluttered Kaito a few moments after Shinichi had gotten done explaining how he had gotten a hold of the statue thanks to 'Saguru-niisan' and the details of their rather frantic escape, "that tantei-san stole the statue?" Kaito had very nearly forgotten to use the voice he normally adopted while playing the role of Kaitou Kid when he'd started to ask the question, the sheer amazement and shock of Hakuba Saguru of all people actually stealing something still leaving him somewhat trying to recover his bearings. The brim of Heiji's baseball cap, rather hastily borrowed from the Osakan to cover Kaito's hair after he'd come running up to them to announce that Hakuba Saguru had been shot in the arm and needed a lift to the hospital, was partially obscuring Kaito's vision as he dipped his head slightly while glancing over at the injured meitantei.
Saguru was currently alternating between gazing out the side window of their van to watch for police in case a description of the van had been reported by the guards they'd left behind and trying to temporarily bandage up his injured forearm using supplies from the small first aid kid that Jii luckily always thought to bring along on heists. He had rather pointedly refused any and all offers of assistance with the task from the group. "I didn't steal the statue. I borrowed it, much like you borrow the gems and jewels that you pilfer and then return later." Saguru offered the thief sitting on the other end of the large seat a glare, his irritation at the thief temporarily overriding the extreme anguish emitting from his forearm. "Besides, didn't you come here tonight with the exact same intentions in mind? Although I can honestly say now that I have firsthand experience in the matter that I really don't understand the thrill you seem to get from it."
"Well, yeah, but I mean-"
"There is a person currently rotting in jail in England for a murder that he didn't commit. And you are currently being framed for a murder that you also didn't commit, which is why you wanted to get your hands on the statue I'm sure." Saguru turned his attention back to his injury that he was nearly done patching up enough so as to not bleed onto the van's floor anymore. "And in case you hadn't noticed it seems that someone, or perhaps a group of someones, is more than willing to injure or even kill people for those things." He inclined his head slightly towards the statue that Shinichi was currently holding while sitting beside Saguru. After a wince that accompanied the end of his ministrations to the wound he continued in the same emotionless tone he'd been using. "I didn't lock my mother in a bedroom, fly back here early against her wishes and also risk my father's ire for nothing. I'm going to get to the bottom of this."
"Say what?" Heiji stared in disbelief at Saguru, who merely offered a disingenuous glance to the other meitantei before cradling his injured arm in his other hand and looking out the window again.
"I think that they're all containers of some sort- a matched set of them, so whatever is within them must be the same size or perhaps even a set of the same item." Saguru had changed the subject rather abruptly with his reply, causing the other boys to look at him intently as he continued to look out the window. "If you move the statue to the left and right quickly, you can barely hear what sounds like something moving around inside of it. Plus if you look very carefully at the bottom, there's a circular shape cut into it, like it's meant to open or give way somehow."
Shinichi did just that, and sure enough he could indeed hear a gentle rattling noise coming from within the statue that ceased immediately when he stopped shaking it back and forth. After Watson had resettled onto his shoulder with an irritated squawk beforehand (why the hell was the stupid hawk sticking to him like glue ever since Saguru had been shot, anyhow?) he asked "Maybe it's like a puzzle box of some kind and we need to figure out how to make it open?"
"That's the most likely theory. I didn't get too much time to examine it before you four showed up, though. Along with whoever took that shot at you." He then looked at Heiji and Conan and began an irked-sounding lecture. "If you two would have simply told me that you were working with Kaitou Kid in the first place then I could have walked in, taken the statue and walked out instead of this entire fiasco occurring, you know. Thanks to my father's connections, it's...rather easy for me to gain access to most buildings or crime scenes, at least here in Japan that is." Saguru seemed uncomfortable admitting the fact, like it was a source of shame that he ever relied on those connections at all. "Crime scene records as well, especially where Kaitou Kid is involved since I've been working with Nakamori-keibu for so long." He carefully unfolded his arms before producing a small folded piece of paper from his pocket with his single hand and tossing it down on the seat next to Shinichi. "Apparently whoever was impersonating you was stupid enough to leave a fingerprint behind on the windowsill that they broke in through, but the police don't want that fact leaking out."
"Well, it's a start. I take it they didn't get any hits when they ran it through the ID database or they would have arrested someone." Heiji stated this flatly with a slight grimace as he unlatched his seat belt and reached forward over the back of the seat to grab the paper, then settled back in and rehooked the belt before unfolding the paper and glancing at it disinterestedly.
"Exactly. Maybe you are learning something from the boy after all." Saguru didn't elaborate any further on the statement and didn't seem to have any plans to. After the others' questioning about the statement was met with stony silence the rest of the ride to the hospital became filled with a tense quietude that was broken only by the occasional hushed, frustrated curse from the three uninjured boys who were taking turns desperately trying to figure out the statue and its trick if there was one. After about thirty minutes they pulled up to an intersection near the hospital they'd been heading toward.
"Right, you can drop me off here. And no need for any of you to follow me in, you'll all cause an uproar walking in dressed like that and I don't feel like dealing with a headache from screaming, panicked people on top of dealing with getting this injury treated." When he slid open the side door Saguru added rather hastily to Shinichi "There's some money in my pocket, you can buy Watson some raw meat with it. She seems to have grown attached to you and I highly doubt they'll let a hawk stay in the hospital. She doesn't eat too terribly much." This was followed by the door sliding shut with a weak thud and Saguru strode down the street towards the emergency room's doors, the disguised van peeling away in the opposite direction a couple of minutes later after the group had ensured that Saguru made it safely through the sliding glass doors.
"Well, I guess we better find a 24-hour grocery so we can buy the stupid bird some food," grumbled Kaito darkly as they sped off into the darkness.
Damn...still haven't figured out this thing. If there really is anything to figure out, that is. But Hakuba is right, it definitely does sound like there's something inside this thing...
A rather sleepy Shinichi was currently half-slumped at his elementary school desk during their afternoon break. His night had been an exceedingly late one due to them not only having to drop Hakuba off at the hospital and picking Watson up some food but also dropping Hattori off at the station to catch the very last train back to Osaka as well- he'd barely made it on. At least Hattori got to sleep on the train during the ride. I got to go home and get yelled at for staying out so late on a school night, although it was pretty funny when Ran yelled at Kuroba when he and Konsuke-ojisan dropped me off. She called him a bad influence? If only she knew...Shinichi had barely been able to suppress a snigger at the sheer irony of Ran's ranting at the time, and it was still very amusing as he thought back to it now. Through half-lidded eyes the tiny meitantei continued his ongoing struggle with the jade statue, although he was beginning to wonder if there really was anything to Hakuba's theory.
"Heya Conan, you've been messing with that statue all day during our breaks when you think no one is looking! What is it?" Mitsuhiko's probing tone coming from the left snapped Shinichi out of his drowsiness as the freckled boy arrived at the side of his desk while Shinichi frantically tried to hide the statue. No, no, no! If they drag this thing out and someone in the room recognizes it-
"Is that one of those puzzle games where you hide something in it, like a candy or a present?" asked Ayumi in a lively tone as she, too approached Shinichi's desk from her own. "I'm really good at those! My mom says they're good for your brain."
"No way, Ayumi! I get to try and figure it out first before you!" crowed Mitsuhiko triumphantly as he snatched the statue from Shinichi and began tugging and pulling at the Buddah's facial features and arms for a couple of minutes, trying to find a switch or lever of some sort in the same fruitless effort that Shinichi had spent the better part of last night and this morning on. "Man, this thing is a pain!"
"What thing?" asked Genta as he, too, approached Shinichi's desk. "Why are you trying to break that statue, Mitsuhiko?" His eyes grew wide with horror as he watched the other boy pull and tug on the statue. This was followed by the much taller boy rather forcefully removing the jade Buddah from Mitsuhiko's grasp. "It looks expensive, you should be way more careful with it!"
"C'mon Genta, give it back!"
"Maybe you should let Ayumi have her turn since you couldn't figure it out, eh?" Shiho interrupted the boys' bickering with the firm, quiet statement. With only minor grousing- Shinichi really wished that he could figure out how Shiho managed that sometimes- they turned it over to Ayumi, who smiled beatifically as she took it and turned it over in her hands.
"Ohh, this one starts right here!" she cried brightly after studying the figurine for a few moments. "His arm twists like that...then his necklace gets pressed in..."
Did a six-year-old girl just kick all of our collective butts? Shinichi's mental question was answered about a minute later when Ayumi gave a loud victory cheer as the bottom of the statue suddenly popped out and something went tumbling out of the statue and onto his desk.
"Good job, Ayumi." Shiho offered a small, momentary smile to the other girl.
"Thanks Ai-chan!" She turned and pointed to the male portion of the Tanteidan one by one with a wide smile on her face and a chest swelled with pride. "TOLD you I was good at those kind of puzzles!" She then turned to Conan, who was examining the object with a determined look on his face. "What was it in, a candy? But it looked really big for a candy..."
"It's a chess pawn." But the simple words belied his curiosity about the chess piece. This pawn was very heavy and seemed like it was crafted from solid marble, and there were tiny jewels and gems inlaid here and there in it, along with some gold inlay and a strange-looking symbol also inlaid using gold that he didn't recognize. They symbol took up about a third of the pawn and was a frontal view of a strange double-headed bird that looked like it was flying with one head facing right and one head facing left. Both heads were each wearing a crown that connected to a larger third crown centered above and the talons of the bird were spread wide to the right and left, some sort of ball clutched in the right talon and some variety of scepter or stick in the left. It was kind of too small to make out any great amount of detail. Shinichi was going to have to figure out what the symbol was, but they at least had an idea of what they were going after now: a rather expensive chess set that had been hidden in the statues for a yet unknown reason.
"Wow, that's a fancy-looking chess piece!" exclaimed Genta before they scrambled back to thier seats since break was ending and other students were beginning to file in. Shinichi hurriedly stashed the pawn and the now-empty statue into his backpack. I have some calls to make after school...