Special Volume 3

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Chronology
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Volume 3
Information
Release date:	November 28, 1997
Original Work:	Gosho Aoyama
Manga:	Yutaka Abe, Denjiro Maru, Takahisa Taira
ISBN:	ISBN 4-09-142533-X
Publisher:	Shogakukan
Back Cover Image
Conan Side Image

Special Volume 3 was released on November 28, 1997 in Japan.

Cast

Characters

Conan Edogawa

Shinichi Kudo (background)

Ran Mouri

Kogoro Mouri

Juzo Megure

Genta Kojima

Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya

Ayumi Yoshida

Yoko Okino (background)

Gadgets

Gadgets

Stun-Gun Wristwatch

Voice-Changing Bowtie

Power-Enhancing Kick Shoes

The Poltergeist Murder Case

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Hideo Suzuki, who is in fact Akira Kamata.

People

Tetsuya Imoto
File:Tetsuya Imoto.jpg	Victim (fell) Haunted hotel owner

Kamata
File:SV3 Kamata.jpg	Deceased (suicide) Imoto's friend

Genzo Oyamada
File:Genzo Oyamada.jpg	Hotel butler

Hideo Suzuki
File:Hideo Suzuki.jpg	Hotel guest Photographer

Masatoshi Nishimura
File:Masatoshi Nishimura.jpg	Hotel guest

Satoko Imoto
File:SV3 Satoko Imoto.jpg	Tetsuya's wife

Akira Kamata
File:Akira Kamata.jpg	Kamata's son Went missing in America

The Gamer Murder Case

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is the man in the costume, Kitagawa.

People

Tetsu
File:SV3 Tetsu.jpg	Victim (electrocuted) Game tournament finalist

Rio
File:SV3 Rio.jpg	Game tournament finalist

Kitagawa
File:SV3 Kitagawa.jpg	Game tournament spectator Wears an game character costume

The Blue Train Murder Case

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Tomoi.

People

Mizoochi
File:SV3 Mizoochi.jpg	Victim (fell) Film director

Aida
File:SV3 Aida.jpg	Actor

Ito
File:SV3 Ito.jpg	Assistant-director

Tomoi
File:SV3 Tomoi.jpg	Props master

The Gourmet Critic Murder Case

Resolution

  Show spoilers »

The culprit is Yumi Kondo.

People

Yoichi Senzui
File:Yoichi Senzui.jpg	Victim (poison) Chef Cooking show jury member

Yumi Kondo
File:Yumi Kondo.jpg	Chef Senzui's assistant

Bin Umehara
File:Bin Umehara.jpg	Cooking show candidate

The Haunted Mansion Murder Case

File 10

Taking advantage of the calm sunny day, Conan and the Detective Boys are playing soccer in the neighborhood. Genta kicks the ball a little harder than intended, sending it over a bricked fence of a massive eerie mansion. A mysterious figure peers at the kids from a top window, sending chills down their spines. The figure, only known as House Keeper (nameless in the story, but named for plot identification purposes), turns out to be harmless and comes down the stairs to greet the children outside.

House Keeper invites the children inside and gives them a tour of the premises where Ayumi notices a picture of who she believes is the House Keeper in her youth. Out of nowhere, Mitsuhiko is shouted at.

Everyone rushes over to find Mitsuhiko inside a brightly lit study room with the mansion owner, Shozo Ohara. Shozo is furious that one of the many antique guns sitting on the table could have went off and Mitsuhiko could have been seriously hurt or even killed by accident. He demands to know why children are in his mansion, until Shozo’s wife, Suzue, carrying a pitcher of water, empty glass, and packet of medicine, enters and claims she invited them. Conan is left confused but Shozo stands firm on his stance.

Suzue asks her husband if he has taken his medication, to which he has not. Shozo tells his wife to leave the tray of glasses and medicine on the table. She does carefully next to one of the guns and tells him to not forget to take them. Shozo asks everyone to leave so he may tend to his work. As they leave, HK jumps at a reflection of herself in a mirror.

To ease the tension, Suzue has House Keeper give the children strawberry shortcake while Mitsuhiko excuses himself to the toilet. Ayumi questions Suzue why is their large mansion so dark, following up with a suggestion to open the window. Suzue gives a haunting grin and states that she is absolutely right: she loves bright spaces, but her husband despises them. Suddenly, a loud gunshot is heard.

The group springs into action, led by Conan to the source of the sound coming from the study room where Shozo was last seen. House Keeper confirms that the door is locked , prompting Conan to hop on Genta’s shoulders to peep though the window above the door. He discovers that Shozo has been shot to death.

An investigation is underway with Kogoro and Megure helming operations. Kogoro instantly recognizes Suzue as The Phantom Actress, who, at the height of her career and popularity, disappeared from the lens of the camera. Kogoro himself is a fan of Suzue’s career. The study is opened by Conan so the investigation may start.

Conan notices the gun used in the death is still at the scene. The bullet that killed Shozo is in the wall. While looking for potential suspects, they consider people who may have a grudge, but Suzue can’t think of anyone. Based on the scene, it appears that someone confronted Shozo and popped him on sight, dropped the gun, and fled. Megure questions Suzue, and she explains that she was eating cake with the children. House Keeper and the Detective Boys confirm.

The only person unaccounted for, who went to use the restroom, was Mitsuhiko, but the investigation team doesn’t bother making him a suspect. The skylight is impossible to pass through unless you are a child. Moreover, the study door was locked by Shozo from the inside; entry inside to the study to reach Shozo is absolutely impossible. With every entry/exit point sealed away, Conan declares a perfectly locked room murder case.

Conan looks at the gun and notices the hammer is still up. Under normal conditions, once a gun is fired, the hammer closes. A bloody Japanese hiragana character (光)”hikari, meaning “light”, is found near the body. Mitsuhiko finally returns from the bathroom. Kogoro sends him through believing he unknowingly activated a trick. Mitsuhiko struggles but manages to barely squeeze through. Genta and Ayumi ridicule Kogoro for not having the case solved already.

Conan notes a line of black substance near the upside down glass on the table and is zapped in the eye by a ray of sunlight. He measures and angles bullet holes in the wall. After everything has been examined, Conan understands the mystery of the Haunted Mansion and its Locked Room Scenario.

  Show spoilers »

Conan catches Kogoro lacking and tranquilizes him, then immediately names Shozo’s wife, Mrs. Suzue Ohara, as the killer. First, Kogoro (actually Conan using his voice) apologizes to Mitsuhiko for forcing him through the tight space from earlier. Second, while true that she was indeed sitting amongst the children, Conan, and the House Keeper and eating some yummy cake, Suzue pulled off a near perfect murder and gave herself an ironclad alibi to look pristine and innocent in case any suspicious eyes fell upon her. As hard as this may sound, all that was needed was sunlight and water pitcher from earlier.

A ray of sunlight shines down from the tilted down skylight to the titled window above the door, which then hits the water pitcher. That water pitcher will now act like a magnifying glass. If the pitcher is moved slightly closer to the gun, and the sun moves on its own which it does regularly, the ray of sunlight will enter the gun’s opening, ignite the gunpowder, and shoot Shozo; this is a perfectly executed plan only Suzue could pull off. A demonstration is created for visualization just as Conan described, and the ray of shiny sunlight shoots off a flintlock gun, firing a harmless blank. The only reason why Suzue allowed the children to stay in the mansion was so they could be witnesses to her crime and confirm that she was in another room when the gun went off.

Shozo, who was in this locked room of his own accord, grew suspicious of the burning smell produced by the beam of light. He turned around and was immediately shot. Ayumi correctly guesses that was the reason he wrote the 光 character in his blood to leave as a dying message as to what happened to him. Megure interjects and claims that while every described in this case is accurate and holds weight, including the determination of the gun being fired, everything will be looked at as an unfortunate coincidence.

To seal Suzue for the murder of her husband, Conan notes that the position of the mirror had to be strategically shifted in order for the beam to trigger the antique gun. Suzue stealthy adjusted the mirror immediately after the murder investigation began, while everyone was already inside the study examining the crime scene. Shozo’s bloody corpse naturally dominated the attention of nearly everyone except for the killer who knew he’d end up in such a brutal predicament. Suzue took advantage and did what needed to be done. Only the lower part had to be moved; the dirty white wall behind it should be visible now. Ayumi again confirms that her reflection in the mirror was visible just moments ago, now it is not. The inside of the mansion is dark, so Suzue didn’t realized it yet but it makes no difference as now it is too late; Suzue’s hands are dirty because they are tainted with soot that covered the mirror after the gun was fired. She had to adjust the mirror back to its original position to tie up loose ends, or risk leaving them exposed so investigators would have pieced together the elements of her plan either here or the station, sooner or later. Speaking of soot, if a forensic examination reveals that the soot on Suzue’s hands matches the soot on the mirror and the profile of the antique flintlock gun, plus access and motive, there is no need to make any excuses; a conviction is highly likely.

Suzue, after confirming her hands are indeed laced with soot, confesses and states that Shozo was in the way of her making a comeback into the movie industry. A quick look into Shozo’s diary and previous scripts show that Shozo actually loved his wife and saw the potential she had. He wanted her to continue her career, however, movie studios and producers wouldn’t touch any project given to them as long as Suzue was attached to it, as they viewed her as an old vessel. Finally, Shozo wrote a script and studios were prepared to pay millions if they could substitute Suzue. Producers were going for a younger actress with no acting experience or credentials to her name. He turned them down if Suzue wasn’t the lead actress, leading him to board up the windows of the mansion so Suzue wouldn’t be able to see her reflection in the windows and lose her ambitions. Shozo’s frustrations grew and in order to calm himself down, he put up pictures of Suzue in her younger days around the mansion as a constant reminder that the ambitious actress inside her, he still believes in, regardless of anyone’s opinions. Suzue wanted to reclaim the fame and fortune she once had from an industry that has long discarded her. Nevertheless, She took the life of her biggest supporter in an incredibly sad, senseless murder that didn’t need to happen, and she must live with that for the rest of her life—behind bars. An emotionally devastated Suzue is escorted out of the mansion by Inspector Meguire’s men; her handcuffed hands covering her tear-drawn face as the House Keeper, with the Detective Boys in tow, watches in sadness.

Kogoro, having woken up unexpectedly, takes full credit despite not being able to recall any moments during the resolution. He remembers a few movies of Suzue, noting how she was the number one star back in her day, and the sadness and regret that will come to her. He is happy that at least she has been brought back to reality.

People

Shozo Ohara
File:Shozo Ohara.jpg	Victim (gunshot) Mansion owner

Suzue Ohara
File:SV3 Ohara.jpg	Shozo's wife

Woman
File:SV3 Housekeeper.jpg	Mansion housekeeper

Cover in other countries

China

Germany

Hong Kong

Indonesia

Indonesia (reprint)

Italy

Korea

Malaysia (Chinese)

Malaysia (Malay)

Rep. of China (Taiwan)

Singapore (Chinese)

Spain (Spanish)

Thailand

Thailand (reprint)

Vietnam

See also

• Detective Conan Special
• Special Volume 1-10