Special Volume 4: Difference between revisions

Sachi Makise
	25 years old; Science teacher;

Takashi Tamba
	Victim (heart attack); 46 years old; Science teacher;

	Volume 4
	Information
Release date:	March 18, 1998
Original Work:	Gosho Aoyama
Manga:	Yutaka Abe, Denjiro Maru, Takahisa Taira
ISBN:	ISBN 4-09-142534-8
Publisher:	Shogakukan
	Back Cover Image
	Conan Side Image

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Revision as of 05:46, 14 July 2026

Chronology
‹ Special Volume 3	List of Chapters	Special Volume 5 ›

Special Volume 4 was released on March 18, 1998 in Japan.^[1]^[2]

Cast

Characters

Conan Edogawa

Shinichi Kudo (background)

Gadgets

Voice-Changing Bowtie

Stun-Gun Wristwatch

The Girls' Festival Murder Case

File 1 - Part 1

File 2 - Part 2

Invitation from a Friend

File 3 - Part 1

File 4 - Part 2

Scheele's Green

File 5

Richard, with Rachel and Conan in tow, is personally invited to the beautiful mansion of successful businesswoman Asuka Fumiko for a dinner and function. During the introductions, Richard makes a beeline for the bathroom while Rachel hands over a beautiful bouquet of flowers to Fumiko. When Richard returns, Conan playfully jokes that Richard ate some moldy food before coming, earning him a knot on his head from Richard. In attendance is Fumiko’s personal physician, Gennori Sugita, who asks her not to push herself too hard. Fumiko agrees and decides to call it a night. Local painter Seiichi Hashimoto is there, telling Fumiko about the unfinished ceiling painting that is still being looked at. Finally, there is Koichi Saito, who attempts to put the moves on Fumiko, but is allegedly shut down. Before leaving, Fumiko asks all three men, Gennori, Seiichi, and Koichi, to visit her room later that night.

That same night, when trying to relax in his guest room provided by Fumiko, Richard’s condition worsens. Rachel warns him not to eat anymore molded buns while Conan runs to fetch Gennori. A maid directs him to the second floor. Conan notices Fumiko’s room slightly open and peers inside. Gennori is tending to the needs of Fumiko, telling her that although it’s June, her mansion sits on high hills and it gets very cold at night. He asks her to keep her humidifier on and to keep warm. As the men depart from Fumiko’s room, they see Conan. Conan asks for Gennori’s assistance with Richard.

Inside Richard’s room, Gennori tells Richard to be careful when it comes to eating, especially foods that’s expired and have mold on them as they can produce very dangerous toxins, including arsine, that is lethal to humans. Some toxins can be turned into medicine, depending on the species. Rachel praises Gennori on his knowledge, stating Fumiko can rest easy at night knowing she’s in the good hands of a professional doctor; Gennori looks the other way, doesn’t respond, and walks out the door, before bidding everyone a good night.

Deeper into the night, everyone is sound asleep, save for Richard’s obnoxious snoring that’s keeping Conan up. Meanwhile, inside Fumiko’s room, her window balcony door is closed. It slightly opens and a mysterious figure pushes it completely open, allowing the cold air to rush inside Fumiko’s room. This figure walks across the room to the exit door, looking back at the sleeping defenseless Fumiko, cracks a haunting smile, and leaves her room.

The next morning, a house maid discovers Fumiko in her room in her bed, dead, with a pool of blood out of her mouth and under her head. Conan notices Fumiko’s window is left open and the bonquet of flowers Rachel had given her earlier that have now fully bloomed.

Murder

Victim: Fumiko Asaka

Cause of death: Necrosis via unidentified poison

Suspects: Gennori Sugita, Seiichi Hashimoto, and Koichi Saito

Within minutes, Inspector Meguire arrives on the scene and secures the area, while his team has already put in work: the deceased’s name is Fumiko Asaka-sama, her cause of death appears to be necrosis due to poisoning. No poisonous substances have been yet to be discovered in the venomous species and the time of passing is estimated at 3AM, this early morning. He has already made headway into the case and has talked with a few of Fumiko’s maidens in the mansion with three suspects in mind: the first suspect is Gennori Sugita, Fumiko’s bedside doctor. The hospital works for is financially collapsing to rebuild the hospital’s struggling management team and the building itself, none of which will happen. He has since been working by her side believing she doesn’t have long left. Seiichi Hashimoto is a world renowned painter but hasn’t won any international painting competitions in years. As a result, Fumiko has repeatedly threatened to cut off funding but has employed him to work on personal projects to keep food on the table. Finally, Koichi Saito is Fumiko’s younger, more physically fit lover. He has been overheard by Fumiko’s maids making marriage proposals to the deceased, but Fumiko had determined through independent reports that Koichi is involved with other women and he is more likely after her wealth than anything else.

Inspector Meguire states that all 3 men have more than enough motivation to warrant further investigation and that each suspect will be interrogated in a separate room. Conan wonders how the killer was able to deliver the poison and make Fumiko drink it while Richard becomes suspicious of Gennori because of his occupation. Rachel smiles at Conan because “he’s so smart.” Actually, Conan realizes that Fumiko’s room doesn’t need a key, which means anyone could have walked in uncontested. Rachel notices the massive painting of Adam and Eve on the ceiling above Fumiko’s bed before shifting her attention to the bonquet of flowers she gifted Fumiko with at the beginning of the function. Conan sees the painting as well, noting a color that he’s never seen before.

Rachel sees that her bonquet of flowers have began to blossom completely with the exception of a few buds leftover. Conan ponders if the room could have been warmed to a certain degree. Seeing a maid nearby, Conan asks if she noticed anything out of the ordinary. The maid points out that her daily routines are to open the window of her bedroom twice a day, once before waking Fumiko-sama up, and in the evening before bed. Today is different because the bedroom window was already open before the maid got to it. The maid states it is unusual because Fumiko had a cold, refused to sleep with the air conditioner on, but decided midway through the night to open her window.

Conan’s attention is shifted to the heater of the bedroom as he agrees with the maid: having the window open and either the AC/Heater running at the same time is something a normal person wouldn’t do. He wonders if someone turned the heater and what their purpose was for doing so. His silent frustration nearly gets the best of him but he is certain that one of the three men, Koichi, Seiichi, and Gennori, is the killer, but he can’t connect the dots to how they stealthy maneuvered around and delivered the fatal substance. Inspector Meguire’s team comes back with news, stating they found palette boxes in Seiichi and Gennori’s rooms but given their occupations, nothing out of the ordinary was found that could be linked to poison. Gennori had Fumiko-sama’s medication that was legally prescribed and receipted to confirm purchases. Seiichi, being a world class internationally known master painter, only had harmless paints and brushes. Richard quickly blames Koichi, stating he must’ve had poison in his palette box and gotten rid of it, but this comically couldn’t be more farther to the truth.

This wasn’t the news Conan was hoping for but his mind knows anything is hardly what it is portrayed to be. Rachel complaints about the heat and worries about the mold that will start growing from the humidity. Remembering what Dr. Gennori said, “It's historically true: when certain molds grow on materials containing arsenic, they can release a highly toxic gas”, Conan opens a book from Fumiko’s collection and reads an article entitled, “Scheele’s Green.” Conan consults with one of Meguire’s men about the ingredients of a certain chemical and with that being said, Conan gives an authoritative grin as the sunshine reflects off his glasses. The pieces of the puzzle are firmly in place, and the identity of Fumiko’s murderer is unlocked. With a keen eye for details, only one truth will prevail.

Show spoilers »

Just as Richard proclaims to be tired and exhausted from being sick all day, he is put to sleep by Conan using his trademark wristwatch stun gun. Using Richard’s voice, Conan successfully breaks down the killer’s psychological profile and informs Inspector Meguire to take caution as the culprit they are looking for doesn’t handle rejection very well and is a dangerous narcissistic psychopath who is willing to murder people who criticize their work. Conan reveals that everyone was lead to believe that the killer had to approach the victim and force poison down into her system. While natural to believe at first glance, this is entirely false; for the killer was actually making homemade poison and slowly systematically transforming Fumiko’s bedroom into a massive death chamber under the false pretense of performing basic duties.

Continuing forward, the killer had already applied a few methods way before Fumiko was murdered in cold blood. One of these methods included the heater in her room. Fumiko had been inflicted with a cold, most likely from sleeping multiple nights with the air conditioner running. The killer took note of that and waged their bets that it wouldn’t be used, and set the timer heater on during the function.

As noted by Gennori beforehand, it is June, meaning hot days and cool nights. With the heater on, Fumiko’s room became warm and humidified. Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the naked eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present. In damp environments, mycotoxins attach themselves to airborne mold spores and microscopic dust fragments. When humans inhale this dust, the toxins bypass the body's primary filters and enter the respiratory system directly, as documented in a study published by the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

With all elements and components in place, it was time to reveal the direct link in Fumiko’s brutal demise. The actual poison itself has been in the room the entire time, specially embedded in the painting on the ceiling. The killer is someone who could nonchalantly apply poison to the environment and, when the time and combination of the two factors mentioned from earlier, eventually reach Fumiko without them being present in the same room as her. The killer is revealed to be the painter, Seiichi Hashimoto.

To satisfy the formula for a legal conviction, Conan breaks down Seiichi and his crime. Hashimoto used paint and then weaponized the toxic substances and properties of the mold. Inspector Meguire, once a fully mandated court order has been signed and dated by an independent judge or a competent court, has full legal authority to check Fumiko’s cell phone records and emails; upon doing so will reveal an undeniable timeline that proves that Fumiko has consulted with Seiichi on a number of occasions in regards to the ceiling painting, plus the verbal and eyewitness testimonies of Fumiko’s loyal maids not only putting Seiichi in the crime scene, but also the tools and murder weapon in his physical hands. During those times, Seiichi wasn’t painting a damn thing, he was actually applying his murder weapon, called Scheele’s Green, to the ceiling.

Scheele’s Green is created by combining copper(II) sulfate acting as the base element for the green color, arsenious oxide added to provide brilliance, durability, and a much cheaper production cost than older vegetable dyes, and sodium carbonate as the solvent agent mixing the two compounds. When Scheele’s Green is broken down into its individual compounds, it undergoes chemical and biological degradation that transforms solid copper arsenite into highly toxic, airborne arsenic gases (primarily trimethylarsine or arsine gas), alongside corrosive chemical subproducts.

The timed heater turns on causing the mold to explode rapidly, releasing the fatal fumes and choking and eventually killing Fumiko Asaka in her own bedroom. After two hours have past, Seiichi went into Fumiko’s room to open the balcony door and released the arsenic fumes to the environment where it dispersed.

There is proof of this; Rachel had previously gifted Fumiko a bonquet of flowers when they first arrived, however, they were a mixture of full blowns and baby buds. As of now, due to the warm humidity from the timed heater as mentioned at the start of the resolution, every flower in that bonquet has fully bloomed and blossomed.

To survive the toxic arsenic in the pigment, the fungus metabolized the copper arsenite through a process called biomethylation. The fungus converted the solid arsenic into trimethylarsine gas. This lethal, invisible gas has a distinct garlic-like odor and slowly poisons anyone sleeping or sitting in the room, leading to severe illness and death.

The history of Scheele’s Green sounds like a script out of a horror film. People inflicted with this demonic color have vomited green fluid, the dusting of the green powder that landed on their face, when mixed with clear liquid fluids, gave victims the horrid appearance of shedding green tears. A few candles burning in a room released arsenic vapers to a group of people attending parties in Victorian-era London. Those same people had their lives drastically altered and maimed, majority of them cut short.

The staggering math comes directly from the pioneering work of Dr. A.W. Hofmann, a famous German chemist who published a scathing exposé in 1862 titled "The Dance of Death". An average Victorian ballgown made of green tarlatan fabric contained roughly 58 to 60 grams of pure arsenic. To put that into context, because a lethal dose of arsenic for an adult is only about 0.1 to 0.3 grams, a single fashion-forward dress carried enough poison to kill around 200 people. It is a truly mind-boggling and terrifying statistic to wrap one’s head around. The fact that a woman could walk into a crowded ballroom literally covered in enough lethal material to poison hundreds of people—all in the name of high fashion—perfectly captures the bizarre dangers of the Victorian era.

Historical records explicitly state that the whites of 19-year-old Matilda Scheurer's eyes turned green before she died. Not only that, but because of her occupation as a fluffer (a specific type of factory laborer whose job was to apply a velvety, lifelike texture or vibrant finish to artificial leaves and flowers) her nail beds went from normal to a terrifying green. Because her eyes were physically coated in a layer of copper arsenite, it completely distorted her vision. On her deathbed, she frantically told her doctor that "everything she looked at was green". She wasn't just hallucinating; she was literally looking at the world through a literal film of toxic green pigment caked over her own eyes before finally being called by the heavens to come to glory.

Everyone in the room, with the exception of Seiichi, is left utterly speechless, shocked, and mortified. It is because of those brutal side effects and mounting death tolls that Scheele’s Green was discontinued. As a professional painter of global recognition, Seiichi knows ALL too well of the horrors of Scheele’s Green; it is taught more often as a lesson in art history than a modern day painting technique.

Seiichi denies any involvement in Fumiko-sama’s murder and claims to have only painted with the tools he came with. Conan (though Richard) demands he show them right now. Seiichi grows hesitant and Conan capitalizes, calling his bluff, stating innocent men have nothing to hide and the truth shall set him free, considering if he was truly innocent. The reason why Seiichi is hesitant is because it had already been mentioned: two palette boxes were found in the luggage from two suspects, Dr. Gennori, and the other from Seiichi. Dr. Gennori’s is genuinely innocent and safe to open, but what about Seiichi’s? Yes, there were harmless paints and brushes, but were they really harmless as he claims? The short answer is no, they are lethally laced with mold and paints to give off the same fatal fumes that murdered Fumiko. Seiichi couldn’t very well have trashed these certain tools in the garbage and gone about his day because someone somewhere would have gotten ahold of them and pieced it all together, eventually linking him to this cold blooded murder. They were sealed off to protect himself. The tip off came from one of Meguire’s men, “there were paintbrushes loaded with paint all the way to the ferrule.”

Conan states that while no one there is an art student, that’s one of the things a painter of international recognition should never do. Painters keep paint on the bottom two-thirds of the bristles. Paint dried inside the metal band (ferrule) is almost impossible to remove and splits the brush head permanently. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to stand out. The formula is complete: Seiichi has the weapons, plus the access of the crime scene, plus his direct paints and mold applications that released the poison that caused her death, and adding in the time for which said mold and paints were applied, equals a painting of justice for Fumiko, and a lifetime of punishment and atonement for Seiichi.

Seiichi kindly asks the room if they know who is he, then asks again, before exploding in a rage filled rant that he is the Master Painter, Seiichi Hashimoto. His work is his life, his passion, and his legacy. He confesses to brutally murdering Fumiko, because she simply stated that she didn’t like the painting Seiichi did and wanted him to remake it. Seiichi continues, with veins popping out of his neck and at the top of his lungs, asking the room if Richard knows who he is and what he’s capable of. Meguire places Seiichi in handcuffs and escorts him out. Conan has successfully ridden the streets of another psychopathic narcissist from doing harm, as a bonus, he takes full pride to know that Matilda (the 1891 19-year-old Scheele’s Green victim) got the peaceful spiritual send off that was wrongfully denied to her for more than a century.

The flowers that Rachel gave Fumiko have fully bloomed, releasing clusters of pollen from the petals, blowing outside and disappearing into the mountains of the now peaceful countryside, almost as if Fumiko and Matilda’s spirits was finally set free and Fumiko-sama knowing her killer was brought to absolute justice.

Night of Fireworks, A Murder!!

File 6 - Part 1

File 7 - Part 2

The Missing Bride

File 8 - Part 1

File 9 - Part 2

Demon's Thunder

File 10 - Part 1

File 11 - Part 2