Kogoro, Ran, Sonoko, and Conan are on a trip to play tennis when it starts to rain heavily. Later, they find out that the rented car has been washed away and that they are stranded. After walking around, they find a house owned by the same man they met at the tennis court. Later, the man asks them to call his father down, but find him hanged in his room.
As usual the death was not a suicide but a murder committed by Hiroto Akashi. Conan lost his voice in the middle of the investigation and so he had to play charades to get Inspector Yamamura, Sonoko, and Mouri to figure out the murder method. Hirota bound and gagged his step father's mouth and wrists using a napkin and rope respectively. The cord used to activate the light in his bedroom along with a few extracted electric cables were tied around critical points in his teeth. Having put him in the proper hanging position he forces his step-father to hold the bite otherwise his neck would have instantly snapped. The napkin apart from hiding large curry traces (eating huge quantities being an irregular activity for one about to commit suicide) was primarily used to prevent Iwao Akashi from calling for help. Ran hears this as the old man giving a muffled cry to establish an alibi for Hiroto who was busy cleaning dishes in the kitchen. After feeling secure, Hiroto finishes the job by pulling at the cord in the dining room. The lights in the household operate simultaneously. It is explained there are three phases to the lights in the Akashi household. If Hiroto had the lights preset to the standby orange light then he could turn off the light in his father's room. Incidentally the cords in his step-father's room retract when doing so, so this releases all the ropes binding his mouth, hanging him, and violently tearing out two of his molars in the process.
The plan was premeditated with Hiroto waiting at the tennis courts for random travelers to pick up so he could have witnesses to the suicide and
prepared an extra batch of curry rice for the occasion.
Upon discovery of the body, Hiroto hid one of the severed teeth in the curry rice dish his step-father ate and made excuses that the lost teeth were caused due
to a previous dental surgery and that the sudden moment of his death caused bleeding from the gums. Conan points out this cannot be the case as his father ate curry like the rest
and it is ill-advised for post dental surgery patients to eat spicy food. Noticing the presence of rope markings on his wrists puts further doubt onto the theory of suicide and then the rest of the murder is explained.
The motive is that Mr Akashi caused the death of Hiroto's wife. One day when it was raining heavily, Iwao Akashi forced the mistress to
go to the nearest supermarket and buy mushrooms he insisted on having his dinner with. The trip was dangerous as the Akashis lived in a household isolated from
the Karuizawa urban community. To go to the supermarket would mean Hiroto's wife would have to travel a long distance through the forest. She also had a severe cold at the time.
The fatigue of traveling and her illness caused her to collapse. She never woke up and it was not until days later that the police discovered her body: albeit completely decomposed from the moisture and fungi.
Hiroto was grieved by his step-father's gross negligence but it was not until he heard his father's last words at the funeral that his outlook of him forever change.
Iwao snickers contentment that his step-son's wife died as she was physically frail and not worth having as a spouse to physically superior tennis coach like Hiroto.
Hearing his arrogance and later his apparent refusal to live with others, Hiroto kills him out of revenge and to escape his isolated life.
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Trivia
The tennis court in this case is the same tennis court that appears in Conan in a Locked Room.
