Oda was called to meet outside by a suspect the night he died.
Conan noticed that the balustrade used to tie the end of the rope was damaged.
The rope used to hang Oda had burn marks on all over it even though it looked new.
Oda’s feet did not reach the balustrade. This leads Conan to believe that Oda might have been murdered rather than committing suicide, since he couldn’t kill himself if he couldn’t reach the balustrade.
Oda’s tie clip and wallet were not found on his body. Conan inspected the body further and found dirt that smelled like herbs on Oda’s **sleeve and soil on the heels of his feet. Conan looked around and found the necktie clip in a patch of nearby grass.
Conan notices a slipknot tied where the end of the rope was tied to the balustrade.
Kijima suspiciously had a lot of money in his wallet, as Oda did before he died. Kijima said his wallet was different and had a lot of **money because it was the company’s pay-day.
Conan looked inside a nearby, dried-up well and saw something in it. The edges of the well had new marks of friction on it. There was a line imprinted on the grass leading from the well to the pagoda.
Method
Conan used the police’s help to demonstrate the method. Before the murder, one end of the rope was tied in a noose with the rest of the rope hung over the pagoda. The other end was threaded through the balustrade, extended to the ground and tied to short steel beams over the well. The steel beams were sitting on top of a strong iron bar that could be pulled with another rope tied to the bar. When Oda came to the pagoda at night, the murderer slipped the noose around his neck and pulled the rope tied to the iron bar at the same time, causing the steel beams to fall and Oda to be pulled up to the top of the pagoda. To make sure Oda did not remove the noose from his neck, the criminal tripped Oda which is why Oda had soil on his sleeves and shoes and his necktie clip had fallen. The burn marks seen on the rope and damage to the balustrade were from the rope being pulled against the top of the pagoda and the balustrade.
The criminal had to cut and hide the rope, but detective Sango questioned how one person could have done this since Oda was weighed 100kg and cutting the rope would have made him fall back down. Conan asked a police officer to show that a small rod could be put through the loop of the slipknot to hold the rope in place as the other end is cut. The criminal then tied the cut end of the rope on the outside of the balustrade through the slipknot and taut rope and removed the rod. The murderer hid the slack rope still tied to the steel beams at the bottom of the well with the beams to make it look like Oda killed himself.
Conclusion
Conan deduced Kijima was the murderer which was supported because Kijima was a senior employee of ODA Sightseeing and could receive blueprints of the pagoda, thereby knowing how tall the pagoda was and how much rope to use. Conan knew that the decisive evidence against Kijima was in wallet. During the previous night, Oda’s waiter gave him a receipt for a pack of cigarettes which Oda placed in the midst of a stack of bills in his wallet, unbeknownst to Kijima. This same receipt was found in Kijima’s wallet, which Kijima should not have had since he said he was in Tokyo that night and could not have met Oda.
Motive
ODA company was had been in loss lately and Oda made Kijima evade taxes to preserve its finances. When Oda wanted to avoid being found out, he wanted to expose Kijima and shoulder all the blame on him, even though he did so much for the company.
