Conan, Ran and Kogoro (CRK) win a sightseeing trip after Conan solved the contest’s puzzles and Ran submitted them. Kogoro starts to smoke but is interrupted by Okabe, a labourer of the temple. Ran impresses Okabe with her appreciative comments and invites them to see the temple. Okabe tells the pagoda’s legend, where those who have been bad are mysteriously punished by being found hanging from the top of the pagoda. The tour is interrupted by an angry Tun Kai, who Okabe explains is upset because ODA Company had deceived him into stealing his pagoda to remove and build an amusement park. In the evening, CRK are invited by Oda to dinner since they are staying at Oda’s Hotel and Kogoro is famous. Kajima is there and introduces himself before he is made to leave for Tokyo for business. Chun Kai, Tun Kai’s son, visits Oda during their dinner and tells Oda he won’t give up getting the pagoda back for his father. The next morning, Okabe wakes CRK up and takes him to the temple again, where Oda is found hanging from the roof as the legend foretold.
Cast
Case
Situation
| Hanging
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| Location:
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A Pagoda
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| Victim:
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Oda Hideki, President of ODA Company
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| Oda was found hanging from the roof of the pagoda the morning after meeting Kogoro, Ran and Conan, as described by the Legend of the Pagoda.
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People
Resolution
- Evidence
- 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 mentions that one of the suspects said something strange.
- Conan notices a slipknot tied where the end of the rope was tied to the balustrade.
- Kajima suspiciously had a lot of money in his wallet, as Oda did before he died. Kajima 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.
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.
Conan deduced Kajima was the murderer which was supported because Kajima 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 Kajima 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 Kajima. This same receipt was found in Kajima’s wallet, which Kajima should not have had since he said he was in Tokyo that night and could not have met Oda.
ODA company was had been in loss lately and Oda made Kajima evade taxes to preserve its finances. When Oda wanted to avoid being found out, he wanted to expose Kajima and shoulder all the blame on him, even though he did so much for the company.
See Also
