File 690: Who will be the one hide under the table?

[Chekhov MacGuffin]

I went back and re-editted some of my theories now that 690 and a quick translation of 691 have come out. I also separated the different theories by topic. One thing I noted is that outside of the storehouse door are four steps, but inside the storehouse door are five steps leading down into the room.

Theories on what the treasure is:
It's almost certainly the stolen loot from the string of robberies at jewelery and antique stores that Shiratori mentioned in the beginning of 690. I think that the proprietor of the storehouse is probably part of the robbery gang since someone has to reset the trap. Coming up with a haunted warehouse story is a good way to keep kids away and make any stories they tell to adults less believable. The proprietor also rushes the Detective boys out, even though he lets them investigate a little.

Theories on where the treasure is located:
I think part of the roof can lower to the floor and the treasure it located in a rather thin space in the ceiling. Supporting evidence for this is the badge that fell from the roof during the investigation. Perhaps the badge got stuck and was dragged up between the roof and the wall when the roof was raised up to hide the treasure. Also, once Conan fiddles with the abacus, part of the roof lowers. I think the appearance of a mountain of treasure that couldn't possibly be hidden in the walls or ceiling is an illusion. It's because the roof that lowers is the same pointed shape as the ceiling with the treasure laid out on top of it. It only appears to be a heap of goods rather than a thin coating of treasure.

How to reveal the treasure (not solved yet but I outline the problem)
Fiddling with the abacus affects the building and the puzzle is figuring out the pattern of how to position the beads in the weird abacus. The beads' positions in the abacus are as follows.

|o|  |  |  |  |  |o|o|o|o|o|  |o|o|  |
|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|  |o|o|o|
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |o|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
|o|o|  |  |  |o|o|o|  |  |o|  |  |  |o|
|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|  |o|  |o|o|o|
|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|  |o|o|o|
|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|  |o|o|o|

Do note that an upper column with 2 beads has no sliding room and a lower column with 5 beads also has no sliding room. Conan slides two beads in the fourth column upwards and then attempts to move one bead in the sixth row upwards, which causes the two beads in the fourth row drop. Presumably this causes the roof to lower slightly. The column with 0 beads and the one entirely filled up are probably important divider marks.

According to the quick translation of 691, the top two columns on the left haven't been moved and on the bottom, the 3rd column, 4th, 6th, and 8th column from the right haven't been moved either. The bottom of the 5th column (from the left?) was mentioned as having not been moved but I'm unsure of the quick translation. (Help please?) Using this info, it is possible to figure out some of the other beads' positions for certain if I assume a couple of things. One is that the Detective boys explicitly mentioned all the columns that haven't been moved and thus all the ones they didn't mention have been moved if they could be. Finally, I assume turning the beads around the axis has no effect - only sliding matters.

|o|  |o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|  |o|o|o|
|o|o|  |  |  |  |o|o|o|o|o|  |o|o|  |
|o|o|*|*|  |o|o|o|*|  |o|  |  |*|o|
|*|*|*|*|  |*|*|o|*|  |*|  |  |*|*|
|*|*|*|*|o|*|*|o|*|  |*|  |o|*|*|
|*|*|*|*|o|*|*|o|*|o|*|  |o|*|*|
|*|*|*|*|o|*|*|o|*|o|*|  |o|*|*|

o = a fixed bead position
* = a potential bead position

Note that any column with four that has been moved must have at least one bead one bead slid up since columns with four have only one open space. A few things I noticed about the arrangement is that the filled column is right in the middle and all the bottom columns to the left of it are symmetrical with one another. Maybe a word/kanji will be written out by the beads? Japanese number/wordplay is also likely as well. A musical score is another possibility, with the five rows below representing the musical staff. Maybe that strange shrine (it has a shimenawa and four shide hanging from it with five twists each) above the door hints how to position the abacus.

[Shinran]

Blame the fact that Kaitou Kid is mentioned in this file. >: What about Hakuba, folks?

[Chekhov MacGuffin]

For the sake of this I'm going to assume whoever is under the desk is also the one who is feeding the Detective Boys hints. Whoever is feeding the detective boys instructions has to:
(1) be pretty swift
(2) know the Shounen Tantei were going to investigate the warehouse which means they overheard the conversation at the school or heard the DB talking about it at the detective agency and guessed by haunted house they meant the warehouse. S/he would have to avoid getting noticed by Conan or Haibara.
(3) already know something about the layout of the warehouse, visited in advance, or that Kichiemon was the maker and thus liable to make some sort of convoluted mechanical device if s/he advised the Det. Boys on what to do with their badges (the person need not know about the badges though, any item would have worked)
(4) have the kind of personality where hiding under a desk and secretly feeding information to the DB to presumably allow them to best Conan is not OOC.
(5) have a motive. Plausible motives are interest in the warehouse due to the recent thefts, the fact the builder was that wacky Samizu Kichiemon, desire to investigate it after hearing rumors, concern about the classmate having nightmares, wanting to knock Conan down a peg for fun, etc.

Kobayashi passes #2, #4, and #5 for sure. She would pass #3 if she heard details from her student and got additional cellphone pictures from the DB. The question though is she smart enough to give out those kinds of good hints (#1). She has proven herself somewhat capable in past cases, but the level of advice she has given out seems a little bit beyond her, especially since she probably doesn't know many details about the warehouse. However if there is a Ranpo case similar to this she could have easily borrowed some ideas from the book. I think she is a reasonable guess for the desk lurker/advice giver. It's sad the DB dumped her at school; she really wanted to investigate.

Kaitou Kid could pass all 5. #1 is obvious, he could pass #2 if a disguise was involved. Do note there was a random adult standing by the gate of the school while Shiratori and Kobayashi were talking. For #4 he would want to hide under a desk to avoid Conan. #5, the motive to investigate, is a bit of a problem; maybe among the stolen antiques is something he wanted to swipe himself but it was taken before he could get to it? I don't think the fact that Samizu Kichiemon built the warehouse is enough of a motive for Kid to investigate even though Kaitou Kid did show up in both chapters involving S.K.'s stuff previously. There's no reason for Kaitou Kid to care about S.K.'s crazy mechanical things by themselves; Kid only cared about the house because it had a big diamond, and only cracked the safe because Suzuki Jirokichi impersonated him in a note and asked him to. The other problem I have with Kid being the desk lurker is why would he have a bunch of kids solve the case when he could do it himself - he's no slouch in the brains dept. Also, why in the heck would he hang around the elementary school in the first place? (unless he's stalking Conan  ) To his benefit, he was mentioned ahead of time in the chapter which would make his appearance not completely out of the blue, but we just had a Kaitou Kid case ~16 chapters ago.

Heiji passes #1 and #4, but Tokyo isn't his turf which makes #3 unlikely in his case ,and he does stand out which makes #2 unlikely as well. He would have had to make a split second decision at the detective agency to hide under the desk and work from the shadows. We are long overdue for a case with the Kansai-ben however.

Eisuke passes criteria #1 and his natural sneaky ability makes #2 possible, but he has problems with #3 and #5. Why would he try to figure out a warehouse after just coming back from Amercia, and could he have had time to go and visit it if he just got back? Also I don't think Eisuke passes criteria 4.

Shiratori passes 2 and 5 with the motive being trying to help out as a way get on Kobayahi's good side. He has problems with #1 similar to Kobayashi, but also with #4: why would a guy who has as much aristocratic pride as him hide under a desk? He also left a while ago - presumably during the middle of the DB's conversation on the warehouse so he ight not even know about it.

The Kudo Yuusaku/Yukiko team passes #1, #4, and #5. With Yuusaku, as long as he had a good idea that the warehouse was built by S.K., he could probably supply reasonable hints figuring that some unusual mechanical device would be involved. The problem they have is that even if Yukiko disguised and listened into the story about the warehouse at the school (the warehouse hasn't been in the news), I don't think that gives them enough time to figure out all the necessary details like who built it such that they would be able to give good advice knowing what the DB would encounter ahead of time. Also they would have to show up in the office in disguise if they were acting as Conan's parents and the kids definitely wouldn't recognize them.

Okiya - Passes #1, but #4 is unlikely for him. Also #2 is hard to believe since Haibara is sensitive to him and would have picked up on his presence. He also has problems with #3 and #5.

Hakuba - Passes #1, but has problems with #2-#5.

[baka1412]

Putting aside the person hiding under the table, do you think this case is actually just some scheme by Ai and Conan ?

Ai said to the kids on the beginning of the chapter, if they always rely on conan they will never grow up > This is the main point of this mini arc

So somehow, she and Conan made some kind of play, so the kid solve the mystery by themselves..

OR

At least, Ai and Conan purposely lost to the kids to give them some confidence (while Ai helping on the Kids for a little)

[Introuble]

i think gin is under the table 

[bluekaitou1412]

I'm hoping it's KID

[Kite]

i think gin is under the table 

That'd be a REAL plot twist! 

Anyway, since I heard the phone message was in Kansai-ben, I'm almost completely persuaded it's Heji. It'd be weird to use some sort of dialect if you expect only the kids to read it, that would be just too difficult. I can still accept him playing around with Conan, he kinda likes to surprise him after all, even 'though he isn't that familiar with the detective boys (in the manga anyway). So no Yukiko anymore for me.

[Shinran]

i think gin is under the table 

That'd be a REAL plot twist! 

Anyway, since I heard the phone message was in Kansai-ben, I'm almost completely persuaded it's Heji. It'd be weird to use some sort of dialect if you expect only the kids to read it, that would be just too difficult. I can still accept him playing around with Conan, he kinda likes to surprise him after all, even 'though he isn't that familiar with the detective boys (in the manga anyway). So no Yukiko anymore for me.

Conan: WHO'S HELPING THEM?!
Heiji: *snicker*
Conan: ...
Heiji: *wins*
Conan: WTF O:

[skiLLet]

Couldn't it be Takagi or Satou?

[Chekhov MacGuffin]

Anyway, since I heard the phone message was in Kansai-ben, I'm almost completely persuaded it's Heiji.

Where did you hear that? If true, it's almost definitely Heiji. I wonder how he heard about the storage room though? Maybe during the time Conan went upstairs and Ai went to the bathroom (they must have taken their sweet time!), the DB filled in Heiji who had been hanging out at the detective agency waiting to surprise Conan. Unless Heiji knew some details about the storage room in advance, it's kind of weird he would advise the kids to place their badges particularly because most storage rooms don't have crazy mechanical devices built in by booby-trap-obsessed nutty architects to hide stuff with. A false wall is much more likely. Maybe Heiji thought there might be some sort of trap door in the floor, so even though the storage room trap was more complicated than he could have anticipated, the suggestion was useful anyway. I hope Gosho doesn't leave any logical plotholes.

I'm secretly hopping some officers from the third division will show up - especially if they become potential Bourbon suspects. It would be interesting if Bourbon was a mole in the police. Then on top of that, if Heiji sticks around for the imminent clash arc we are now due for, they can team up. Also, I'd like to see Hattori and Okiya meet.

One mystery remains though: what color is Okiya's apron?

[GinRei]

I don't really see what about the message makes it Kansai-ben, since other than the "de" at the end it's just standard japanese.

[kirite]

After watching a few random episodes I'm guessing it's Kogoro.  He might be hiding from Ran because he did something bad or he bought something he wasn't suppose to buy (or something).  The kids saw him coming through the door and blackmailed him into helping them with the latest case.

I just thought it was interesting how Ayumi said "If you're looking for Kogoro-ojisan he's at the race track".

[GinRei]

Actually, Conan said that.  Note how the bubble arrow curves.  Plus, the DB call him Mouri-tantei.

[Chrissy]

When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains is the the truth... So lets review all the character shall we ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kogoro ? I'll be laughing my a** if he agree to play pranks like that with the kids, even to the point he hide under the table

Ran ? Yeah, the kids shouldn't be shocked if its her...

Yukiko ? seems unlikely to show up in the Mouri office.. But if this happened on Agasa house, i bet 100% it is her

Eri ? the kids didn't know her

Kazuha ? same as above

Heiji ? same as above

Jodie ? Yes, there is some possibilities, but the kid hardly know her

Sato ? Maybe, but why should she hide ?

Takagi ? same as satou

KID ? the kids hardly know him, with or without his disguise

Megure ? He wont fit under the table

Okiya ? Haibara would've feel something if he is near her

Agasa ? He won't fit under the table

Goro the Cat ? yeah, it seems possible why the kid shocked when seeing him, and he fits under the table

All the possible reasoning pointing at.... :::: Goro the cat ! 

Haha megure and asaga: cant fit under table XD

[kudokun]

but i actually think that it could be kudo yusaku or yukiko as he/she or both hasn't appeared for a long time and yusaku is also a great detective who happens to be helping DB but does DB know him? Also there could be a chance that it is Sonoko or kaito kid dressed as shinichi but the problem would by why are they hiding because sonoko is ran's friend and why would he hide under the desk and why would he be in the DA? Another possible person could be agent camel as DB know him and he could be hiding as he is only looking for conan about the BO.