The Case of the Genius Composer Kidnapping Pt. 3

**The Case of the Genius Composer Kidnapping Pt. 3** is the 33rd chapter of the *Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective* manga.

## Summary

MItsubashi reaches the composition room, and faints when she realizes Nyo-Nyon was kidnapped. She cries at the police that they said Nyo-Nyon would be fine up there. Namazu confirms if the Yamanashi police on the ground saw anyone come through the window, but they did not. Toto also confirms that no one came down the stairs. Namazu grumbles that this is absurd, is there some kind of hidden room? But Mitsubashi says there is no such thing.

But Hummingbird could not have gone very far, Namazu says, and that is the reason he prepared a 500 meter radius spider web formation. He begins to contacts these subordinates at the base of the hill, leaving Toto to search the mansion for clues. Mitsubashi offers to show Toto around the lower floor.

Ron asks if "Sannou" has given up, since he conceded defeat to Hummingbird earlier. But Sannou says Ron misunderstood him. All he said was that Hummingbird won the first round with a brilliant play, but he will win the next round. Ron asks if he means he will arrest him. Sannou asks: didn't he say he was certain Toto would arrest Hummingbird. He then asks Toto how confident h is feeling. Toto truthfully says: he is not confident at all, but he still has to search. Ron says Toto's humility is his strong point.

At the storage room, Mitsubashi notes that the curtains are gone. The room has thick curtains to protect the instruments from direct sunlight. Toto asks who would take them and why. Ron says there are all sorts of musical instruments in the room, does Nyo-Nyon used all of them for composing? Mitsubashi falters saying she is not sure, and that she does not know very much about music. Toto presents a laptop, saying Nyo-Nyon was kidnapped while working on a new song on the laptop. He asks Mitsubashi if anything about it looks unusual. Mitsubashi says again that she does not know much about music. Toto asks if she could at least listen to it, and Mitsubashi says the level is too low, then revises it to say the song is unfinished, so with her level of knowledge, she could not say much about it. Both Ron and Sannou notice this.

The police report that the smoke detectors were tampered with. An outside signal set off the alarms. When asked, Mitsubashi says that the smoke detectors were inspected last month. She thought it was unusual since it was earlier than in past years. Toto says that must be Hummingbird, and Ron agrees, saying not bad. Sannou says not to look down on Hummingbird.

Toto summarizes the sequence of events, and adds that the clocktower windows are so small that getting out through a hang glider is also impossible. Toto starts to panic again, that no matter how he wracks his brain, a kidnapping seems impossible, and there are no clues to the solution. But Sannou asks if he is sure about that. If Namazu returns empty-handed, Sannou has a bit of deduction that he is quite confident about. Ron accepts, saying he hopes they can work together to catch Hummingbird red-handed. But Toto adds that they can only arrest him if he is caught red-handed, and that none of the victims have filed a criminal report. Ron asks about that, and Toto explains: so far none of the people Hummingbird has kidnapped have filed criminal reports. Ron thinks this over for a while, before he smiles and says it is interesting, and asks Toto to contact Chicory, because there is something he wants her to look into.

Namazu returns, saying the officers at the bottom of the hill have not seen anyone, thus he should still be in the area of the mansion. Sannou says that is good news for their hopes of arresting the culprit, and agrees that Hummingbird is still in the mansion. He adds that the one who abducted Nyo-Nyon was the manager, Mitsubashi.

Sannou explains that they were all fooled by the mansion's blind spot: the door on the stairs to the room where Nyo-Nyon was. When the alarms went off, and they all ran up to the top of the tower after unlocking the door with Mitsubashi's key, she was the only one who came up later than them all. Nyo-Nyon is afraid of heights, so she went down the stairs to the door. But since she had nowhere to go, she was pressed behind the door and was hidden there when they opened it up. Then Mitsubashi who was last to arrive, first retrieved Nyo-Nyon, still speechless behind the door, and abducted her.

Namazu immediately accuses that it is true she arrived upstairs later than they did, but Mitsubashi says it is not true and it was not her. Toto thus asks: if that is the case, where is Nyo-Nyon now? Sannou starts insisting: Nyo-Nyon is mostly likely in the hidden room Namazu proposed earlier and there must have been a panic room added when the building was reconstructed. But Mitsubashi again says there is no room like that. Sannou keeps insisting: of course she would not confess so easily, and thus she must come with the the Yamanashi police for questioning. Toto loudly asks Namazu if he is okay with that, but Namazu has to admit that the Yamanashi police cracked the case, and they have no choice.

But Ron interrupts. There are holes in that deduction, he says, passing it over to Toto, who takes it, asking if after Sannou is done, would they mind listening to his deductions? Without prompting from Ron, he says that Hummingbird is someone else.

## Characters in Order of Appearance

* Mitsubashi
* Sannou
* Totomaru Isshiki
* Namazu
* Ron Kamonohashi