Episode 1152: Last Dance
Scenario: Sonoko invites Ran to a party held by real estate company manager Kensaku Takada, and Conan inevitably has to follow them since Kogoro is off to drink with the neighborhood association. At the party, they get to meet Kensaku and his wife, Konomi. Kensaku, who heard from Sonoko that Ran is a karate champion, says that he also once practiced karate in college, and out of his passionate talking, starts striking poses. While not mentioned by anyone, Kensaku’s sleeves pull up slightly during this talk, revealing an expensive-looking watch.
Upon seeing Rika, Kensaku’s maid, walk past him, he calls her over to bring some drinks. Unfortunately, Rika bumps into one of the guests and accidentally spills the drinks onto Kensaku, which makes him furious and he nearly strikes her before Konomi intervenes. Konomi suggests him to go change his clothes, and Kensaku leaves the room, before Konomi also leaves to head to the powder room. Conan then spots a worried-looking man holding his phone intently before the man also exits the room.
After some time, Konomi returns, but Kensaku is still missing. Rika, now with a red mark on her cheek, tells Konomi that Kensaku went out to smoke. Konomi then instructs Rika to go get Kensaku. Meanwhile, Sonoko notices that Konomi had changed her shoes, and also invites Ran to change into a different pair of shoes. When questioned by Conan, Sonoko reveals the party to be a dance party, where participants wear special dancing shoes. She reminds Ran that wearing accessories are not allowed. But not long before the dancing is about to begin, a scream from Rika interrupts the excitement—she has found Kensaku, who had fallen to his death.
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| Kensaku was drinking before the accident, but would this really mean he was in a drunken state and accidentally fell off the elevated property? |
The police arrive, with Takagi noting that Kensaku had been drinking before his death, suggesting that his drunken state led him to accidentally fall over the mansion’s fencing and, due to the property’s elevation, injure his head on the pavement below. However, Conan denies this as an accident, having noticed many footprints in the yard above, indicating a fight between Kensaku and a possible killer. The police, Ran, and Sonoko head back up to the mansion’s yard to see the footprints, but Conan stays back, and finds that Kensaku’s watch is missing. Apparently, the forensics officer had found the watch in Kensaku’s jacket pocket, not on his wrist. Back at the mansion, the police take a look at the footprints. Considering their wide extent across the yard, they assume Kensaku had an intense fight with whoever killed him. There are also four sets of footprints, which are from Kensaku, Rika, Conan and the murderer. Strangely, some footprints are whole while others are halved, as if the halved footprints were created from a person standing on their tiptoes.
Conan helps the police narrow down the suspects to those who left the party venue before Kensaku’s death. They are Konomi, Rika, and the worried-looking man from before, who is introduced as Satoru.
Of the three, Satoru is the only one with a motive, being financially indebted to Kensaku. The police later find a pair of dancing shoes in the yard that match with the fourth set of footprints. It bears a small mud print. Satoru confesses that the shoes belong to him, and the police decide that he is the culprit. Conan, though, notices something between Satoru’s dancing shoes and the shoes Satoru was currently wearing.
Conan decides to investigate some more, and heads into the mansion’s kitchen, where he sees Rika searching for something on the floor. That “something” is her earring, which for some reason had been dropped. Heading back out to the yard, Conan finds that forensics had finished recording the footprints. Conan then has Takagi and Chiba reenact the murder by stepping onto the footprints. But when Takagi is forced to stand on his tiptoes, he loses balance. The experiment is seemingly useless, and Satoru is being taken away by the police for questioning.
Conan, holding the forensic officer’s record of the footprints, passes by Ran. Ran notices that the footprints look similar to a step diagram, which Sonoko used when teaching Ran how to dance. It is not long before Sonoko is seen kneeling on the ground…and “Sonoko’s” deduction show begins.
