A Message To be Deciphered

At an alley three blocks away from Professor Agasa's house...

The Detective Boys, minus Kourin and Haibara, went to the crime scene that Doctor Yanai was talking about. Using the doctor's car, they arrived at the scene in less than 10 minutes.Many people have already gathered there, looking at the situation there. Much to the kids' surprise, Ran and Sonoko were there.

Conan approached the two teenage girls who were watching the police as they checked the body of the victim.

"Ran-neechan, why are you here?"

"Conan-kun!" Ran could only say as she crouched down to look at him. "It's already past five in the afternoon. What are you doing here?"

"Yanai-sensei said there's a crime here so we went to check it out," Mitsuhiko said and glanced at the said doctor.

Doctor Yanai smiled when Ran looked at him. Sonoko approached the kids, frowning. She didn't seem to like the idea that these kids went there to see a crime so gruesome that the police couldn't even recognize the victim's face.

"Hey, you kids shouldn't even be here. Kids are not needed for this kind of situation. Besides, you're not going to like what you're going to see just in case," Sonoko said.

"What do you mean, Sonoko-neechan?" Genta asked curiously.

Sonoko seemed to almost want to vomit when Genta asked that, making the kids and the doctor wonder what exactly was going on. Conan peered at Ran who seemed to be worried about Sonoko.

"Ran-neechan, what's going on with Sonoko-neechan?" he asked in a child-like tone.

"Yeah. It's like I said something disgusting earlier," Genta said as he glared at Sonoko who was a little far from them.

Ran sighed and stood up. "I think you should just look at this for you to know the reason why Sonoko acted like that." She led the puzzled kids and Doctor Yanai to the crime scene.

Thanks to Detective Chiba and Detective Takagi, the kids managed to get a look at the place. But they never expected to be in extreme shock to see the murdered victim.

Ayumi got scared, that was why she had to hold Conan's arm for support. "Conan-kun..."

Who would never get shocked when they saw the body of the victim, anyway?

The victim was a male, no doubt about that because of his big physique that was unique to a man. He had bathed in his blood because of the bruises and the wounds he obtained when beaten. Due to the number of wounds and blood that came gushing out from the man's body, one man couldn't do this all alone, even if the culprit had a big stick or a metal baseball bat to do.

The man's face was barely recognizable like it was made to be a punching bag. But the first thing that caught Conan's eyes was the man's tattoo.

It was etched on the back of the man's right hand and it was still seen even though the victim's hand was covered in blood. Conan's eyes widened as he remembered something that Kourin said earlier before they went there.

~"It's because of their unique symbol. Three black roses where the stems were intertwined..."~

'It can't be!' Conan thought. 'So Yanai-sensei was right. This man is a member of the Dark Rose. But why was he beaten to death? Was he a traitor to the group?'

"Conan-kun, look at his left hand," Mitsuhiko pointed at the victim's left hand. "He seems to be holding tight onto something."

Conan went near the body, as he was about to get the thing that Mitsuhiko was talking about, someone smacked his head. It was done by none other than Ran's father and the self-proclaimed "great detective" Mouri Kogoro.

"I told you not to interfere with my work, you brat!" Kogoro said angrily.

Conan could only cup his head with this hand. 'I'm never going to help this old man again! Geez... that hurts!'

When Kogoro grabbed the boy's shirt and carried him, Ayumi got angry that she had to stomp at Kogoro's feet so hard. She ran after doing that, dropping Conan in the process as he yelped in pain. The old man then chased her, followed by Genta.

For Ayumi, no one should hurt Conan in any way, even if it was a great detective.

'I have to thank Ayumi-chan later for that,' the bespectacled boy thought, smiling mentally.

With Mitsuhiko as his watcher, he took the thing from the man's hand with a handkerchief so he not to contaminate the evidence. Though he had a hard time taking it out of the man's hand, he managed to do so. Then he looked at it.

'A crumpled paper? That's weird. Why someone who was beaten to death would still keep a crumpled paper?'

But then he noticed that even though the paper was covered in blood and crumpled, he could still see some black lines on it. It was like something was written on it.

He was about to open the crumpled paper when Detective Takagi approached them.

"Conan-kun, you shouldn't touch anything on the crime scene. It's no good for you kids anyway."

It was Mitsuhiko who answered. "We're sorry, Takagi-keiji. But you see, we're also investigating a case that happened a week ago and this man might have a connection to it."

This left Detective Takagi surprised. "What did you say?"

Conan didn't hear anything, though, as he was busy opening the crumpled paper covered in blood. But he was surprised to see what was written on it.

It consisted of four dots, letters of the English alphabet, the numbers 1 to 9, and other symbols.

'A coded message!' But then he noticed something else written on the paper.

"Ares?" he frowned and looked at the dead man. 'So his codename to the Dark Rose Agency is Ares. But what does he want to say with this coded message? It's quite complex and I guess I'll be having a hard time solving this.'

It did look even hard even for Conan. Mitsuhiko and Detective Takagi looked at the coded message as well.

"It looks kind of long for a coded message," Mitsuhiko commented.

"More like a message was made before the murder," the officer said.

The coded message was written like this:

.S8E3 D:I5

.Y9I7A5 A[I7O:I+S #H- D#L9I1 O+W #N* E+T /A$ E+

.4A#D #M 4E-N *H S#D /A$ T6

.R*I:U] I #H- D:A 2I9U- G:I\I\R8S #H- E\A/

(left arrow)RB

ARES

"If it was made before the murder, it seems that he knew he would be killed. For him to make such a complex message, it must be pretty important and he wanted someone to decipher it," Conan commented as he kept on thinking about what could be the answer to the coded message.

"So that means this would amount to a dying message?"

The boy nodded. "It seems that way." Then he began to copy the coded message as it was written, including the name and the arrow.

When he was done copying it, the police exclaimed that they had found another crumpled paper. But this time, it was found inside the dead man's mouth. It was covered in plastic so it was safe.

Inspector Megure opened it only to be surprised to see letters, numbers, and other symbols written on it. But it was written in another way.

"What the heck does he want to do with this code?" Inspector Megure could only ask himself.

Detective Takagi approached the inspector. "Keibu, the kids also found a crumpled paper held tight by the victim."

"What did you say?"

Conan handed the crumpled paper covered in blood to Inspector Megure on the condition that the inspector would let him see the other paper.

The code on the other paper was written like this:

]J | 1K | 2P | 3Z | 4D | 5F | 6I | 7M | 8U | 9L | *O | \V | $W | | +H | /S | :N |-T | #E | [Y

He copied the same code on his notebook as it was so that he wouldn't mess up the order of the code.

'This is one complex case, Conan thought. Ares... If he was a member of the Dark Rose Agency, what is the motive for his murder? And he even managed to create a coded message for someone to read. Is it something really important and he didn't want his murderer to know?'

But then, he sighed as he closed his notebook and placed it in his pocket. By that time, Ayumi and Genta arrived.

"Conan, did you get anything?" Genta asked as he tried to catch his breath.

"We only managed to get two crumpled papers in his possession with codes written on them. But it's confirmed that the victim was a member of the Dark Rose Agency, using the codename 'Ares'."

Ayumi approached him. "Ne, Conan-kun... do you think we should let Rin-san know about this murder?"

"I don't think you should because she had already found out about his death. But for the codes, it's best if you keep it a secret from her for a while," Doctor Yanai said as he looked at the victim.

"But why is that, Yanai-sensei?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"Rin-chan's mind is kind of mixed up somehow because of our current case. You'll know the truth soon. Right now, it would be better if you solve the codes when you can."

The kids somehow understood what the doctor said.

With that, they headed back to the professor's house. They would just get other information about this murder case from Inspector Megure and Detective Takagi.