Chapter 10: The Missing Ring
After Rina Nagatani showed her ancestral ring to her three close friends, she put it back into the wooden box, sealed it with a charm, and returned it to its original place in her bedroom.
However, just now, when she went back to her bedroom to get something, she noticed that the wooden box had been moved, and the charm on it was not placed correctly.
Rina Nagatani quickly opened the wooden box and found that the sapphire ring inside had vanished.
From the time she showed the ring to her friends until its disappearance, less than an hour had passed.
During this period, no one else had entered the apartment.
The person who stole the ring was clearly one of Rina Nagatani's three close friends.
The first person Rina Nagatani suspected was the brown-haired Saki Imagawa.
After Saki Imagawa graduated from university, she married a wealthy businessman and often flaunted her affluent family background in front of others.
However, recently, due to a failed investment, Saki Imagawa's husband not only lost a large sum of money but also accumulated a significant amount of debt.
Although Saki Imagawa tried hard to hide it in front of her close friends, trying to maintain her previous image of wealth, the news of her husband's investment bankruptcy still inevitably became known to others.
Rina Nagatani therefore suspected that Saki Imagawa had stolen the ring to sell it and help her husband pay off his debts.
The two of them started arguing, which then escalated into a physical fight, not only breaking the window on the balcony side, but Saki Imagawa also pushed Rina Nagatani off the balcony, almost causing her to fall to her death.
The second suspect was the woman with the smell of alcohol on her, Keiko Kawamura.
Keiko Kawamura's husband was the financial director of a large company. He often exploited loopholes in the company's management to embezzle public funds for stock trading, planning to return the money once he made a profit.
Last month, the stock market crashed, and Keiko Kawamura's husband lost all his savings, along with the embezzled public funds.
The embezzled public funds were not returned in time, and if the delay continued, the company would definitely notice.
Once the embezzlement was discovered, Keiko Kawamura's husband would not only face imprisonment himself, but the Kawamura family's house would likely also be forfeited.
To repay the public funds, Keiko Kawamura had confided in Rina Nagatani about her family's situation, hoping to borrow money to get through the difficult time, but Rina Nagatani refused.
Although Keiko Kawamura had only confided in Rina Nagatani about her family's situation, she didn't expect that Rina Nagatani had spread the word to everyone.
Saki Imagawa also concluded from this that Keiko Kawamura was the one who was most in need of money and most likely to have stolen the ring.
Additionally, Keiko Kawamura and Rina Nagatani had a long-standing grudge.
Rina Nagatani had divorced due to her husband's infidelity, which was not a good thing, so she concealed the true reason from others, only saying that her relationship with her husband had broken down.
However, Keiko Kawamura somehow learned about her husband's infidelity and told others about it, causing Rina Nagatani to lose face among her friends.
This was also the reason why Rina Nagatani not only refused to lend Keiko Kawamura money when she encountered difficulties, but also spread the news about her husband.
The third suspect was the short-haired woman who reached out and grabbed Rina Nagatani, saving her life, Mika Hirata.
She had an average appearance, an average family background, and her husband was just an ordinary company employee. Although her life was uneventful, she hadn't encountered any problems, making her the least suspicious of the three women.
"After you put the ring back in the box, did the four of you stay together, or did anyone leave in between?" Inspector Samezaki asked.
"After looking at the ring, the four of us sat in the living room, chatting about our university days," Rina Nagatani said, "All three of them went to the restroom individually in between."
"In what order?" Officer Matsumoto pressed.
"First Keiko, then me," Saki Imagawa replied, "Finally Mika."
"When viewing the ring, did any of the three of them touch the ring, or touch the box containing the ring?" Detective Morimura asked.
"None of them did," Rina Nagatani recalled the scene, "I opened the box and placed it on the coffee table in the living room for them to see."
"Because the ring has a curse, I didn't let the three of them touch it."
"Your hands…" Lin Xiuyi interjected, "Why are they all injured?"
"This is from when I was fighting with Rina just now, she scratched me," Saki Imagawa said, looking at the scattered scratches on her hands, and snorted, "But she didn't get off easy either, I pulled out several clumps of her hair."
Keiko Kawamura's hand injury was on her palm, and she explained, "Before I came here, I drank a lot of alcohol and fell on the way, and my hand was cut then."
"What about you?" Lin Xiuyi looked at the almost unnoticeable Mika Hirata. On the back of her right hand, there was a long scratch, still oozing blood beads.
Mika Hirata thought for a moment: "This should be from when I was grabbing Rina just now, and her fingernail scratched me."
Rina Nagatani raised her hands and looked, and indeed found bloodstains on the fingernail of her right hand.
She quickly apologized, "I was too scared at the time, that's why I accidentally scratched you. There should be iodine at home, I'll go find it for you now."
Rina Nagatani was still very grateful to her savior and quickly found iodine to disinfect Mika's wound, then put on a band-aid.
"Hey, my and Saki's hands are also injured," Keiko Kawamura said, seeing that Rina Nagatani had finished treating Mika's hand and was about to put the iodine and band-aids back.
Rina Nagatani clearly still harbored resentment towards these two friends and simply tossed the iodine and band-aids onto the coffee table, letting them deal with it themselves.
While the three women were tending to their hand injuries, Lin Xiuyi wandered around the apartment.
Rina Nagatani was indeed a wealthy woman. This apartment was very large, over 50 square meters, which is almost 150 square meters.
Besides the living room, dining room, and kitchen, the apartment also had three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
One bathroom was inside Rina Nagatani's bedroom, and the other was opposite her bedroom.
From the living room to Rina Nagatani's bedroom, one would pass through a corner corridor.
People sitting in the living room could not see Rina Nagatani's bedroom or the bathroom opposite it.
The thief was able to steal the ring without alarming anyone because of this.
Lin Xiuyi walked into Rina Nagatani's bedroom, wanting to see if he could find any evidence. Inspector Samezaki obviously had the same idea as him.
Unfortunately, after their detailed search, they didn't find anything of value.
Coming out of the bedroom, Lin Xiuyi was thinking about whether he had missed anything, when he suddenly heard Kogoro Mouri laugh in surprise, and then loudly shouted, "I know who the thief is!"
His shout immediately drew everyone's attention.
"Kogoro, this is not a joke," Eri Kisaki kindly reminded him, "You need to have evidence for what you say."
"I don't have evidence yet," Kogoro Mouri said with a triumphant smile, "But I know how to identify the culprit."