Chapter 25 Twenty-four, the lair of the strange thief

The car carried a beautiful woman, a beggar, Akai Torazo, and the unconscious Kogoro Akechi, and drove on the quiet streets. Finally, the car passed the Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi, entered a dark miscellaneous forest, and stopped at In front of a single-family house standing alone. It was a large middle-class residence with about seven or eight rooms, and the doorplate of "Juro Kitagawa" was hung on the doorpost.I don't know if everyone in the house has gone to bed, and there is not even a ray of light on the windows. It seems that it is a not very wealthy family. The driver (of course he is also a member of the Phantom Thief) got out of the car first and rang the doorbell.Soon, there was a click, and the small viewing window on the door opened, revealing two big eyes.Under the reflection of the door lamp, there was a cold light.

"Ah, is it you? How is everything going smoothly?" the owner of the eyeball asked in a low voice. "Well, it went well. Open the door quickly." After the driver answered, the door opened slowly with a creak.Inside the door was a phantom thief man in a black suit standing there vigilantly. Together, the beggar and Akai Torazo picked up Detective Sensei's limp body, and with the help of the beautiful woman, walked into the gate, and then the gate was closed tightly as before. The driver was the only one left outside the door. He jumped into the empty car, drove the car out like an arrow, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.The Phantom Thief's garage must be somewhere else.

Inside the door, holding the three sensible subordinates, they stood in front of the grid door in the entrance, and the electric light in the porch immediately flicked on.It was a blinding electric light. Akai Torazo, who came to this house for the first time, was taken aback by the brightness.That's not the only thing that frightened him.Only then did the lights come on, and then, loud voices came from nowhere.The people around didn't speak, but the voice came through the air strangely. "It seems that there is one more person, who is that guy?" The voice had a weird accent, and it didn't sound like a human being.Akai, who was new to the group, couldn't help but feel horrified. He kept looking around, but still found nothing.At this time, the beggar strode to the pillar of the entrance, and stuck his mouth to a certain part of the pillar:

"He is a new helper, and he has a deep hatred with Zhizhi, so he can definitely be trusted." He said to himself alone, as if he was on the phone. "Really? Then come in." The strange sound sounded again, and the lattice door opened silently as if an automatic device had been installed. "Hahaha... Are you scared? I was talking to the boss in the back room just now. In order not to attract attention, a loudspeaker and a microphone are installed behind this pillar. The boss is really a careful and thoughtful person." Disguised as a beggar The subordinate explained to Akai.

"But, how does the boss know that I'm here?" Akai was still full of doubts. "Well, you'll know that right away." The beggar ignored him, and strode into the house with his own wisdom in his arms.Akai naturally had no choice but to follow obediently. Walking into the foyer of the entrance, I saw a burly man with crossed eyebrows, standing imposingly with his legs crossed, but when he saw them, he immediately nodded with a smile. Pull open the paper door and walk along the corridor to the innermost room.Strangely, it was just an empty room about ten tatami mats in size, and there was no phantom thief.

The beggar gestured with his chin, and the beautiful woman immediately strode towards the alcove, put her hands behind the beams and pillars, and groped for something. As a result, guess what?There was a blunt click, and a tatami mat in the center of the Japanese room quickly sank, and a rectangular dark hole appeared. "Come on, go down the ladder here." Hearing this, Akai couldn't help but peek into the cave. There was a very imposing wooden ladder under the cave entrance. Ah, how cautious he was.There is a checkpoint at the main entrance and a checkpoint at the main entrance. Even if you pass these two checkpoints, if you don't know the mystery under the tatami, you will have no way of guessing where the Phantom Thief is.

"What are you still in a daze for, go down quickly." The three joined hands to lift Zhizhi's body and walked down the ladder together. At this moment, there was a creaking sound above their heads, and the tatami hole was restored to its original shape and covered.It does seem to be a very sophisticated device. They went down to the basement, which was not yet the room of the Phantom Thief.With the help of dim electric lights, I walked along the concrete corridor for a short distance, and then was blocked by a solid iron gate. The beggar man raised his hand and knocked on the door. The rhythm of the knocking was quite weird, thump, thud, thump... Then, the heavy iron door opened from the inside, and the dazzling light shone into his eyes. In front of him was a richly decorated room. Majestic Western-style room.Sitting on the big easy chair in front of him, the gentleman in a suit who was about thirty years old with a smile on his face was the man with twenty faces.Although I don't know if this is his real face or a disguise, but he is a handsome man with beautiful curly hair and no beard.

"Well done, well done. I won't forget your credit." The Kaitou seems to be very satisfied with being able to bring back his arch-rival Kogoro Akechi.It's no wonder, as long as Zhizhi is locked here, there will be no more terrible opponents in the whole country. The poor wise detective was tied up and fell to the ground beside him.Akai Torazo didn't seem to understand his hatred when he saw him stunned on the ground, and even kicked him on the head two or three times. "It seems that you really hate him. You and I are fellow travelers. However, you should stop. Enemies are for mercy. Besides, he is the only detective in Japan, so don't be so rough with him. Untie the rope and let him lie down on the bench over there."

As expected of the twenty-faced phantom thief, he knows how to treat captives. So, several subordinates obeyed the orders, untied the rope, and let the wise detective lie on the bench. Maybe the medicine had not faded, and the detective was still limp and unconscious. Next, the beggar man reported to Twenty Faces in detail the process of kidnapping Wise Detective, and also explained the reason for inviting Akai Tozo to join. "Well, good job. Akai should be very useful. Besides, I'm most satisfied that he has a bloody feud with Akechi." Twenty Faces was in a great mood because he successfully captured a famous detective.

Therefore, Akai made another oath and re-performed the ceremony of apprenticeship.After taking the oath, the homeless man immediately asked the question that he had been wondering since just now. "The mechanism of this house is amazing. With these mechanisms, there should be no need to be afraid of the police. However, I have a question that I don't understand. When I arrived at the entrance just now, why did the boss see me?" "Hahaha... Are you asking that? Come here, take a look at this." The Phantom Thief pointed to something that looked like a chimney hanging from a corner of the ceiling.Since the boss asked him to watch, Akai immediately stepped forward and put his eyes on the hook-like mouth of the lower end of the chimney.

Take a look and guess what?In the tube, the scene of the whole house—from the entrance to the door—is reduced to a miniature size and displayed.You can clearly see that the person who was guarding the gate before is now standing inside the gate, faithfully performing his duties. "It's the same principle as the periscope used in submarines, it's just more complicated than that." No wonder the whole house needs such strong electric lighting. "However, what you saw just now is less than half of the organs in this room. Among them, there are also organs that only I know. Because this is my real base camp. Although I have a few other places besides this Lairs, but those are just temporary shelters to confuse opponents." In this way, the Toyamahara abandoned house that tortured Kobayashi before was just one of the temporary lairs? "Sooner or later, you will see that there is my art room behind here." It seems that Twenty Faces is still in a good mood, chattering to the point of rapping.On closer inspection, there was something like a large bank's vault behind his easy chair, with a complex mechanism attached to the vault door. "There are many rooms behind here, hahaha... You must be surprised. This basement is far more spacious than the ones that are built on the ground. Moreover, each room displays the trophies of my life in different categories. Someday I will Open your eyes. "There are also many empty rooms. Those rooms will be filled with a large number of national treasures in the near future. You must have read about this in the newspapers. That is a large number of treasures in the Imperial Museum, hahaha..." Now that the confidant of wisdom has been eliminated, those art treasures can almost be said to be in his pocket, and Twenty Faces was so happy that he couldn't stop laughing.