This week’s whodunit sends Holmes and Aoi to Mount Kurama, where they have a nice date-by-any-other name before visiting the villa of their client. While at a particularly cool restaurant, Holmes reveals that he lost his girlfriend in much the same way she lost her boyfriend. His ex has since married the “arrogant and overbearing Osakan”, but he took that as destiny telling him it was right for them to part.
The case involves three brothers who were instructed by their late author father’s will to be at the villa at a specific time to be given three scrolls that turned out to be worthless reproductions, suggesting they had some other meaning besides assets to distribute. However, the scrolls were burned in the incinerator on the villa grounds. Someone currently in the villa burned them…but who?
Holmes all but dispenses with manners (particularly the second son, who reminds him of the Osakan who wooed away his girlfriend) and works quickly, and because of his near-encyclopedic knowledge of classic art, it doesn’t take him long to deduce what the three pieces were.
Both the first and second sons’ scrolls were works that carried symbolic messages; in both cases, an urging to seek greater heights in the things they’ve decided to do with their lives. But before Holmes can describe the third son’s scroll, the mother breaks down and confesses to burning them—which was fairly obvious in the opening moments of the episode.
She claims to have done it out of anger for not even being mentioned in the second will, and with the mystery solved, Holmes departs with Aoi. Before he does, the brothers insist he tell them about the third son’s scroll, and he acquiesces.
The message of the third scroll is that the third son’s true father was actually the author’s secretary, who was once in a bike gang(!) but saved their father’s life and apparently gave the mother support and comfort as her husband recovered.
It explains the timing of the distribution of the scrolls—just as the third son came of age—as well as the mother’s true motive for burning them—that they’d learn the truth. However, the fact her husband left her an aquamarine ring (symbolizing freedom) indicated he wanted her to be free to live her life, and also free of any guilt she might have felt over what happened.
And there you have it: another reasonably-well-off family with problems has their little personal mystery solved by Holmes, and he and Aoi are driven to the station by the second son (who is an awful driver) where they’ll return home to await the next case.
This episode dragged a bit in the middle as Holmes interrogated everyone, and the animation was pretty damn rough (how I wish these stories were in the hands of someone with some visual flair) but the case was clever enough, and despite his flaws Holmes remains a charming young scamp.
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