Full solution spoilers for Detective Conan Files 1137-1140. This article reveals the culprit, the three staged effects, and the truth behind Takehiko Nanjo’s badge.
Tamaki Ito staged the apparent hauntings and targeted Yuta Kitakura because she believed he had killed Takehiko and taken his captain’s badge. File 1140 overturns that belief: Takehiko entrusted the badge to Kitakura while asking him to save Tamaki. The object she read as proof of betrayal was evidence of trust.
File 1140, Entrusted, was published in Japan on February 12, 2025, in Weekly Shonen Sunday issue 11 and is collected in Volume 107. It closes the four-part Compass Detective Club case in Nagano.
A demonstration at the hospital
The chapter opens at the hospital where Kitakura has undergone surgery but has not yet regained consciousness. Kansuke Yamato and Takaaki Morofushi join Yui Uehara, the Detective Boys, and Shichisuke Kasai, Kaori Nanjo, and Tamaki.
Yamato is unusually bundled up in sunglasses, a scarf, gloves, and a thick down jacket. As he reaches for a can of coffee from Takaaki, fire appears at his hand. He strikes his back against a pillar and smoke rises; Uehara finds a scorched area. Then his scarf begins burning. To the children, it looks as though the same ghostly phenomenon has returned.
Conan puts out the flames with an extinguisher. The demonstration exposes the trick behind the case: the three incidents were designed to look like the same supernatural attack, even though they used different methods. Their shared appearance had encouraged everyone to search for one mysterious cause.
The first fire used disinfectant gel
In the demonstration, the coffee can is already burning with disinfectant gel. The original ritual used the same basic deception: Tamaki put gel on a small dish and lit it with a stolen electronic lighter. The supposedly inexplicable flame therefore had a concealed, ordinary source.
The smoke from Kaori’s back was a separate effect
The second effect came from a coin purse containing dry ice and water, hidden in the hood. The vapor and the already-scorched fabric made it look as though a new fire had occurred when the wearer struck the wall. The decisive detail in the video is Tamaki retrieving the purse from Kaori’s hood into her own sleeve.
That movement matters more than simply finding a coin purse among her belongings. It links the object to her handling of the clothing during the incident. The recording preserves the removal of the device, even though the frightened witnesses had focused on the apparent smoke.
The car attack used a fixed laser pointer
The third incident used Tamaki’s unusually powerful foreign-made laser pointer. The solution explains that fixing it to the vehicle body kept the beam on Kitakura’s exposed sleeve while the cars traveled alongside each other for roughly ten to fifteen seconds. This accounts for the fire without anyone visibly holding a flame beside him.
The tape matching the Mini’s body color, found in the woods, connects the reconstruction to a physical trace. Naming the laser was only part of the answer: the surprising element was how it was held in position. Together with the recorded purse movement and the first staged fire, the explanation leads Yamato to identify Tamaki as the culprit.
Why the captain’s badge was misunderstood
Takehiko’s badge differed from the others. In the Japanese lettering for the club’s name, a small circular mark in the syllable pa was replaced with a C, meaning Captain. After the lodge fire, Tamaki saw Kitakura wearing the badge that should have belonged to Takehiko. She concluded that he had taken it after killing her former boyfriend.
The earlier emergency tells a different story. When Kitakura returned to the lodge, he found Takehiko trapped under a cupboard and called 119 for help. Takehiko asked him to save Tamaki, who was asleep on the sofa, and entrusted him with the badge in case he himself did not survive.
Tamaki correctly recognized the badge but misunderstood how it had changed hands. Ownership was the observable fact; murder was the conclusion she attached to it. The ending is painful because the person she attacked had acted on Takehiko’s request to save her.
Kitakura survives, and the operation is reported to have gone well. Tamaki goes to apologize. That closes the immediate case, but it does not erase the harm caused by treating a suspicion as a certainty.
Why the relay memory gives the ending its weight
File 1139’s childhood memory now has a second purpose. When Uehara was in first grade and Yamato and Takaaki were in sixth, the two boys worked together to win her a relay ribbon. In the resolution, Takehiko passes the badge to Kitakura like a baton. Both moments turn on entrusting something to another person so that they can carry it forward.
That parallel gives the mystery a warmer emotional center than the revenge story first suggests. The badge is not merely a clue used to identify a motive; its meaning changes when the missing context is restored. The relay connection makes the earlier childhood scene part of the ending rather than an unrelated break from the case.
The mechanics are carefully spread among the objects introduced in the belongings check. The first gel-based effect is difficult to anticipate, and the fixed position of the laser adds a step beyond merely suspecting the pointer. That variety is why the apparent repetition of a single haunting is such an effective misdirection.
What the Nagano story leaves for the film
I had hoped for more of the Nagano officers’ personal history, especially a memory of Hiromitsu Morofushi. Kaori’s burned phone seemed a promising echo of his damaged handset, but that prediction does not pay off in this case. The main new childhood material is the relay story and its connection to Uehara’s feelings for Yamato.
Conan, Yamato, and Takaaki solve the case together without a Sleeping Kogoro performance. Kogoro Mouri was absent because of his cold. The familiar pattern of the Nagano officers working directly with Conan continues here; a future story could still show how Sleeping Kogoro would fare in front of the pair.
At the end, Kogoro sees a photograph of Conan with a woman and decides he wants to go too. That change from missing the trip to wanting to join one may be a playful lead-in to One-eyed Flashback. It is a reading of the manga’s closing joke and the film’s timing, not proof that his absence was planted for a particular movie development.
The case finishes with a clear answer to its central mystery, even if the hoped-for Hiromitsu connection never arrives. Its strongest payoff is the badge: the same object can tell a story of theft or a story of trust, depending on whether the person interpreting it has heard the whole account.
Explore Volume 107 and the next case
The related articles below cover Volume 107, the investigation in File 1139, and File 1141.
Further reading (contains spoilers): Nagano Prefectural Police appearance guide and Kansuke Yamato and Yui Uehara's relationship.
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