Spoilers: The theft, assault, hidden route and letter’s true sender are revealed below.
The thief is neighbor Ami Kimura; the suspicious Kyoto letter comes from Makio Yuida. Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya’s Detective Notes 3 is international episode 1190 (Japanese episode 1132), an anime-original case. Mitsuhiko’s literary suspicion helps him begin investigating, but the final answer requires separating a real criminal scheme from an awkward attempt at reconciliation.
The decisive observations concern Kimura’s clean gloves, a necklace that is really a magnifying lens and a callus that does not fit her suggested occupation. Conan and Haibara separately recognize the letter’s sender as a rearrangement of Makio Yuida’s name.
An instant audition result reminds Mitsuhiko of Holmes
Three members of the Detective Boys—Mitsuhiko, Ayumi and Genta—visit the community hall for auditions to play a feudal lord at the North Beika festival. They encounter two older men, Makio and Kozo Yuida, arguing in their topknots. After Makio leaves, Kozo explains that they are brothers who happened to meet there.
Kozo says the audition panel chose him almost as soon as he entered. That unusually quick decision reminds Mitsuhiko of The Red-Headed League, and he proposes checking Kozo’s home. He is looking for a reason someone might want the man conveniently occupied elsewhere.
There is no hidden tunnel waiting to prove the literary parallel. What the children do find is an antique vase collection and a dispute between the brothers over the pieces. Mitsuhiko has found something worth investigating, but the resemblance to a familiar story is still a starting hypothesis.
The Kyoto offer has a problem in its address
A letter apparently sent from Kyoto offers an attractive price for the vases as a set. The arrangement gives the brothers’ quarrel a possible financial solution, while tickets and an invitation to travel that night make the offer seem urgent.
Mitsuhiko notices that the address and the postmark do not fit. The mismatch makes an outside buyer’s story doubtful, but it does not yet explain who wrote the letter or whether the plan is a theft. Those questions need to remain separate.
The appeal of selling a complete set matters to the criminal side of the case too. The valuable objects are divided between the brothers, so following the collection leads from Kozo’s home to Makio’s apartment.
Police surveillance makes Makio look like the suspect
Looking for the others, Conan and Haibara spot a suspicious man following Makio. Takagi and Chiba are also conducting surveillance: police suspect Makio could be the leader of a group of thieves. The brother who left the audition angrily is now surrounded by a much more serious accusation.
Police watch Kozo’s home, but he slips away to visit Makio’s apartment. Inside, he finds his brother injured after being struck with a vase. Makio survives; the incident is theft and assault, not a killing.
The attack changes Makio’s place in the investigation. The antique collection is no longer merely the subject of a suspicious offer or a family argument. Someone is willing to use violence to reach it and avoid being stopped.
The hidden route runs behind the watchers
A detail Kozo heard over the phone helps Mitsuhiko suspect that the intruder is still in the apartment. Rather than assuming that the visible entrance is the only possible exit, he watches the rear of the building and sees someone descending from above.
Kimura has entered Makio’s apartment from the neighboring unit by breaking through the balcony partition. She strikes him with a vase, then relies on a rear route outside the police’s main view.
An emergency ladder, empty rooms and a closed shop provide the escape route. Watching the front does not close that route off. Mitsuhiko’s useful contribution is to move his attention to the part of the building the apparent security leaves uncovered.
The artist’s accessories suggest a different kind of work
Kimura’s appearance encourages the idea that she is a manga artist. Yet her gloves are clean rather than marked by the work she implies, and the object worn as a necklace is a magnifying lens useful for examining antiques.
A callus on her finger also fits the way the lens is held rather than the suggested use of a pen. Mitsuhiko connects the objects and the physical mark instead of accepting each accessory’s innocent-looking explanation in isolation.
The clues support her interest in judging and stealing the vases. Her status as a neighbor gave her access to information and an adjacent route into the apartment; her jewelry concealed a tool that fits the true purpose of that access.
Mitsuhiko confronts her on his own and is taken hostage. Conan’s intervention stops the immediate danger. Solving the clues has not made approaching the offender alone safe, and the rescue puts a necessary limit on the satisfaction of Mitsuhiko’s deduction.
The letter is an invitation disguised as a transaction
The supposed sender, Iokida Mayu, is an anagram of the Japanese sound units in Yuida Makio. Conan and Haibara recognize that the name comes from the brother being treated as a suspect, not an unknown Kyoto collector.
Makio wrote the letter because he could not comfortably invite Kozo on a trip outright. Its suspicious features therefore conceal a family overture, not Kimura’s theft. He has used the vases as a reason to draw his brother toward a journey together.
Kimura is taken into custody over the thefts and assault. The brothers’ shared ordeal helps them move past their quarrel, with Kozo’s high-five and Makio’s shy handshake giving the children a warmer response than the angry audition scene promised.
The final photograph belongs in the notebook too
A photograph from the brothers’ Kyoto trip later reaches Mitsuhiko. He admits that part of his initial conclusion was hasty and puts the picture in his notebook. The record preserves the correction as well as the successful deductions.
That is the episode’s most generous finish. The Red-Headed League comparison prompted an investigation, but the people involved were more complicated than the pattern suggested. Mitsuhiko’s notes gain value when they include what actually happened, including an affectionate reason for a suspicious letter.
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