The next second, a large group of guards rushed into the exhibition hall and charged straight at Kaitou Kid without hesitation.
"Move! Capture that thief!"
The sudden turn of events stunned Gordon for a brief moment.
Bang!
In that instant, Kaitou Kid hurled an object to the ground with astonishing speed, and a thick cloud of smoke instantly engulfed his entire body.
The exhibition hall was spacious and not fully enclosed, so the smoke dispersed completely after only a few seconds.
But Kaitou Kid, who should have been standing at the center of the encirclement, was gone.
"I'm not seeing things, am I? He just… vanished?"
Everyone present stood frozen in place.
The smoke had dissipated far too quickly. Kaitou Kid shouldn't have had enough time to escape the exhibition hall, and his white suit was so conspicuous that someone should have noticed him fleeing.
Yet the undeniable fact was that no one in the hall had seen how Kaitou Kid disappeared right before their eyes.
"What are you standing around for!"
As they remained stunned, Gordon strode over, his face dark.
"Hurry up and chase him!"
The guards who had rushed in so confidently moments earlier now scrambled out in a flurry.
"The rest of you, stay here!"
After that, Gordon called over the lead guard captains and angrily reprimanded them for abandoning their posts.
"Didn't I tell you to seal off all museum exits? Who ordered you to come here? Now the exits are unguarded, and Kaitou Kid can escape from anywhere. What exactly are you thinking?!"
The captains froze and exchanged confused looks.
"Sir… didn't you personally order us to gather all personnel in the museum here to capture Kaitou Kid? You also told us to avoid damaging the museum's collections and not to fire indiscriminately."
Gordon let out a bitter laugh.
"When did I ever give that order? I—"
His voice cut off abruptly, and his expression changed.
"Did you see me give that order with your own eyes?"
Painful memories surfaced in his mind.
"No, sir. You gave the order over the walkie-talkie."
I see.
Gordon let out a small sigh of relief. It seemed Kaitou Kid wasn't a shapeshifting mutant like Clayface. He must have used a voice changer to imitate him.
"Wait! If it was over the walkie-talkie, then I should have heard that order too!"
He quickly pulled out his walkie-talkie and examined it closely.
Strangely, his walkie-talkie looked perfectly normal. It could be turned on, the channels could be adjusted, and there were no signs that it had been tampered with.
Gordon thought for a moment, switched to the channel of the Team Two captain standing in front of him, and called out, "Team Two Captain."
"Team Two Captain!"
The response came immediately.
But it didn't come from Team Two Captain's walkie-talkie.
At that moment, even the dullest person realized something was wrong.
Everyone began looking around, searching for the source of the sound.
Then, almost simultaneously, their gazes shifted to the glass display case that had held the tear of the goddess.
Or rather, to the spot where Kaitou Kid had been standing just moments earlier.
A black walkie-talkie, identical to the one in Gordon's hand, lay quietly on the ground.
The message Gordon had intended for the Team Two captain had not been received by him at all, but by this walkie-talkie instead.
"Could it be…"
As the realization struck him, Gordon switched to the channel for the Team One captain. Once again, the signal was transmitted to Kaitou Kid's walkie-talkie.
Not only that, but any message from anyone else trying to contact Gordon was also broadcast through this walkie-talkie.
"This is my walkie-talkie."
Gordon picked up Kaitou Kid's walkie-talkie, and a massive wave of realization crashed over him.
It turned out that his own walkie-talkie had been swapped out by Kaitou Kid from the very beginning. Every one of his commands had been transmitted to Kaitou Kid first, who then relayed them to the various guard teams.
That was why Gordon hadn't heard any of the orders Kaitou Kid issued in his name.
"But when exactly was it swapped?"
No matter how hard Gordon tried to recall, he couldn't figure out when Kaitou Kid had managed to replace his walkie-talkie.
"Incredible. Absolutely incredible."
As he pondered this, Gordon suddenly felt that something was missing from the scene.
"Has anyone seen Curator Zack?"
Meanwhile, on the third floor of Exhibition Hall Two, two people arrived at a room marked "Archives."
One of them was Curator Zack, who had been in the Gemstone Craft Exhibition Hall just moments earlier.
"Kaitou Kid has already escaped with the tear of the goddess. Shouldn't we issue an arrest warrant immediately? Is it really necessary to come here and check?"
Curator Zack asked hesitantly.
"Of course it's necessary, Curator. After all, Kaitou Kid might have deliberately created a convincing fake to make us believe he escaped with the real item, drawing all our attention to the pursuit. That way, he could search for the tear of the goddess here without any interference."
"As the saying goes, the most dangerous place is the safest. We can't rule out the possibility that Kaitou Kid would use such a tactic."
A steady male voice sounded from behind Curator Zack.
"The Archives. This doesn't seem like a suitable place to hide a jewel."
The man glanced around the room as he spoke.
"It may not be a hard place to find, but just as you said, the most dangerous place is the safest, Commissioner Gordon."
With that single sentence, Curator Zack revealed the man's identity.
It was Jim Gordon.
Not long ago, when a large number of guards flooded into the exhibition hall and Kaitou Kid used a smoke bomb to escape, Curator Zack, overwhelmed by the chaos, suddenly felt someone pulling him away.
If he hadn't heard Gordon's voice, he would have thought he was being taken hostage by Kaitou Kid.
Afterward, Gordon told Curator Zack that he needed to personally confirm whether the tear of the goddess had truly been stolen. When Kaitou Kid displayed the gem earlier, the distance between them had been considerable, and even a professional appraiser couldn't have guaranteed a one hundred percent accurate judgment of its authenticity.
If the tear of the goddess was still here, transferring it immediately would ensure that the museum suffered no losses today.
Curator Zack found Gordon's reasoning perfectly sound and led him to the location where the tear of the goddess was hidden.
From a stack of old archives, he pulled out a small metal safe. After entering a password and retrieving a key, he finally opened it.
When he saw the jewel case inside, Curator Zack's face lit up with joy.
"Sigh~ Commissioner Gordon, Kaitou Kid really was deceiving us! I knew there was no way he could have known the tear of the goddess was hidden here."
"Good. Now please hand the tear of the goddess over to me. The GCPD will ensure its protection."
Gordon coaxed him gently.
Curator Zack was about to agree without hesitation, but a sudden sense of unease made him pull his outstretched hand back.
"But… Kaitou Kid has already escaped, hasn't he? It seems unnecessary to insist on taking the jewel back to the GCPD for safekeeping now…"
Halfway through his sentence, a heavy wave of drowsiness swept over him. Curator Zack swayed, and his vision went completely black.
The jewel slipped from his hand.
Fortunately, a hand clad in a white glove caught it just in time.
"Heh~"
____
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