a mask of the same kind that covered her entire face stood across from him at a distance of about four meters.
"Hello Kaito Kid!" a pleasant sounding voice sounded through the room."Did you forget me?"
"How could I forget you!" answered the question with a counter-question.
Yusaku winced violently. "The Thieving Magpie!" he whispered.
"What?" his son looked at him in surprise. "Who are you talking about?"
His father pointed to the masked woman, who now drew a strange pistol and pointed it at the person opposite.
"That must be the thieving magpie. In the early days of Kaito Kid there was still a criminal who was quite a match for him. They rattled together more often when they wanted the same prey. But then one day it just disappeared and so it was forgotten , because Kaito Kid then drew the full attention. In the end they even gave him her name! Nobody thought anymore that it was a person of their own! "
Shinichi looked astonished. He had never heard of that before.
The masked woman shot her counterpart. Strange little arrows came out of the gun, but they missed Kaito Kid, who was holding a sign he'd fished out of thin air but instead hit a couple of policemen who'd appeared behind him.They collapsed in a daze. Kaito Kid also raised his strange pistol and fired. But a cloud of smoke appeared around the woman. When it evaporated, you could see that the cards that had come out of the Kaito Kids gun had also hit a couple of police officers and pinned them to the wall with their sleeves where the thieving magpie had been standing.
Now one should expect that the diners would either disappear or try to overpower the two criminals. But none of it came true. No! They enjoyed the whole thing like a magic show.
The woman was no longer in her place, but suddenly appeared several meters away from nowhere.
The audience applauded enthusiastically.
Now a downright magical fireworks began, which the two opponents each played off against each other. The cards, hoops, flowers and all sorts of other magic implements flew through the air. You couldn't follow the whole thing with your eyes that fast.But Shinichi gradually noticed that neither of the two masked men got a scratch. No! Police officers were always hit and drugged. Suddenly he knew that it was actually just a magic show that was drawing everyone's attention. Nobody paid any more attention to the glass safe. Not even Inspector Nakamori, who now stormed into the room, snorting angrily, ran between the two magicians and screamed loudly:
"Hands up! You are both under arrest!"
Yusaku just shook his head in resignation. "That fool!" he muttered, and in fact, hit by arrows, he slumped and slept through the rest of the show.
Shinichi smiled in amusement. He was the only one in the whole hall tore his eyes away from the two magicians and looked at the huge aquarium. On top of the lid he saw a masked man sitting in whom he assumed Jji was. He had probably overcome the security precautions and was holding a fishing rod with a gripping arm at the lower end of the line with which he was reaching for the pearl. Nobody else noticed, but the man probably noticed that he was being watched.He looked down and his eyes met the Shinichis. He gave him a short wave. Yusaka had also come up with the solution in the meantime. But just like Shinichi, after a brief look at the giant aquarium and the man on it, he turned his eyes back to the two wizards, whose appearance was simply incredible.
"I love well done shows and these two guys are absolute masters!" said Yusaku admiringly. "You usually pay a lot of admission for a performance like this. I would love to know how your friend got in touch with his father's old rival!"
His son laughed, gazing again at the two masked men. "We can ask him about it later!"
This went on for a while, but then suddenly a lightning grenade lit up the whole room so that no one could see anything. When the eyes slowly recovered, both wizards were gone.
The audience applauded enthusiastically and roared: "Encore!Encore! "
But of course they weren't surprised that nothing more happened.

***

It wasn't until later, when the police came to, that they realized the truth.
"He actually did it!" shouted Inspector Nakamori, pounding his fist hard on the armored glass of the aquarium. "The pearl has disappeared! But how did he do that? He was watched all the time!"
Shinichi shrugged. "I would say we were spectators of a huge magic show. But at such an appearance everything is seldom as it is supposed to be!"
"Naturally!" Nakamori jumped straight at it. "As I found out, at the beginning the woman disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Then she must have got hold of the pearl!"
Yusaka wanted to contradict, but when he saw that Shinichi shook his head violently behind Nakamori, he quickly understood why. Should the inspector believe in his findings, even if it was impossible. The time before it reappeared would have been far too short to climb the aquarium, fish for the pearl, and then go back downstairs to the dining room.Nobody needed to know that someone else had been involved in the theft.
Just like no one except Shinichi knew that besides the pearl something else had been stolen from the huge water container, or rather had been exchanged.