Richard has been hired by a wealthy man, Damian Maru, to investigate if his wife is committing adultry. Richard reports that though she was disguised, he has spotted Maru's wife with another man. While Richard delivers his report to Maru, Conan and Rachel wait outside watching the fish in a pond. After the bell at the front gate rings, Mr. Maru excuses himself to go meet his visitor. Maru tells Richard that he must answer the door himself because he dismissed all of the staff that day to keep their meeting private. Richard waits patiently, but begins to wonder as Mr. Maru fails to return. He hangs out in the garden with Conan and Rachel for awhile, but then the phone begins to ring. It rings a long time, then stops right before Richard decides to go answer it. A little while later the phone rings once, then goes silent. In a few more minutes it rings once again, and is silent.
As Richard wonders around in the garden, he suddenly runs into a servant. She screams and two other women, another servant and Mrs. Maru, come running. Richard explains that he is a detective who had dealings with Mr. Maru, leading Mrs. Maru to dispatch one of the servants to go find him. The servant goes to the waiting house and finds Mr. Maru dead, pinned to the wall with a katana. He is holding another Katana as if he was killed while fighting, and the room is completly covered in deep sword gashes. Her screams bring the rest running, and Richard tells Rachel to go call the police. Inspector Meguire and his officers soon arrive and they try to peice together what happened. Rachel quickly points out that Mr. Maru, an avid swordsman, is not holding his sword correctly, meaning that someone placed the sword in his hands after his death. Meguire then finds Maru's appointment book nearby and sees that he had several appointments that afternoon, including Richard's. The officers soon escort three visitors who show up to the waiting house, each one being one of the appointments in the book.
The first man to arrive is Dr. Hasselman, Damien's personal physician, who was there for Maru's weekly checkup. The second man who shows up is a large angry man named Anderson Macdonald. Anderson is a famous sculptor who owed Maru money. He tells them that he owed $100,000 and had came to ask for an extension. Anderson then claims that he spent the afternoon alone in his workshop. The last visitor to show up, Jackie Sawyer, also owed Maru money and had came to pay his loan off. Conan examines Jackie's hand and determines that he is a swordfighter from a small scar between his thumb and forefinger. Jackie tells them that he hasn't practiced in years, so he couldn't have killed the skilled Maru. He claims to have been meditating all afternoon, so he has no witnesses to give him an alibi. The last suspect, Richard himself, reveals that he was there to report on Mrs. Maru's love affair.
Conan catches a whiff of perfume on Dr. Hasselman and goes around sniffing all of the ladies in the room, including an annoyed Rachel, until he finds that Mrs. Maru herself also has that scent. They finally confess to being lovers and have the alibi of having been at a hotel all afternoon, which can be confirmed by the hotel's staff. At this point they all decide to check the answering machine. There are two messages on the machine, one from Hasselman confirming his appointment, and the second from Jackie, saying he would be coming over early.
After noticing that a dragon statue is the only thing in the waiting house that is not damaged, Anderson admits that Damien was holding it as collateral from him and threatened to sell it if the loan wasn't repaid. He says he called earlier and the phone rang forever before going to the machine. Conan finally figures out what is going on here. Meguire, meanwhile, asks Mrs. Maru if anything is missing in the room. She tells him there is the key to a safe in a dressor drawer in the room, but it is not there when she looks. She quickly finds it in another drawer and notes that she is certain it was always in the first drawer. Conan looks at the dressor carefully and notices that the scratces on the drawers don't match the scratches on the surrounding wood of the dressor. He asks a servant to get him a camera and takes a picture of the dressor, then uses a knife to cut all of the drawers out on the photo. He then rearranges the drawers until they match the dressor.
Seeing that Anderson is the primary suspect at this point, Conan uses his watch to knock Richard out. Conan then uses his voice changing bowtie in the closet to tell Meguire that the murderer is actually Jackie. Conan explains that Jackie got there early and killed Maru in the waiting room with a sword. Jackie then heard Anderson's call on the answering machine where Anderson said he would kill Maru if he sold his statue. This gave Jackie the idea to spare the dragon statue from being harmed in order to frame Anderson. He then erased Anderson's message and recorded his own message on it later. Jackie then slashed the room up and clumsily put the sword in Maru's hands to make it look like he himself was being framed. He had to slash up the dressor and rearrange the drawers because Maru had sliced Jackie's name into the wood before he died. Conan directs the police to the correct position of the drawers, proving that Jackie was guilty.
Jackie finally admits to commiting the murder because Maru had sold a family heirloom sword that Jackie had put up as collateral. Jackie becomes angry at Richard and charges him with his sword, but stops just shy of slicing Richard when he sees that the detective does not flinch. Jackie congratulates Richard on his brilliance and is led away by the officers. Richard finally wakes up, notices his head is bleeding from the sword's scratch, and starts freaking out and screaming. Conan notes how Richard is great at overreacting to pain.
Conan, George, Mitch, and Amy are all at a local department store watching a live show by the masked hero Yaiba. The children are all excited, but Conan is embarrassed and wishes that he was back in high school. The all get Yaiba's autograph and get their picture taken after the show ends. The department store prepares to close and as they leave they are treated kindly by the elevator girl, who asks them if they enjoyed the show. Trouble starts a few minutes later when George realizes that he is missing his Yaiba autograph. Conan deducts that George must have left it at a hot dog stand inside the department store. George is worried someone will take it and persuades them to sneak back inside the closing store and look for it. They sneak past the security guards and make their way back inside, where they quickly find George's autograph. They make it back to the doors just in time to see the security shutters snap closed, locking them inside the building.
Conan suggests they find the store's security station so that the guards will let them out, and they quickly look it up on the directory. When they arrive at the station, however, they see that the security gaurds and elevator girl are all tied up inside. The four men who were in the Yaiba costumes have taken over the station and are planning to rob it. Conan and the others sneak away and go up to the seventh floor to hide. After discovering that none of the phones will work, they paint SOS on the windows, but no one notices it. George then tries to break the window with a chair and a table, but the thick plexiglass doesn't budge. Unfortunately 2 of the burglars who are on the sixth floor hear the ruckus and go up to investigate. The kids hide but are quickly found when George's stomach growls. They hop onto a cart and escape for the time being, but know they can't hide for long after the lights are turned on. They manage to ambush the two burglars and tie them up with eletrical cords and futons, then escape again. They are almost caught when they rush into an elevator, but Conan realizes it's a trap and they evade it.
Meanwhile, at the Moore house, Rachel has arrived home late to make dinner. Richard has gotten tanked and fallen asleep, and is very hungry and grumpy. She wonders where Conan is, but Richard doesn't care. She calls the store, only to find that it is closed. Calls to the other children's houses are also unsuccessful. She worries that they have been kidnapped, but Richard points out there has been no ransom demands. Rachel is very worried at this point and calls Inspector Meguire, but he can't do anything until 24 hours have passed. When Richard reads about some recent department store burglaries, Rachel becomes even more worried, but Richard dismisses her fears and whines about how hungry he is.
Back at the department store the four eat a quick meal, promising themselves that they will pay the store back in the morning. When George and Mitch soon get caught by the burglars. Conan uses several mannequins and his voice changing bowtie to temporarily convince them they are surrounded by the police. The children escape, only to be cornered by all four burglars on an escalator that someone in the control room suddenly turned on. The kids manage to escape and use everything at their disposal, from beer kegs to balls and big dogs, to slow the burglars down. Finally they catch the four burglars with ropes and tie them up. The three kids think they are done, but Conan has a bad feeling. He goes off to free the guards, only to find the elevator girl has gotten free by herself. She tells him to come with her and she will lead him to safety, but Conan figures out that she is in league with the burglars. She is the one who watched them on the security cameras and tried to trap them on the elevator and escalator. He knows that she is the one who would have enough knowledge of the place and the clearance to infiltrate the guard station. He confronts her with his knowledge, and she pulls a gun on him.
Conan runs from her, dodging her bullets as he flees to the roof. On the roof he finds a box full of basketballs and tips them over, then kicking one at her gun hand. The gun is knocked away, but she quickly recovers and goes after it. Conan loops a peice of rope attached to a promotional balloon around her ankle and lets the balloon go, hauling her up into the air. A passing cop notices the balloon and the SOS message on the windows and gets Inspector Meguire and more officers to the store. They find the burglars and the elevator girl tied up inside, and the four children are all curled up asleep nearby.
The next day the four are awarded Certificates of Bravery, and learn that the store won't let them pay them back for all the broken merchandise and food that was eaten out of appreciation for stopping the robbery.
Conan, Rachel, and Serena have all gone to the wedding of Catherine Macloughlin, their former high school chorus teacher. Conan is not very happy to be there because Miss Macloughlin was hard on him in chorus class. Jimmy could read the notes just fine, but he always sang off key. They go back to meet the bride to be in a dressing room and Rachel brings a camcorder to record the day's events. Catherine is happy to see them, though she wonders why the sassy Jimmy didn't come with them. After a few minutes a woman comes in and gives Catherine a can of lemon punch, which Conan remembers as always being a vice of the teacher. The woman, Celia, is an old college friend of Catherine and was once the groom Tony's girlfriend. She introduced Tony and Catherine six years ago in college, but says she isn't angry about Catherine stealing her boyfriend. She leaves after putting a straw in Catherine's punch so that she won't smear her lipstick. Catherine sees that Celia left an extra lemon punch and gives it to Serena.
A couple of minutes later a very large man with a scarred face comes in. Rachel and Serena yell at him asking who he is, but are suprised when Inspector Meguire comes in after him. Meguire explains that the large man is the Commander of the Metro Police Department and is the father of Catherine. The Commander talks to Catherine, telling her that she can still stop the marriage if she is having second thoughts, but she gets angry and says he should be more supportive. He leaves after telling her that she is beautiful. Another visitor with flowers soon appears, Johnny Yamina, a man who was a big band nerd a few years before. After telling Catherine that he always wanted to be the man who made her happy and congratulating her, he ties a bow on her straw and leaves the room. Rachel then sees that her camcorder's battery is almost dead and realizes that Richard forgot to recharge it. She and Serena rush out to a nearby electronics store, leaving Conan alone with Catherine.
Catherine turns her attention to Conan and removes his glasses, commenting that he looks alot like her old student Jimmy, only cuter. She says that he reminds her of her first love, a boy she knew over 20 years ago. The boy, the son of the neighborhood candy store owner, protected her from bullies and often brought her cans of lemon punches from his store. She says after about a year he suddenly moved away, but that wasn't the end of the story. She asks Conan to keep quiet about the story just before a man in a white Tuxedo comes into the room. The man jokingly takes the can from her and tells her that her lemon punch is going to rot her teeth before she takes it back from him. The man turns out to be the groom, Tony Sugi. Rachel and Serena return about this time and Serena comments that Tony is the irresponsible son of the owner of the Sugi Automotive Company. A man comes by and reminds them that the ceremony will start in five minutes, so everyone leaves Catherine alone for her final preparations.
Just after they leave the room Conan and Rachel hear a can hit the floor, then a loud thud. The all rush back to the room to find Catherine unconcious on the floor next to the spilled punch. Catherine is rushed off to the hospital while Meguire and his officers investigate. They find that the punch was poisened with caustic soda. Conan points out a small white object in the spilled punch, which turns out to be part of a capsule. Meguire figures that the capsule could have taken anywhere from 30 minutes to dissolve, which means all of the people who visited Catherine are suspects. Tony, Johnny, the Commander, Celia Serena, Rachel, and Conan were the only people who were in the room.
Rachel tells Meguire she has the whole time recorded on her camcorder, so they set up a tv to watch it on. After viewing it they see that the actual crime wasn't captured on the tape. As they watch, a report comes in saying that the capsule would have only taken 15 minutes to dissolve. Another report comes in saying that the prints lab can't find the Commander's and Johnny's fingerprints on the can. Conan has an idea and watches the video carefully, noting that Serena no longer had her punch can when she rushed out the door with Rachel to buy a new battery. Then an officer finds a jar in the hallway trash that has a dissicant in it. Conan realizes that the capsule was misleading, and the caustic soda was kept dry in the bottle, since any exposure to moisture would have turned it into a lethal liquid. Conan now knows who the only person with a motive and opportunity to poison Catherine is.
Conan uses his watch to knock Serena out, then hides behind her and adjusts his bowtie to her voice. He explains that the capsule was just put in the punch to mislead them all about the time when the poisen was put into the punch. Conan uses a remote to rewind the tape to where Serena leaves with Rachel and asks Inspector Meguire to carefully watch the punch can on the table. They see that the can's label changes position between when Rachel's battery became low and Catherine put the can down, and when Catherine picked it back up again to drink from it. Conan explains that the can Catherine picked up was actually Serena's, not the original can that Catherine was drinking. That is why the Commander and Johnny's fingerprints weren't on it. This means that the poison was put in the can in between the time Serena left it and when Catherine collapsed, since Serena was fine. The only person besides Catherine who touched the can after that was Tony.
After determining that Catherine couldn't have poisoned herself because the bottle was found outside in the hallway trash, it is obvious that Tony is the poisoner. Tony admits that he did it because he wanted to make the Commander feel the pain of losing a loved one, just as the Commander did to him. Twenty years ago the Commander was chasing a suspect in a car chase, and the suspect hit Tony's mother as she and Tony were crossing the street. Tony begged the Commander to help his mother, but he took off on foot after the suspect. She died after laying on the pavement for fifteen minutes. The Commander admits that it happened as Tony said, but the mother was on the other side of the car where he couldn't see her, so he just was ushering the boy out of his way to keep the boy safe from the suspect. Tony was adopted by the rich Sugi family and started plotting his revenge after meeting Catherine in college. She reminded him of a little girl from his past who he always gave lemon punches to. Tony says that Catherine never suspected that her father killed his real mother and only wanted to marry him for his money.
Celia tells Tony that he is a fool because Catherine thought he looked like the boy who she was in love with as a child and did research on him to find out if he was that boy. She learned all about the death of his mother and still accepted his proposal, hoping to ask for forgiveness from him when they were married. She was deeply in love with him. Tony breaks down crying as he realizes that Catherine was the little girl he always loved and that she truly had still loved him. He looks very relieved when an officer rushes in and says that Catherine has come out of surgery and will live.
Two months later Catherine is released from the hospital and goes on a walk with Conan, Rachel, and Serena. Tony recieved a light sentence for trying to poison her because Catherine wouldn't press charges on him knowing what happened to his mother. She tells them she couldn't hate him and hopes that one day they will be able to forgive each other. They pass a soda machine and she gets a can of lemon punch, remarking that it is a reminder not to ever get married. The girls assure her that she will find the right man someday, and Conan wraps it up telling that she did find that man and married him three years later. She marries the boy that she loved, the only man that she has ever loved, Tony.
The show opens as a woman in a hallway is carefully leaving footprints from an elevator to some stairs. She looks back at the footprints as if she is satisfied and leaves. Meanwhile Rachel has been choosen by the fashion mogul Laurel Hallorin to model her designs in an upcoming show. Conan, Rachel, and Richard head for the agency on a bus and they talk about how Ms. Hallorin was forced to cancel her last fashion show because a rival designer, Chukco, had just released several designs that were too similiar to Hallorin's designs. They arrive at the agency and are greeted by Ms. Hallorin herself, who explains that since it is a Sunday the employees are all off for the weekend. Richard, a fan of Hallorin, gives her a boutique of flowers. Conan notices that she is carrying a very large and ugly bag, a unusual accessory for a fashion model, but Rachel just figures it will be the next trend.
Ms. Hallorin's secretary, Megan Klaus, soon shows up. Ms. Hallorin apologizes for having her come in on a sunday, but things are obviously not well between the two. Megan mentions that Ms. Hallorin only called her in because it is her last day and her contract expires at midnight. Ms. Hallorin asks Megan to go get Rachel's dressing room ready on the 8th floor and announces that she needs to go put boutique in some water up in her 15th floor office. Ms. Hallorin presses Megan's elevator call button for her as she walks past and then goes up to her office on another elevator. Conan wonders why Ms. Hallorin pressed the button for Megan when they are on such bad terms.
The three are hanging out with the security gaurds when, a few minutes later, a very worried Ms. Hallorin comes rushing down in her elevator saying that she is unable to reach Megan on her cell phone. They find that Megan's elevator is stuck on the 8th floor and immediately rush up in another elevator. They find Megan laying on her back with a knife in her heart, her body halfway in the elevator with her lower body still inside the car. Inspector Meguire and his officers are called in to investigate. The footprints leading from the stairs to the elevator are quickly pointed out and Ms. Hallorin says that robbers must have broken in and stabbed Megan when she arrived on that floor. She seems a little too confident of her story for Conan to believe it. The footprints are large, the size of a man's, and they are evenly paced both to and from the elevator. Conan looks carefully at Megan's body and notices that her blouse's shoulder is very wrinkled and she is facing the wrong way to have been stabbed coming out of the elevator. He wonders if she was turned around after the murder, and why someone would do that.
Ms. Hallorin is a prime suspect, but she has an alibi. The elevator she took was one that went directly from the lobby to the 15th floor. The elevator Megan was on went directly up to the 8th floor, then could be stopped at every floor after that. Ms. Hallorin wasn't gone long enough to have taken the first elevator to the 15th floor and then have went down to the 8th floor, murdered Megan, went back up to the 15th, and then come down the the lobby. They find a security door unlocked by the stairs and figure that it must have been a robber. Conan isn't satisfied with this explanation and takes off on his own to investigate. He goes up to the 15th floor by himself and finds some pollen and a petal from the boutique laying on the carpet. He sees that it is laying near Megan's elevator, even though Ms. Hallorin's office is the other way down the hall. He knows Hallorin didn't have time to go down to the 8th floor, so he is still confused until he sees some tape residue on the call button to Megan's elevator.
Having solved the crime, Conan finds Richard and knocks him out with the stun watch. He then adjusts his voice changing bowtie and announces that Ms. Hallorin cannot be allowed to leave because she is the murderer. He explains that the footprints don't change in pace, meaning whoever made them didn't run out, a strange thing for a murderer. Ms. Hallorin came in an hour earlier, left the footprints using some sneakers, then unlocked the security door and threw away the shoes. The large bag was used to transport the sneakers in and out. When Ms. Hallorin reached the 15th floor earlier, she used her cell phone to call Megan up to her office. Laying the boutique on the floor, Ms. Hallorin taped a coin over the elevator's call button so that the doors wouldn't close before she could kill Megan. When Megan arrived at the 15th, Ms. Hallorin stabbed her in the heart, then propped her up with her back against the door, explaining the crinkled blouse. Ms. Hallorin removed the coin, allowing the button to go back down the the 8th floor, where it opened and Megan fell halfway out.
Ms. Hallorin denies his explanation, but Conan explains that she must still have the bloody gloves she used to kill Megan in her purse, since she hasn't had time to stow them elsewhere. Ms. Hallorin admits that she killed Megan for stealing her designs and selling them to her rival Chukco. Megan became rich off of the theivery and was quitting as soon as her contract was over that evening. Ms. Hallorin confronted Megan, but Megan replied she had enough money to buy good lawyers. Ms. Hallorin was filled with hate and saw her last chance to get even with Megan that day and decided to take it. As Ms. Hallorin is taken away she tells Rachel that she really wanted her to model for her, and hoped she hadn't soured Rachel on that career path. Rachel decides she still wants to get into the fashion business and they go back upstairs to find the still unconcious Richard sitting there. Rachel just figures he is in shock over sending his favorite designer to prison and Conan hopes that Richard will buy that as well.
It is a stormy night and Amy is on her way home. As she passes an old spooky mansion she sees lights suddenly appear in the abandoned house, scaring her. The next day in class she tells George what they saw and they decide to go ghost hunting at the mansion that night. The mansion on 4th street is where a man was attacked and killed in his living room five years ago. She mentions their plans to a skeptical Conan and Mitch and get them to come along, if only to prove there are no ghosts. They meet up that night and George brings a baseball bat, Amy brings snacks, Mitch brings a compass and flashlights, and Conan gets yelled at for not thinking to bring anything. Conan finds that the front gate is locked, but George admits that he found a secret passage through the wall when exploring by himself earlier that day. They go through a small hidden doorway and into the house just as it starts storming again. Amy gets her hands and dress dirty, but manages to find a bathroom and wash her hands off. Conan is suprised that there is still running water in a mansion that has been abandoned for five years.
They suddenly hear a door creak and run to investigate. Conan goes into a room and finds that a window is open, but there is no water in the room. They close the window and a confident Mitch runs off by himself to go use the bathroom. On his way back to the group Mitch suddenly hears a faint scream. He follows the screams to an open trapdoor in the floor and goes down into the cellar where he sees a light. The others, now begining to worry about him, suddenly hear him scream. They rush to find him, but are unable to locate him. Conan, fearing something bad has happened to Mitch, tells Amy and George to go hide in one of the rooms. He thinks about all the strange things around the house as he hunts on his own for Mitch, eventually ending up in the living room. He finds a picture of the family that used to live there, a man, his wife, and their son. Conan figures that the man must be the one who was murdered here five years ago.
Meanwhile George and Amy are eating some of their snacks. After Amy refuses to give him Mitch and Conan's shares, George gets tired of hiding and goes off to find some food. Conan suddenly hears George scream and races off to find him. Amy, also looking for George, suddenly sees a light coming from around a corner and hears footsteps. She is about to scream when suddenly hands grab her and pull her inside a nearby room. It is Conan, who tells her to keep quiet as he watches out the door. An old woman soon passes by pushing a cart and carrying a candelabra down the hallway. They wait for her to leave then follow in the direction she went. They soon find the empty cart, but the woman has disappeared. Conan manages to find a hard to see trapdoor on the floor and tries to budge it, to no avail. Thinking quickly Conan uses his newest gadget from Dr. Agasa, his everstretch suspenders, which can stretch and retract at the press of a button. He hooks it to the trapdoor and a wall fixture and pulls the door up with the suspenders. They go inside and quickly hide as they see the old woman. She is standing with a tray of food in front of a cell built into the cellar. Inside is a long haired man who is crying appears to be crazy. He howls madly and trashes his dinner as the woman tells him that the dead can't be resurrected.
Conan figures out these two must be the mother and son from the picture upstairs. She tells her son that she can't let him be taken away. At this time Conan accidently knocks over a bucket, alerting the old woman to their presence. She pulls a knife and tells them to show themselves so that they can play a little game. From their hiding spot Conan says they should play that's weird. He explains that he has seen the picture upstairs and knows who they are. He points out that it's weird that a small hidden door was recently installed into the wall outside and there is still running water in the abandoned house. Conan introduces himself as a detective and tells her that he knows that either she killed her husband and locked up the son to keep him from telling, or that the son killed her husband and she locked him up to keep him from going to prison. The old woman becomes angry and tries to stab Conan, but the son begins wailing, telling her to stop. The son, Abraham, explains that five years ago he failed his entrance exams for the third time. His father was very angry and harsh with Abraham when he heard, and the son became so angry that he killed his father with a candelabra. The mother saw this and locked her son away so that he wouldn't go to prison. She made the murder look like a burglary and and had hid with her imprisoned son ever since. Abraham tells her he will not forget what happened and he wants to pay for what he did, hiding will not help.
The two turned themselves in to the police in the morning and Mitch and George were found outside the mansion asleep. The woman had knocked them out that night and carried them out there. The four children get yelled at by their parents and Rachel, but the next day at school Amy is already planning a new ghost hunt. She says there is a house on 2nd Street where a boy who lived alone disappeared and must have been eaten by monsters. She says that the house is full of wierd toys and books, and Conan suddenly realizes that she is talking about his own empty house, the Kudo residence. He has to find some way to avert this hunt.
Conan, Rachel, and Richard are watching a movie scene being filmed where the actress, Yoko Okino, the idol from episode 3, is stabbing an actor, Ringo Norris. They finish the take and the director, Gregor, congratulates Richard on the script that they are using to film the movie. Conan is bored and playing with some matchsticks, but is yelled at by Ringo. Ringo then asks the assistant director, Tina Fontana, to dinner, but she won't because she is engaged to the production assistant, Jeremiah. Mario, the camera operator, takes this opportunity to be a jerk by saying that only chumps get married, angering Jeremiah. Mario then shows off his grisly new watch, which features a skull on the face, and has a morbid funeral alarm. Tina's grandfather, Constantine, then shows up and asks them to make sure to clean up all their equipment because they are filming at his shrine.
Conan and Rachel go off on their own and happen to witness Ringo talking to Mario in the woods. Ringo tells Mario he is tired of the threats and gives Mario money. Jeremiah wonders by just in time to see the end of Mario's blackmailing meeting. They all go back to the set, where Gregor announces there will be a wrap party that evening. Ringo replies he is too important to be at such a lowly party and leaves. During the party Mario suddenly leaves. A couple of minutes later Tina also leaves, saying she is going to go check on her grandfather. Jeremiah soon leaves to go to the store. After awhile Yoko and Rachel decide to goto a nearby store for some snacks. After Yoko changes clothes in front of a decidedly embarrassed Conan, not quite the child he appears, they leave. On the way out they see Mario quickly leave, hearing his unpleasant watch as he leaves. Tina sees him and looks shocked, but says that she is fine.
On the way back from the store they see a mysterious figure suddenly run from the shrine steps. Rushing up there they find Mario dead, stabbed to death with the knife from the earlier movie scene. Rachel calls the cops as Conan investigates. He finds the words shrine god messily written in blood by Mario and assumes it refers to the nearby statue. He also notices that Mario's cap and vest are oddly enough laying nearby. Meguire and Richard soon show up and all of the cast are brought in for questioning. Richard accusses Tina of being the murderer since she left at the same time and had no alibi during her absence, but Tina was back at the house at the time they think Mario was dead. Jeremiah had also returned by the time Rachel and Conan saw the figure run from the scene. Ringo, however, had no alibi for that time, but claimed he was back at his hotel at the time. After the fact that Ringo was being blackmailed because Mario had pictures of him dating a married woman was found out, Ringo looks like the number one suspect. Conan takes a closer look at the mysterious shrine god scrawl and realizes that the message originally said Ringo, and the rest of the letters were more freshly added. Ringo then admits that he came by and found Mario murdered and his name written, so he covered up his name with the other letters. Ringo is insistant that he did not do the crime, however.
Looking at Mario, Conan notices that his watch is not bloody at all. Conan has all the clues he needs and knocks out Richard with his stun watch as he is leaning against a tree. Conan then hides behind the tree and uses his bowtie to explain what really happened. Ringo is about to be arrested, but Conan says he didn't do it. The murder actually happened much earlier than they thought it did. Someone cleaned off the watch and took Mario's cap and vest and made a quick appearance at the house to make it look as though Mario was still alive. The original message said Tina, who is the one who actually killed Mario. She then went back to the house and changed clothes, which explains why she was shocked when someone appearing to be Mario rushed by. Jeremiah had found Mario's corpse and the name Tina scrawled at the shrine and covered it up with Ringo's name to protect his fiancee. Jeremiah then wore the clothes and watch back at the house so that Tina would have an alibi. Jeremiah tries to insist that he was the killer, but Tina finally confesses. She once was in a gang with Mario and was being recently blackmailed by him because of a crime she helped commit. She came to the shrine with the knife to threaten Mario into stopping the blackmail, but he lunged at her and she stabbed him in the struggle and ran off. Jeremiah saw how upset she was, figured out she killed Mario, and tried to cover it up.
Rachel, Richard, and Conan have went on a vacation to an island. Because of Richard oversleeping, the shuttle boat from the island left without them, leaving them stranded. Luckily they were let on board a private luxery liner that was leaving the island. They soon meet Suzanna, a young woman who just got married on the island. They learn that her family, the Hannigans, owned most of the island and are now returning from her wedding ceremony. They meet her new husband Theodore and are warned that their family is a bit crazy. They soon experience this first hand as her grandfather, Joseph, yells at his son in law Jacob for letting the Moore's come on board their private ship. They then meet Meridith, Jacob's wife and Joseph's daughter. Meridith mentions that the old man will be gone soon and they will be able to enjoy his money. Joseph's other child, Isaac, is a friendly cheif who specializes in French cuisine. They also meet Suzanna's cousins Lucas and Ari. Lucas, the son of Jacob and Meridith, wants to be an artist even though Grandfather Joseph derides him constantly for it. Ari's husband, Shannon, and Joseph's butler, Willard, are also on board. The Moore's learn that they have 24 hours until they reach port, so they will have to survive this crazy family.
They gather in the dining room for dinner, but Theodore takes his leave, saying he needs to take a walk. He has actually been summoned by Grandfather Joseph for a talk in his room. He goes to Joseph's room, where Joseph tells Theo that he knows he married Suzanna just to get into the family and poison them from the inside. Theo claims he doesn't know what Joseph is talking about. While this conversation occurs, back in the dining room Willard is busily preparing for the dinner. Suzanna asks Rachel if she has a boyfriend, and to Conan's embarrassment she replies that she does and that he is cute and wonderful. When everything is ready for dinner, Willard goes to get Joseph. He finds the flower that Theo had on his lapel on the floor outside Joseph's room and is shocked to find the door locked and no response from within. Willard gets into the room and finds Joseph dead from a stab wound in his abdomen. Everyone comes running when Willard shouts and Conan and Richard begin searching for clues. At first Richard is suspicious of Willard, but Conan and Rachel remind him that Willard was busy in the dining room up till a couple of minutes ago. Seeing that the door was locked from the inside, Richard then suspects suicide, but Conan points out that there is blood on the doorway threshold and a missing murder weapon, meaning that it had to have been a murder. Conan guesses that Joseph was stabbed as he was leaving the room, so he scrambled back inside and locked the door to keep out the murderer. He then fell over dead inside.
They determine that Willard, the Moore's, Conan, and Suzanna are all in the clear because they were all together in the dining room the whole time. This leaves seven suspects: Theo, Jacob, Meridith, Ari, Shannon, Isaac, and Lucas. After Willard telling them that he had found Theo's flower laying outside the door, suspicion falls on Theo. Meridith then admits that she passed by while they were talking in Joseph's room and heard that Theo's family was the Zimmers. Years ago Joseph's company had taken over the company ran by Edward Zimmer, Theo's father. After the takeover, Edward killed himself and his wife soon died of grief, leaving Theo an orphen. Theo admits that this is true, but insists he didn't commit the murder. Conan continues to search for clues at this point, finding that one of the pools of blood has a small peice of bread in it. He learns from Willard that bread was served at the wedding party earlier that day, and that everyone had some of it except Joseph, who hated Isaac's french cuisine. Conan then verifies that Isaac had his own set of knives for his cooking. While Conan is still not sure who might have killed Joseph, the family is certain that it must have been Theo. They lock him in a storage room that locks from the outside and plan to turn him over to the police when they reach port.
They return to the dining room for some drinks, and Meridith and Ari begin discussing that Joseph will now be unable to change his will. Isaac is shocked by their greedy discusion, but they say they know he is only there to try to stay in the will himself, since Joseph disapproved of him. Wilard then speaks up and reveals that Joseph had already changed his will the day before, leaving Suzanna as the sole proprietor of his estate. They are all shocked, especially Shannon, who reveals that he only married Ari to get some of the inheritance. Suzanna is overwhelmed by all of this and goes out to the deck to clear her head. Rachel and Conan go out to her and Rachel tells her that she doesn't think Theo is guilty because of the sort of person he seemed to be. Suzanna doesn't know what to think and hopes that they are right. Suddenly Conan hears a splash, quickly followed by an exclamation and a dull thud. He rushes down to a lower deck with the two in tow, and comes upon Shannon dead against the railing. Richard determines that he died from a blow to the head with a blunt object, most likely a pipe. Conan rushes off to the room Theo was imprisoned in, only to find the lock, which could only be opened from the outside, was unlocked. Theo is missing, leading the family to think that he has now killed Shannon and will try to kill them all in revenge.
Everyone is back in the dining room, hoping there will be safety in numbers. Ari and Meridith both yell at Suzanna, saying that she brought Theo into their midst and was greedy for Joseph's money. Conan points out it has not been proven yet that Theo is the killer. He reminds them that the door was unlocked from the outside, meaning at the very least that he had an accomplice. A cut shows that at that time Theo is hiding under some stairs in the bowels of the ship. Richard questions them about what they were doing when Shannon was killed and finds that most of them were in their cabins resting. The only two who were in a cabin together, Meridith and Jacob, didn't have an alibi as well since Jacob had went on a walk. They point fingers at one another, pointing out why each would have wanted to kill Joseph. Ari and Meridith both longed for Joseph's money. Lucas only wanted to draw, but Joseph often ripped up his artworks. Jacob wanted to leave the company and the family, but wasn't allowed to by Meridith. As for Shannon, Ari was just left by him and Lucas had been made fun of by Shannon recently.
Lucas suddenly announces that he needs to go use the bathroom and leaves. After 20 minutes they begin worrying about him. The lights suddenly shut off, leaving them in a panic. Richard tells them to all stay together and to go look for Lucas while he goes to find the fuses. They find Lucas in the bathroom floor with a stab wound to his leg. The knife used to stab him is laying in the corner of the room. Lucas claims that he was stabbed right after the lights went out, so he doesn't know who did it. The knife turns out to be on of Isaac's cooking knives, and Isaac discovers that it and another knife are missing from his set. Isaac, however, is clear on this crime because he was in the dining room with everyone else at the time. The family takes Lucas off to care for his wound and Richard returns with the lights restored. He announces that someone used a timing device involving a candle and a piece of rope to trip the breakers at a certain time. The light failure could have therefore been setup by anyone at anytime earlier.
Richard advises the family to all stay together in the dining room again while he, Rachel, and Conan search the cabins for clues. Conan finds a picture of Meridith and Jacob with Lucas in their room and confirms a theory with Willard. Meridith and Jacob were cousins who got married against Joseph's wishes. They then search Lucas's room for clues. Conan finds Lucas's sketchbook nearby and sees that he had recently sketched Suzanna leaning on the rail. He flips through the book and sees that all of the sketches are of Suzanna. He then finds a peice of bread on Lucas's easel and Rachel explains that artists who sketch in charcoal often use bread as an eraser. Richard cannot find any clues in Lucas's room, so they move on to the last cabin, Ari's. Conan looks in a closet and sees something that suprises him, but then he quickly shuts the door and tells Richard there is nothing inside. Conan now has all the clues he needs to connect the three attacks together. He knocks out Richard with his watch and positions him in a chair. Using his voice changing bowtie, Conan then directs Rachel to gather everyone in Ari's Cabin.
They all arrive and Conan reviews the attacks. He describes again how Joseph was stabbed leaving the room, but there was no blood at all in the hallway, meaning someone must have cleaned it off of the carpet. Even though the killer was careful to clean the carpet outside, the flower was still left carelessly there, indicating someone was trying to frame Theo. Conan then explains that since Shannon was noisely clubbed instead of stabbed like the other too, his murder was likely unplanned. He explains that the splash he heard must have been the murderer throwing the knife used to kill Joseph overboard, and the exclamation was from Shannon witnessing the murderer disposing of the evidence. Even though this attack was hurried and unplanned, no evidence was yet again left behind. The family is still convinced that Theo was the murderer, but Conan reminds them that Theo was let out of the locked storage room by someone else. He explains that the lock was opened in order to destroy Theo's alibi of being locked up during Shannon's murder. Conan then explains that Theo ran off after finding the door unlocked and hid in Ari's closet. After being reassured that it is ok, Theo emerges from the closet to the suprise of the family.
Theo admits that he left the closet when he heard the commotion outside because he was worried for Suzanna's safety. He says that he ran out to the deck and found Shannon murdered, then hid because he figured that he would be blamed for this murder as well. Conan points out that the killer made a fatal mistake by unlocking Theo's door and creating another suspect. He announces that the only one who could have done this was Lucas himself. Lucas stabbed his own leg in an attempt to clear himself as a suspect, but his stabbing only made him more suspicious. In the dark it would have been almost impossible for anyone to see Lucas well enough to stab him. In the previous two attacks, the murder weapon was hidden, but in this last attack it was laying nearby. This was because Lucus was unable to get rid of it after stabbing his leg. Lucas staged the blackout to leave the question of who the accomplice was up in the air. The proof that Lucas killed Joseph is the piece of bread with charcoal on it that was dropped at the scene. Lucas had a piece of this same bread in his pocket to use as an eraser.
Conan shows the sketchbook to the family, who are suprised to see that all the sketches are of Suzanna. Conan explains that Lucas was in love with Suzanna and wanted her for himself. Willard confirms that Lucas had once asked Joseph for permission to marry Suzanna, his cousin, but Joseph had scorned him and announced that Suzanna was going to be married to Theo. This, combined with Joseph's hatred of his artwork, was too much for Lucas and drove him to kill Joseph. Lucas had tried to frame Theo for the crime because Theo was with the woman that he loved. Lucas, faced with the evidence, admits to his crimes. Theo admits that he had hated Joseph because of the deaths of his parents, but he had stopped hating him after meeting and falling in love with Suzanna. The family is in tears from this betrayal by Lucas, but Suzanna is overjoyed that Theo is innocent. As the sun goes down, Conan remarks that only time can heal the Hannigan's sadness.