Hyouka - Volume 03 - The Kudryavka Sequence - Welcome to KANYA FESTA! (1)

thanking the audience. The candle in his hand was no longer lit. As it was
probably dangerous, upon showing the lit candle to everyone, he had
promptly blown it out. But that wasn't the only candle in the room. I turned to
look at the candle stands used for illuminating the room.
"...AH!"
"Now, rather than the usual poker cards, this time we'll be playing with
Japanese playing cards [6] ... Huh?"
Oh crap, I gasped too loudly. As the following card magic involved
interacting with the audience, there was no background music, and so
Takamura-kun and Nagai-san, who were now performing, turned to look at
me. I quickly waved my hands apologetically for interrupting them.
There were originally five candles on each candle stand. While the stand on
the right still had five candles, the one on the left only had four!
They've been hit!
But when?! All this time no one had approached the stage, until now.
"And now, would the lady sitting at the back please come forward to the
stage?"
Irisu-san, being called upon, walked towards the stage. But before that, only
the performers had appeared. Which means the missing candle was never
there to begin with.
And all this time I was thinking that "Juumoji" would carry out his act under
the gaze of this many people. Yet the act had already been carried out before
the show even began.
Dammit, I've been wasting my time all along!
He must have left his declaration of crime somewhere. Come to think of it,
the ladle wasn't stolen from The Cooking Club during the Wild Fire
tournament itself. It was already gone before the tournament even began. The