Self-discovery

“Into a skeleton?!” Krivoshein looked up and confusion showed in his brown — flecked green eyes. “How? Where?”

“It happened there, at the scene, as if you needed any information on the matter from me,” Onisimov stressed. “Maybe you'd like to explain?”

“There was a body which became a skeleton,” Krivoshein muttered, frowning. “Then… oh, then it's not so bad. He wasn't wasting time; it looks as if something went wrong. Damn it, look at me!” He cheered up and carefully looked at the detective. “You're mixing me up, comrade, and I don't know why. Bodies just don't turn into skeletons like that. I know a little about it. And then, how can you prove that it's my… I mean, the body of a man who looks like me, if you have no body? Something's wrong here.”

“Perhaps. That's why I want you to shed light on this yourself. Since all this happened in the laboratory you run.”

“That I run? Hm….” Krivoshein laughed, and shook his head. “I'm afraid nothing will come of this light shedding. I need someone to explain it all to me.”

“And this one is going to go mum, too!” Matvei Apollonovich sighed glumly, took a sheet of paper, and unscrewed his pen.

“Let's do this in order. Your name is Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein?”

“Yes.”

“Age thirty — five? Russian? Bachelor?”

“Exactly.”

“You live in Dneprovsk and head the New Systems Laboratory at the Systemology Institute?”

“No, that's the part that's wrong. I live in Moscow, and study in the graduate biology department at Moscow State University. Here!” Krivoshein handed him his passport and documents across the desk.

The papers had a realistically weather — beaten look. Everything in them — including the three — year residence permit for Moscow — corresponded with his story.

“I see.” Onisimov put them in his desk. “These things are done quickly in Moscow, in one day!”

“What are you trying to say?!” Krivoshein stared at him, one eyebrow arched aggressively.

“Your documents are phony, that's what. Just as phony as your confederate's, to whom you were trying to pass money at the airport. Were you trying to guarantee an alibi? You needn't have bothered. We'll check it, and then what?”

“Go ahead and check!”

“We will. Whom do you work under at MSU? Who's your advisor?”

“Professor Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili, department chairman in general physiology, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences.”

“I see.” The investigator dialed the phone. “Operator? This is Onisimov. Quickly connect me with Moscow. I want this man on the videophone as soon as possible. Write it down, Vano Aleksandrovich Androsiashvili, professor, head of the physiology department at the university. Hurry!” He stared at Krivoshein triumphantly.

“The videophone! Marvelous!” he chuckled. “I see that detective work is approaching science fiction. Will this be soon?”

“It'll happen when it happens. We have things to discuss, you and I.” Krivoshein's confidence, however, made an impression on Onisimov. He thought: “And what if this is some kind of crazy coincidence? Let me check.”

“Tell me, do you know Elena Ivanovna Kolomiets?”

Krivoshein's face lost its calm expression. He sat up and looked at Onisimov angrily and questioningly.

“Yes. So what?”

“Very well?”

“So?”

“Why did you break up?”

“This, my dear investigator, if you will excuse me, is absolutely none of your business!” Krivoshein was getting very angry. “I do not permit anyone to meddle in my private life — not God, not the devil, not the police!”

“I see,” Onisimov said calmly. And the thought: “It's him! No way out of it — it's him. Why is he covering up? What could he possibly be hoping for?” He continued the questioning. “All right, here's an easier question: who's Adam?”

“Adam? The first man on earth. Why?”

“He called the institute… the first man. He wanted to know how you were, wanted to see you.”

Krivoshein shrugged.

“And who is that man who met you at the airport?”

“Whom you so cleverly branded as my confederate? That man….” Krivoshein raised and dropped his eyebrows meditatively.

“I'm afraid he's not the person I took him for.”

“I don't think he is, either. Not at all.” Onisimov perked up. “But then who is he?”

“I don't know.”

“The same nonsense all over again!” Onisimov wailed, throwing down his pen. “Enough of this baloney, citizen Krivoshein. It's unbecoming! You were giving him money, forty rubles in tens. You mean you didn't know to whom you were giving money?”

At that moment a young man in a white lab coat came in to the office, put a form on the table, and left, after giving Krivoshein a sharp, curious look. Onisimov looked at the form — it was a report on the analysis of the suspect's fingerprints. When he looked up at Krivoshein, his eyes had a sympathetically triumphant smile.