“Matvei, you owe me!” boomed Zubato's triumphant voice. “I've managed to establish a few things from the skeleton. There are deep vertical cracks in the middle of the sixth and seventh ribs on the right side. Such cracks are the result of a blow by a heavy blunt instrument or against a blunt object, whatever. The surface has minute cracks, fresh — “
“I see!”
“These cracks in themselves can not be the cause of death. But a violent blow could have seriously injured the internal organs, which, unfortunately, are missing. Well, that's about it. I hope it helps.”
“And how! Did you send out the skull for identification?”
“Just now. And I called ahead. They promised to do it as fast as possible.”
“So, this is no accident. Liquid and short circuits don't break a man's ribs. Oh, oh. It looks as if there were two accident victims there: an injured victim and a dead victim. And it looks as though the two had a serious fight.”
Onisimov felt better. The case was taking on familiar aspects. He began composing an urgent telegram to Kharkov.
The June day was getting hotter. The sun melted the asphalt. The heat seeped into Onisimov's office, and he turned on the fan on his desk.
The answer from the Kharkov police came at exactly 1:00 P.M. Lab assistant Kravets was brought in at 1:30. As he entered the office, he looked around, and smirked as he noticed the barred windows.
“Is that to make people confess faster?”
“No — no,” Matvei Apollonovich drawled gently. “This building used to be a wholesale warehouse and so the entire first floor has reinforced windows. We'll be removing them soon; not too many robbers try breaking into a police station, heh — heh. Sit down. Are you feeling all right now? Can you make a statement?”
“I can.”
The assistant walked across the room and sat in a chair opposite the window. The detective looked him over. He was young, maybe twenty — four, not older than that. He looked like Krivoshein, the way he might have been ten years ago. “Actually, he didn't look like that,” Matvei Apollonovich thought as he looked at the photo in Krivoshein's personnel file. “This fellow is much more handsome.” And there really was something of a model's or actor's perfection in Kravets's face. The impression of perfection was marred by the eyes — actually not the eyes themselves, which were blue and had a youthful clarity, but in the marksman's squint of the lids. “He has eyes that seem to have lived a lot,” the detective noted. “He seems to have gotten over the experience quickly enough. Let's see.”
“You know, you resemble the deceased.”
“The deceased!” The assistant clenched his jaw and shut his eyes for a second. “That means — “
“Yes, it does,” Onisimov said harshly. “He's jumpy,” he thought. “Well, let's do this in order.” He reached for a piece of paper and unscrewed his pen. “Your name, patronymic, age, place of work or study, address?”
“But you must know all that already?”
“Know or not, that's the regulation; the witness must give all that information himself.”
“So he's dead…. What should I do now? What should I say? It's a catastrophe. Damn it, I shouldn't have come to the police. I should have run off from the clinic. What will happen now?” Kravets thought.
“Please, write down the following: Viktor Vitalyevich Kravets, age twenty — four, a student in the fifth year in the physics department of Kharkov University. I reside in Kharkov, on Kholodnaya Gora. I'm here to do my practical work.”
“I see,” the detective said, and instead of writing it down, twisted his pen rapidly and aimlessly. “You were related to Krivoshein. How?” “Distantly,” the student laughed uncomfortably. “Seventh cousin twice removed, you know.”
“I see!” Onisimov put down his pen and picked up the telegraph; his voice became severe. “Look here, citizen, it doesn't check out.” “What doesn't check out?”
“Your story, that you're Kravets, that you live and study in Kharkov, and so on. There's no student by that name in Kharkov. And the person you name has never lived at 17, Kholodnaya Gora, either.” The suspect's cheeks suddenly dropped, and his face turned red. “They got me. How stupid of me! Damn it! Of course, they checked all that out immediately. Boy, lack of experience shows every time. But what can I say now?” he thought.
“Tell the truth. And in detail. Don't forget that we're dealing with a homicide here.”
Kravets thought: “The truth. Easier said than done.” “You see, the truth… how can I put it… that's too much and too complicated,” the assistant began mumbling, hating and despising himself for this lack of control. “I'd have to discuss information theory and the modeling of random processes.”
“Just don't try to cloud the issues, citizen,” Onisimov said, frowning disdainfully. “People aren't killed by theories — this was definitely practical application and fact.”
“But… you must understand, actually no one at all may have died. It can be proven… or attempted to be proven. You see, citizen investigator — (Why did I call him that? I haven't been arrested yet.) — You see, first of all, a man is not, well, not a hunk of protoplasm weighing 150 pounds. There are the fifty quarts of water, forty — four pounds of protein, fats and carbohydrates, enzymes, and so on. No, man is first and foremost information. A concentration of information. And if it has not disappeared, then the man is still alive.”
He stopped and bit his lip. “No, this is nonsense. It's hopeless,” he thought.
“Yes, I'm listening. Go on,” the detective said, laughing to himself. The assistant glanced up at him, got more comfortable in his chair, and said with a small smile:
“In short, if you don't want to hear the theories, then Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein — that's me. You can put that into the official record.”
It was so unexpected and daring that Matvei Apollonovich was stunned for a second. “Should I send him to the psychiatrist?” he thought. But the suspect's blue eyes looked at him reasonably and there was mockery in their depths. That's what brought Onisimov out of his suspended animation.
“I see!” He got up. “Do you take me for a fool? Do you think I haven't familiarized myself with his file, that I wasn't present at the scene of the accident, that I don't remember his face?” He leaned on the desk top. “ If you refuse to identify yourself, it's only worse for you. We'll find out anyway. Do you admit your papers are forged?”
“That's it. We have to stop playing,” Kravets thought, and said:
“No. You still have to prove that. You might as well consider me a forgery while you're at it!”
The assistant turned to look out the window.
“Don't clown around with me, citizen!” The detective had raised his voice. “What was your purpose in entering the lab? Answer me! What happened between you and Krivoshein? Answer!”
“I'm not answering anything!”
Matvei Apollonovich scolded himself for losing his temper. He sat down and after a pause started talking in a heartfelt manner:
“Listen, don't think that I'm trying to pin anything on you. My job is to investigate thoroughly, to fill in the missing blanks, and then the prosecutor's office evaluates it, and the court makes the decision. But you're hurting yourself. You don't understand one thing: if you confess later, under duress as they say, it won't count as much as making a clean breast of things now. It might not all be so terrible. But for now, everything points against you. Proof of an assault on the body, expert testimony, and other circumstances. And it all boils down to one thing.” He leaned across the desk and lowered his voice. “It looks as if you… alleviated the victim's suffering.”
The suspect lowered his head and rubbed his face. He was seeing the scene again. The skeleton with Krivoshein's head twitching convulsively in the tank, his own hands holding on to the tank's edge, the warm, gentle liquid touching them and then — the blow!
“I'm not sure myself, if it's me or not,” he muttered in a depressed voice. “I can't understand it.” He looked up. “Listen, I have to get back to the lab!”
Matvei Apollonovich almost jumped up: he hadn't expected such a rapid victory. “Listen, that can happen too,” he said, nodding sympathetically. “In a state of frenzy from an insult or through overzealous self — defense. Let's go down to the lab, and you can explain on the scene just what transpired there.” He picked up Monomakh's Crown from his desk and casually asked: “Was this what you hit him on the chest with? It's a heavy thing.”
“That's enough!” The suspect spoke harshly and almost haughtily. He straightened up. “I see no reason to continue this discussion. You're trying to put me into a corner. By the way, that 'heavy thing' costs over five
