He picked up an object from the floor that looked like an ancient warrior's helmet; but this helmet was chrome — plated and covered with buttons and bundles of thin multicolored wires. The wires extended beyond the tubes and flasks of the clumsy apparatus into the far corner of the room, to a computer.

“This?” The academician shrugged. “Hmm.”

“Monomakh's Crown, I mean, that's what we call them around here,” Hilobok offered. “More precisely, it's an SEP — 1 — System of Electronic Pickups for Computing the Biopotentials of the Human Brain. The reason I know, Arkady Arkadievich, is that Krivoshein kept bugging me to make him one like it.”

“All right, I understand. With your permission, I'll take it for a while, since it was found on the victim.”

Onisimov, winding the wires, disappeared into the far reaches of the room.

“Who was the victim, Arkady Arkadievich?” Hilobok whispered.

“Krivoshein.”

“Oh, dear, how can that be? His eccentricities finally led to this… and more troubles for you, Arkady Arkadievich.”

The detective was back. He wrapped the “crown” in paper and put it into his box. The only sound in the quiet lab was the panting of the orderlies, who were working on the unconscious assistant.

“And why was Krivoshein naked?” Onisimov suddenly asked.

“He was naked?” The academician was stunned. “You mean it wasn't the doctors who undressed him? I don't know! I can't even imagine.”

“Hm… I see. And what do you think they used this tank for? Perhaps for bathing?”