“Now, you're not going to throw me off the track here. I saw for myself… but what are we going to do with this skeleton now?”

“The hell with it. Wait, here's an idea. Send it over to the city sculpture studio. Let them reconstruct the face according to Professor Gerasimov's method; they are familiar with it. If it's him, you'll have the crime sensation of the century on your hands. If not — “Zubato gave Matvei Apollonovich a sympathetic look. “I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when you talk with Aleksei Ignatievich. All right, I'll send it over there myself. So be it.” He rose. “And while I'm at it, I'll do the death certificate. I'll settle for a skeleton, if you can't come up with a body.”

Zubato left.

“What if they did trick me?” Onisimov recalled the academician's hostility, Assistant Professor Hilobok's flattery, and he shuddered. “I lost the body, the most important thing. Good show there!”

He dialed the chemistry lab.

“Viktoriya Stepanovna, this is Onisimov. Did you analyze the liquid?”

“Yes, Matvei Apollonovich. The report is being typed, but I'll read you the conclusion. “Water — 85 percent, protein — 13 percent, amino acids — 0.5 percent, fatty acids — 0.4 percent and so on. In other words, it's human blood plasma. According to the hemoglutins, it's classified as type A, with lowered water content.”

“Yes, I see. Could it be toxic?”

“I doubt it.”

“Even, if say, you bathed in it?”

“Well, you could swallow some and drown. Does that help?”

“Thank you!” Matvei Apollonovich slammed down the phone. “Wise ass! But I guess that means accidental death is ruled out. Could the assistant have drowned him in the tub? No, it doesn't look like a drowning.”

Onisimov liked the entire business less and less with every passing minute. He spread out the documents he got at the institute's personnel department and at the laboratory and lost himself in their study. He was distracted by the phone.