“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.

“Well, that's it. We don't have to wait for the Moscow professor to give a visual ID — and he probably wouldn't anyway. Your fingerprints, citizen Krivoshein, correspond completely to the prints that I took at the scene of the crime. Here, see for yourself!” He handed the form and a magnifying glass to Krivoshein. “So let's drop the game. And remember that your flight to Moscow and the fake papers only make things worse. The court adds three to eight years to a sentence for premeditation and the attempt to confound the police.”

Krivoshein, his lip extended, was studying the form.

“Tell me,” he said, raising his eyes to the detective, “why can't you allow for the fact that there are two men with the same fingerprints?”

“Why?! Because in a hundred years of using this method in criminology, such a thing has never happened once.”

“Lots of things have never happened before, like Sputnik, hydrogen bombs, and computers, but they exist now.”

“What do sputniks have to do with this?” Matvei Apollonovich shrugged. “Sputniks are sputniks, and fingerprints are fingerprints, incontestable evidence. So are you going to talk?”

Krivoshein gazed deeply and thoughtfully at the detective and smiled gently.

“What's your name, comrade investigator?”

“Matvei Apollonovich Onisimov, why?”

“You know what, Matvei Apollonovich? Drop this case.”

“What do you mean, drop it?”

“Just like that, the usual way, cover it up. How do you phrase it: 'for insufficient evidence' or 'lack of proof of a crime. You know, 'turned over to the archives on such and such a date…. “

Matvei Apollonovich was speechless. He had never encountered such brass in all his years on the force.

“You see, Matvei Apollonovich, you'll continue with the varied and, in usual cases, certainly useful activity of questioning, detaining, interrogating, comparing fingerprints, bothering busy people with your videophone.” Krivoshein developed his thought gesturing with his right hand. “And all the time you'll keep thinking that any second now you'll have the truth by the tail. Contradictions will smooth out into facts, the facts into evidence; good will triumph, and evil will get a sentence plus time for premeditation.” He sighed sympathetically. “The hell these contradictions will smooth out! Not in this case. And you will never hit on the truth for the simple reason that you are not ready to accept it at your level of reasoning.”

Onisimov frowned and his lips compressed into a huffy pout.

“No, no!” Krivoshein waved his hands. “Please don't think that I'm trying to put you down, that I want to demean you, or cast aspersions on your qualities as a detective. I can see that you are a tenacious and hard — working man. But — how can I explain this to you?” He squinted at the sunny yellow window. “Oh, here's a good example. About sixty years ago, as you undoubtedly know, the machinery in factories and plants was powered by steam or diesels. A transmission shaft went through the workshops with driving belts running from it to the machine pulleys. All this spun, buzzed, and hummed, its wild noise bringing joy to the director or owner. Then electricity came on the scene — and now all that has been replaced by electric motors, built into the machines.”

Once again, like last night, when he had interrogated the lab assistant, Matvei Apollonovich was seized by doubts: something was wrong here! Quite a few people had been in his office, polishing the chair with their squirming: taciturn teenagers who had gotten into trouble through stupidity; weepy speculators; overly — casual accountants caught through a routine check of the books; and repeat offenders who knew all the laws. But all of them realized sooner or later that the game was over, that the moment had come for them to confess and hope that the record reflected their clean — breasted repentance. But this one. just sat there as though nothing had happened, waving his arms and explaining at a simple level why the case should be closed. “This lack of game playing is throwing me off again! But no, I'm not going to slip twice in the same place!” he thought.

Matvei Apollonovich was an experienced investigator and knew well that doubts and impressions did not build a case — facts did. And the facts were against Krivoshein and Kravets.