Artifact with a Dark Past

A valuable statuette, found during excavations in the Urals, has been stolen. The guard who tried to prevent the theft was killed. Colonels of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Gurov and Kryachko are interrogating interested parties, including world-renowned archaeologists. Each of them has their own version of what happened: from the blasphemous theft of a unique artifact to the initial falsification of the very discovery. As an independent consultant, the detectives engage an experienced specialist from the old scientific school. The confession of the elderly professor left the operatives in true shock...