Secret People

Christmas Petrograd. At a lavish dinner in a fashionable restaurant, detectives Lykov and Azvestopulo notice two suspicious types sitting nearby. One of them is a young man, seemingly lucky, with clearly criminal manners. The other is shaved, his cheeks glisten – undoubtedly a German. The detectives, although a little tipsy, decide to follow the suspicious subjects. However, the gangster and the German deftly dissolve into the damp Petersburg night. Their trail leads the detectives to the 'Mitava' hotel, where the bellboy has seen the duo in a private room before. That's great! Now the criminologists will identify the criminal by his fingerprints and find out his name at the registration desk of the Police Department. The results of the examination were simply astounding… Only the German Vedel's fingerprints were found in the hotel room. There were no other prints. To be precise, there were some, but without any papillary lines. And how can one identify traces that do not exist?