Vodovorot chuzhikh zhelaniy

The head of the Institute of Ethnography Schmidt addresses the private detective Makar Ilyushin. His colleague Mark Silbert was brutally murdered by unknown assailants during a robbery. The paradox is that the expensive antiques collection in the Silbert house did not interest the criminals. Presumably, only a mermaid disappeared, a wooden figurine - either a sensational artifact discovered by the late scientist a few days before his death, or another hoax.