The prosecutor with all his staff attended that autopsy. The case was grave, they had to decide what it was - a murder? Or an accident? The victim was a civilian, not a prisoner. More than that, a member of the Communist party. He was found on Monday in a large drying oven through which a wagon line was laid. He lied under the wagon. Was he killed by the wagon? Or put there when already dead? What was the cause of death? The temperature in the oven was about 70 degrees centigrade. The corpse was frightful: black as coal and awfully swollen - cadaveric emphysema. And the smell! Something sour and putrid... Awful!
The autopsy is over. The picture is clear, it is a murder. Marks of a struggle - abrasions caused while he was still alive, and tissue crushed by the wagon when he was already dead. The cause of death is a blow on the head with a blunt instrument, a fracture of the skull and cerebral haemorrhage, etc. We only had to finish the official records which would take about five minutes. But suddenly... Pavel Evdokimovich grabbed a jar of thick formalin from the shelf and plunked it into the gutted, still hot corpse.
The effect was stunning! If you shed a few drops of diluted formalin everybody sneezes. You can imagine what happened when Dr. Nikishin poured a half litre of undiluted on the hot corpse!
The prosecutor and his entourage sneezing and crying buried their faces in handkerchiefs. I fell onto the trestle-bed. Tears flowed because of both the formalin and the laughter.
Pavel Evdokimovich also sneezing repeated: «What a fool I am ...»
Finally the prosecutor said, «It is usual for you but hard for us ...» and all of them hustily left the «hospitable institution».