The director of the Kartashov textile factory was killed in a car accident. The circumstances of his death prompted the internal affairs authorities to investigate the factory's documentation, for which senior OBKhSS inspector Shubnikov arrived from Moscow under the guise of a representative of the Light Industry Research Institute.

Rare materials go missing from the archive. A conflict arises between two researchers—Ozerov and Rozhkin—over these missing materials.

A televised play based on the novella of the same name by Boris Vasilyev.