Three weeks before our heroine arrives in New York, the Countess
Lavinia Waldorf-Carlton, during a trip to England, reads that a certain 
Watney Little has escaped from Dartmoor Prison.  She learns, to her 
surprise, that the man pictured in the newspaper bears a remarkable 
resemblance to the newly-appointed president of the Leyendecker Museum,
Archibald Carrington III.  Using the shady underworld connections she
has accumulated through her lengthy life of crime, she discovers Little's
location and lays before him an idea for an art burglary scheme.
        First, Little must kill and impersonate Carrington.  Then, the
two of them could steal valuable objets d'art from the inside, replacing
them with cleverly-crafted fakes.  She even has a fence, Lawrence "Ziggy" 
Zigfield, to sell the goods to private collectors.  Then, once the  
paintings had been passed on, they would vandalize the fakes, thereby
misdirecting any would-be sleuths (oh, little do they know...).
        Little goes along with the plan.  He books passage on the Andrea
Doria, strangles Carrington, and stuffs him into a steamer trunk.  So 
far, so good.  He meets the Countess in New York and becomes, for all
intents and purposes, Archibald Carrington III.  Everyone is fooled.
        Well, almost everyone.  Det. Ryan Hanrahan O'Riley pays him a
visit, armed with Little's Scotland Yard police file.  O'Riley threatens
to blow the whistle unless Little pinches the Dagger of Amon Ra and hands
it over to him.  Little, faced with the prospect of exposure, steals the 
Dagger that night.  He needs to hide it somewhere, though.  Since the 
museum is to be closed all the next day in preparation for the gala formal,
Little hides the Dagger in the gift shop ("The best place to hide a needle
is not in a haystack, but among other needles.").
        O'Riley hears about the theft and gives Little his police file.
O'Riley tells him that he'll pick up the Dagger once the heat has lifted.
        That day, fresh-faced young Laura Bow arrives in the Big Apple
from her small-town home (Hey!  New Orleans isn't THAT small...).  Her
editor, as a favor to her father, assigns her to the Dagger theft.  After
a colorful, whirlwind tour of the city, she arrives at the formal.
        Well, besides the advances proffered her by that handsome Steve 
Dorian, the formal is extremely boring...that is, until Laura wanders into
the gift shop (which, unbenownst to the conspirators, has been left 
unlocked) and discovers that one of the souvenir daggers isn't a fake.
Before she can confirm her suspicions, the security <hah!> chief, Wolf
Heimlich shoos her away.
        Meanwhile, renowned archaeologist Pippin Carter is positively
livid that someone should attempt to separate him from his Dagger--first
this Dr. Smith character, and now some thief.  So, he decides to accuse
all of the suspects, in turn, until he can cleverly get one of them to
confess--Sherlock Holmes would have been proud.  By pure chance, he 
accuses Watney Little first, then turns around and accuses Dr. Ptahsheptut
Smith.  He tells both that he has acquired some "evidence" that will 
connect them with the theft, and that, if they want to protect themselves,
they'll meet him in the Egyptian room at 7:45 and 7:55, respectively.
        As this is going on, Heimlich mentions to O'Riley in conversation
that he just chased Laura out of the gift shop.  O'Riley pales and leaves,
mumbling an excuse.  He goes up to Little to get the spare key, at which
time Little tells him about Carter's accusations.  O'Riley promises to
take care of it.  He sneaks into the gift shop, removes both the real
Dagger and one of the fakes, and locks the shop up tight.  Outside, he
slips the real Dagger to Ziggy, telling him to hide it somewhere and then
meet him in the Pterodactyl room.
        O'Riley then leaves the party to keep Little's appointment with
Dr. Carter.  Scratch one renowned archaeologist.  O'Riley stuffs his body
in a sarcophagus, and then rifles through Pippin's pockets, inadvertently 
leaving a grape juice stain on Pippin's jacket.  O'Riley then makes 
himself scarce.
        At 7:55 p.m., Dr. Ptahsheptut Smith enters, discovering a 
bloodstain next to one of the sarcophagi.  He opens it, discovering 
Carter's body, and is so shocked that he fails to notice that he dropped 
his prized ankh in the blood.  He resolves to tell no one he was there, out
of fear that his presence might make him the prime suspect.
        Immediately after he leaves, Yvette Delacroix arrives to keep her
8:00 appointment with Carter--she had promised to show him the inside of
the mummy case--only to discover that someone has beaten her to it.  
Equally surprised, she inadvertently steps in the blood, failing to notice
that she has left a footprint behind.  She regains control of herself
immediately, though, and realizes she has to remove all evidence of her
presence there.  She reaches into his pocket, finds his notebook, and 
removes the top sheet, which would place her at the scene.
        Enter contestant #3--Laura Bow, who comes in shortly after Yvette
leaves, and discovers the body.  Laura never could keep a secret, though.
        O'Riley answers her scream and gets her to leave the scene.  He
then realizes he has to hide the body somewhere else, so, he stuffs it in
an suit of armor in the medieval room, dreaming up a cock-and-bull story
about the coroner having come and gotten it.
        Meanwhile, Ziggy goes downstairs to hide the Dagger.  He 
eventually drops it into Preservation Vat 12, but, Ernie Leach, the 
custodian, catches him once he's descended, and ejects him from the room.
        Ziggy goes upstairs to report the location of the Dagger to 
O'Riley.  He tells O'Riley about his run-in with Leach.  O'Riley, however,
has already decided that Ziggy has outlived his usefulness.  He saps
the hapless stoolie with a truncheon, goes onto the catwalk and cuts the
pterodactyl's wires with Ernie's wire cutters.  He then saws off Ziggy's
head with the paper cutter blade he recently detached from Yvette's office.
He hides the head in the life mask exhibit and replaces the other 
implements.  Once again, he hears a scream, this time, because Laura's 
discovered Ziggy's head.
        O'Riley reattaches the blade to the paper cutter just before
Yvette enters her office.  He then tells her that he'll kill her if he
ever finds out she's been sleeping with someone else.  She laughs it off.
        O'Riley realizes that there is only one other person in on the
theft--Watney Little--and that, in order to ensure a clean getaway, he
has to silence him.  He finds Little in Carrington's office and impales
him on the stuffed porcupine.  Little, in a final attempt to come clean
with the world, writes the location of the police file on his desk in his
own blood.
        Laura discovers the body and figures out that the letters "C.P."
refer to Carrington's copy of Crime and Punishment, where Little has 
hidden the police file.  She also discovers the diary of the late Sterling
Waldorf-Carlton, who suspected the Countess of attempting to kill him,
as well as Little's appointment book, which lists a meeting with the
Countess and Ziggy in the medieval room at 1:00.
        Laura hides behind the tapestry in the medieval room, and, when
the Countess arrives, Laura emerges and confronts her with the faux
Carrington's death.  The Countess, clearly flustered, blurts out the 
details of the art burglary scheme (although cleverly failing to reveal
"Carrington's" true identity).
        Laura then takes a trip downstairs, discovers the location of
the Dagger, and finds Carrington's body in the steamer trunk.
        At this time, O'Riley realizes that there is another loose thread
--Ernie Leach, who saw Ziggy in the alcohol preservation lab.  O'Riley
threatens him over the phone, telling him that "he has seen too much."
Ernie, in order to protect Yvette, tells her little about the phone
calls.  
        While Laura is upstairs listening to Wolf's and Dr. Myklos' 
conversation, Ernie decides to check on Vat 8.  He leans over a little 
too far, and O'Riley climbs up the ladder and shoves him overboard.  He
drowns Leach using the object scoop, then hauls Ernie's body out, drags it
upstairs and throws it onto the mastodon horns.
        Laura discovers Ernie's body and reports it to O'Riley, who
swears he'll kill her with his bare hands for all this trouble she's 
causing him.
        Meanwhile, Yvette is distraught over Ernie's death.  She has,
of course, no clue that O'Riley is behind it, and attributes the death
to Ernie's loan shark.  O'Riley overhears her and Steve Dorian, and
assumes the worst.  After Steve departs (with chastity intact), O'Riley,
consumed with jealous rage, has it out with Yvette, eventually knocking 
her out after a struggle.  He then removes one of her stockings, 
strangling her with it.  Next, he goes downstairs to the crate storage 
room, retrieves the plaster and covers Yvette from head to toe, placing 
the completed statue on display in the Old Masters' Gallery.  The 
Countess, unfortunately for her, sees O'Riley lugging the statue out 
of the office, puts two and two together, and confronts O'Riley.  
The detective overpowers her, ties her up with a strong length of 
rope and lays her out on Dr. Myklos' desk, leaving the Countess to 
the tender mercies of Olympia's pet cobra, Barney...
        Laura discovers the scene of the struggle and then locates
Yvette's body and the clues left by O'Riley.  While she does this, Dr.
Myklos discovers the Countess on her desk, and then, totally 
misinterpreting the Countess' final words, goes to find Det. O'Riley.
        Meanwhile, O'Riley, still insanely jealous, hunts down Steve
Dorian, coshes him over the head with his truncheon, and dumps Steve
down a coal chute, to be dealt with later...after he's finished with
that meddling reporter.
        Laura discovers Steve's boot, and then goes to check out the
Countess, who has died of snakebite.  She finds O'Riley's grapes next
to the body.
        O'Riley has figured out the perfect way to deal with Miss Bow.
He grabs the mace from Heimlich's office, and dressed in a concealing
shroud, chases after Laura.  The reporter, after playing hide-and-seek
with the killer, eventually stumbles into the secret temple of the 
Cult of Amon Ra, located in the museum basement.  She learns that the
inoffensive accountant, Rameses Najeer, is in fact the high priest of
the Cult.  She answers Rameses' riddle, and is shown the secret passage
to the furnace room.  From there, she locates Steve, and the two of them
manage to capture O'Riley.  The rest, as they say, is history.

          
          COMPLETE ANSWERS TO CORONER'S INQUEST

-Ryan Hanrahan O'Riley killed everyone except Archibald Carrington III.
-His motive for killing everyone except Yvette was either:  "Cover
another crime," or "Financial gain."  Either one works.
-His motive for killing Yvette Delacroix was either:  "Jealousy," or 
"Revenge."  Once again, either one works.
-Watney Little killed and impersonated Archibald Carrington III.
-Archibald Carrington III was the body in the steamer trunk.
-Watney Little was the one who actually stole the Dagger from the 
display case.
-Det. O'Riley manipulated Little into stealing the Dagger.
-The woman involved in the art burglary scheme was the Countess Lavinia
Waldorf-Carlton.
-The man involved in the art burglary scheme was Watney Little.
-The middle man who sold the paintings to wealthy art collectors was
Lawrence "Ziggy" Zigfield.
-Rameses Najeer is the high priest of the Cult of Amon Ra (gimme).
-Ernie Leach had the "fencing" operation (actually, he puts up fences
around houses--who knew?).

--David Matchen [71054,2042]