All the action takes place within 36 hours, and during this time, Van Dyne collected many action games, red herring, suspects, humor and lessons from Egyptian history. He is joined by his friend John F. Markham, the New York County District Attorney, and his able assistant Sergeant Ernest Heath. Kyle was found dead in the private museum of the Egyptologist Dr. Mindrum V.K. Bliss at the foot of a large statue of Anubis with a smaller statue of Sakhmet, which seemed to have fallen on his skull from the top of a neighboring shelf.