Hercule Poirot is hired by Lady Willard to investigate the death of her husband, the archaeologist Sir John Willard. Sir John was on a dig in Egypt to open the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh Men-Her-Ra, a tomb which is believed to be cursed. He suffered a heart attack the moment he walked into the burial chamber. Soon after this, another member of the expedition and the financier of it, Felix Bleibner, dies from septicemia after a seemingly innocuous cut. The inheritor of his wealthy estate, nephew Rupert Bleibner, commits suicide in New York a few days later. Poirot and Hastings fly out to the dig but already another member of the party appears to be afflicted.
—grantss