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- 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]
-
-