Someone sends the pulverized remains of all of the fancy, colored diamonds that were stolen a month ago to the museum.

Bill Smithback is able to discover the truth, and writes a front-page story that puts the New York Museum of Natural History in hot water.

Coincidentally, at the same time, a 10-million euro bequest comes in from the Count of Cahors, who would seem to be a descendant of one of the naturalists who traveled with Napoleon's army during his invasion of Egypt.

Nora, Menzies, Wicherly, and McCorkle tour through the old exhibit, consisting of several rooms, a wooden bridge over a 15-foot drop, and several ancient curses.

The tomb was originally acquired by Napoleon, disassembled, and then after a few stops, was finally reassembled in the NY Museum of Natural History, only to then be forgotten for over 70 years.

Back in the museum, the two workers that are finishing up the computer and electronics work on the exhibit are attacked by something that seems to be a mummy.

As part of the plan to help Pendergast escape, Vinnie enters the prison, in the guise of a meat delivery driver.

Jay Lipper, the computer tech, has gone crazy due to an electric shock to his cerebral cortex.

Comstock was a famed magician who mentored Harry Houdini, but grew bitter and misanthropic as he aged.

Hayward finds D'Agosta and Pendergast at Glinn's warehouse, and they rush to the museum to stop the show, but by the time they arrive the first group has already entered the tomb.

At the exhibit, the people inside are subjected to the light and sound show that Diogenes created to drive them mad.

But Pendergast, with Smithback's help, makes enough nitroglycerin to breach the walls of the exhibit at their thinnest point, which is the old entrance from the subway station.

Pendergast sees Constance and Diogenes fighting each other, locked in an embrace, at the edge of a cliff high upon the volcano.

Nora and Bill visit Margo Green at the Feversham Clinic in upstate NY, where she is recovering from her drugging by Diogenes.

They update her on the events at the museum and tell her that the Tomb of Senef exhibit is being reopened, and is turning out to be very popular.

Pendergast mentions his plan to spend some time at the monastery in Tibet where he'd learned Chongg Ran, and Viola offers to take Constance with her when she resumes her archeology work in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

Though this novel ends the trilogy, Agent Pendergast and his ward, Constance Greene, appear next in the novel The Wheel of Darkness which picks up very shortly following the events depicted here.