天方夜谭谋杀案

"...And then he said to me, 'You killed him, and you'll hang for it, my fine impostor. I saw you in the coach'. And with that he came at me with both hands."

Thus the police sergeant concluded his account of how the tall, thin, oldish man in top hat, frock coat, and white whiskers attacked him. The sergeant had been walking his beat along the wall of the Wade Museum at the time. But who was this old man? What did he know about the body of the actor discovered stabbed in a museum coach? And did the coffin really contain the mummy of Haroun al Raschid's wife?

Three investigators try to solve this most bizarre of cases. But it is Dr. Gideon Fell - vast and genial, with his chins, his chuckle, and his unerring sense for the important clue - who defeats the mystery.