Cairo 1932
Once the contents of Ankh-es-en-Amen's tomb are taken to Cairo and installed in the Musee d'Antiquities the fun starts. As the museum is closing the strange man who directed the dig team to find the tomb turns up and introduces himself to Joseph and Frank as Ardath Bay. After everyone has left a guard is killed and in leaving the murderer has dropped the Scroll of Thoth, which was stolen from the BM dig. In a nearby hotel something even stranger happens. Helen Grosvenor, daughter of the govenor of the Sudan who is in Cairo to be treated by Dr Muller, suddenly goes missing. She is found in a dead faint on the steps of the museum.
Dr Muller realises there is great danger, and after meeting Ardath Bay at the Whemple's house where he goes to collect Helen he realises why. He has worked out who this strange man is and what he is after, the Scroll of Thoth and warns the men. Frank has by now developed a definite liking for Helen - she makes a sarcastic remark about him having to open graves to find girls to fall in love with when he tells her she looks just like the mummy of the princess at the museum. After hypnotising the Nubian servant Im-ho-tep leaves the Whemple's house. Then using his powers the revived mummy kills Sir Joseph who is trying to burn the Scroll of Thoth - the Nubian steals it and takes it back to his master. Meanwhile Helen has gone missing again, taking her dog with her.
By the power of his mind the mummy has drawn Miss Grovenor to the house he is using as his base. There he hypnotises her and reawakens memories of one of her past lives as Ankh-es-en-amum the daughter of Amenophis the magnificent in Ancient Egypt. After her death Im-ho-tep, who was High Priest at her funeral, remains in her tomb. He decides he will bring her back from the dead using the Scroll of Thoth only to be discovered by the Pharaoh's guards. Pharaoh sentences him to 'The Nameless Death' and he is wrapped in bandages alive and the important parts of his mummy case knocked off before he is buried in an unmarked grave in the desert sands.
When Helen returns to the Whemple's house she is without her dog - a cat at Imhotep's house has killed it and we hear its howls off screen. Helen becomes very ill - she is fighting the call to go to the revived mummy as she has fallen in love with Frank, which is doing her no favours. The doctor who has been called despairs for her life but Dr Muller is in control. He has earlier handed Frank an amulet of the goddess Isis to protect him and the concerned man hangs if from the doorknob of Helen's bedroom, which is a bad move on his part, Im-ho-tep will have no rivals. When Frank is left on guard outside Helen's room served up the same treatment that killed his father and only survives because he manages to grab hold of the amulet. Even so he is unconscious when Helen slips out and heads off to the meeting place where Im-ho-tep is waiting for her.
The revived mummy has taken over the gallery at the museum where the princess's body is lying and has turned it into a preparation room complete with the Nubian stiring a pot of natron ready to turn Helen Grovenor into a mummy. Im-ho-tep plans to do this so he can revive her to bring Ankh-es-en-Amun back from the dead to live with him eternally. Helen has now remembered her past life as the princess and priestess of Isis but wants nothing to do with this now, 'No, I'm young and alive I don't want to die.' she cries. Im-ho-tep hypnotises Helen and Dr Muller and Frank arrive to try and save her but they are no match for the mummy's powers. Only a cry to Isis from her former priestess brings intervention in the shape of her statue zapping Im-hop-tep so he is destroyed once and for all.
