Tansy Clark is intrigued when her father, a retired police officer, shows her items in the newspapers about two assistant curators who have both died suddenly of gastric influenza at a time when no epidemic exists. Tansy begins her own investigation and finds that beneath the respectable facade of London museums and art galleries there are illegal and dangerous goings on. When her young maid, Tilde, is followed home and Tansy herself is attacked whilst out walking, she decides to go undercover and takes a post at a local museum founded by a reclusive millionaire. Soon she is involved in a story that has its beginnings thirty-years earlier involving the statue of a biblical Queen, Vashti. Tansy must endure shocks, intrigue and a danger that bears every hallmark of death.