Jessica Fletcher is in Egypt to help arrange an exhibit exchange between the Museum of Cultural History in New York (which she helped found) and a museum in Cairo. But her travelling companion is revealing to her the real reason for their trip — that she has discovered that the real statue of the Medina Nefertari was among their artifacts in New York and she has made arrangements with the museum director in Cairo to switch it for the fake there (thus helping them avoid a scandal).
There are many people that want to get their hands on the Medina Nefertari, and when one of them turns up dead, Jessica investigates!
Just the facts:
Click on the text below to reveal spoilers.
Click to reveal the victim
It was Rudy Grimes, the man hired to steal the Medina Nefertari statue!Click to reveal the killer
It was Sally Otterburn, an employee of the NYC museum!Click to reveal the weapon
It was death by gunshot!Click to reveal the location
It happened in the hotel elevator, between the ground and third floor!Click to reveal the motive
The killer had given herself away by positioning herself behind the curtain, where it was later revealed the gunshot came from! They had also found an ear-ring that the killer had lost at the scene of the crime, which she was seen to be missing shortly after the murder.Click to reveal the major clue
It was because the victim had incriminating information about the man that the killer was in love with!Cast of characters (in order of appearance):
- Finn Carter as Sally Otterburn, an employee of the Museum of Cultural History in New York who tested the authenticity of the Medina Nefertari statue.
- Turhan Bey as Sherif Faris, the director of the Cairo museum.
- Steve Inwood as Rudy Grimes, a man hired to find and steal the Medina Nefertari. This is Inwood’s third and final appearance on MSW; he previously appeared in “Simon Says, Color Me Dead” and “Appointment in Athens“.
- Eric Pierpoint as Bradford Thorpe, the man who hired Grimes.
- Lee Meriwether as Vanessa Thorpe, the rich wife of Bradford Thorpe. This is Meriwether’s third and final appearance on MSW; she previously appeared in “Ship of Thieves“.
- Jim Pirri as Naser Muhammad Hasan, a taxi driver who picked up Jessica Fletcher from the airport in Cairo.
- Michael A. Saad credited as Minister of Interior but referred to as Minister of Antiquities during his visit to the Cairo museum.
- Chaim Jeraffi as Insp. Omar Halim, who is investigating the theft of Jessica’s bag at the airport.
- James Read as Boyd Venton, the head of the hotel that Jessica is staying at and Sally’s former boyfriend.
- Michael Paul Chan as Trevor Han, a businessman and gallery owner who is suspected of being involved in illegal export of antiquities; he lent Bradford Thorpe money and now expects him to procure the Medina Nefertari statue as repayment.
- Jeri Lynn Ryan as Laura Gibson, Bradford Thorpe’s mistress.
- Mike Akrawi as the Waiter at the Coffeehouse that Rudy Grimes had his mail sent to.
Final thoughts and other trivia:
Fans of Angela Lansbury will immediately recognize the title of this episode as a reference to Death on the Nile, the novel by Agatha Christie that was adapted into a movie starring Angela Lansbury in 1978. The character that Angela Lansbury played in that adaptation was called Salome Otterbourne — which the character Sally Otterburn that appears in this episode is an obvious allusion to.
One interesting point of continuity I found while recently rewatching the series is that this episode ties back to the Season 10 episode “The Dying Game“, in which Jessica was first helping establish the Museum of Cultural History. The fact that the building that houses the museum was the former “Larkin Department Store” carries over into this episode. This episode also mentions that Vanessa Thorpe’s company was a threat in trying to buy the department store and turn it into a parking structure.
Murder, She Watched 