The mummy flew around the guestroom and then, in a puff of smoke, it vanished into thin air. Those present stood with mouths open, aghast at what they had just seen. One by one they began to fall to the ground with what turned out to be an incurable disease…

This scene is a product of Hergé's fertile imagination, a well-known Belgian comic artist. He wrote it for his Tintin series, Seven Mysterious Balls, published in 1948. Bu