In 1932, young Walter Matthews finds life in Battersea with his sneering father and simpering mother close to unbearable. His only solace is his passion for all things Egyptian and his adoration for the manly figure of Howard Carter, whose splendid discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb is constantly in the news. When he starts work as a bellboy in the Maydor Superior Hotel in Central London, Walter’s life brightens, and when he befriends Lady Fergus Mantel-Jefferson, a recluse living on the top floor of the hotel, his life positively blossoms, for by the most wonderful good fortune, Lady F was friends with Mr. Carter in Egypt, and Walter is dizzy with excitement at the chance of knowing more about his hero’s life. Unable to tolerate his father any longer, Walter persuades Lady F to house him in her suite while he looks for a room, which he eventually finds. But, on the morning he tells the old lady his news while admiring an alabaster statuette once belonging to Howard Carter, his world changes abruptly and all that glittered before him, his bright future, his hopes and plans, disappear before his very eyes.