****SPOILERS**** Narrating a film he made on his expedition in the Mongolian Desert archaeologist Dr. John Benton, Charles Miller, just when he's about to reveal his findings suddenly drops dead, in fact he was officially declared dead a few hours later, in front of the shocked audience in attendance! With Dr. Genton's death declared a homicide, someone slipped poison in his drink, San Francisco police Captain Street, Grant Winters, is put on the case with Chinese history professor Jimmy Lee Wong, played by Charlie Chan #1 Son Keye Luke, doing the important leg work or investigating for him.
It soon comes out that Dr. Benton had uncovered the tomb of the Emperor Ming, no not the guy in the Flash Gordon serial, of China in the 10th Century that had information in it about a secret map that leads to a massive oil reserves in the Mongolian Desert. It was one of the persons on Dr. Benton's expedition who's suspected in doing him in to get the map and sell it, for millions if not billions, to an either friendly or unfriendly country as well as oil conglomerate as long as it can some up with the cash!
****SPOILERS**** Jimmy knowing his way around Chinatown and speaking the local lingo, Mandarin Chinese, slowly uncovers a plot to get the map but at the same time eliminate all those, except him or herself, involved so he wouldn't have to split the money, from the oil companies, with them. Setting a trap for Dr.Benton's, and later butler Mason's-John Holland-killer, Jimmy Leee Wong floats this made up story that the pilot on the expedition Jonas, William Costello, who was reported lost in the Mongolian Desert has shown up alive and is , after recovering from heat stroke, about to talk in who's responsible in Dr. Benton's murder not disappearance! How he could have known that in being some 7,000 miles away from the murder scene, is never explained? With him impersonating the at first dead now fully alive Jonas Jimmy Lee Wong has Dr. Benton's killer come out of the shadows and into the, in a well lit hospital room, light! Just as Captain Street and a half dozen members of the SFPD make the pinch on him as well as, this is the big surprise in the movie, his accomplice!
It soon comes out that Dr. Benton had uncovered the tomb of the Emperor Ming, no not the guy in the Flash Gordon serial, of China in the 10th Century that had information in it about a secret map that leads to a massive oil reserves in the Mongolian Desert. It was one of the persons on Dr. Benton's expedition who's suspected in doing him in to get the map and sell it, for millions if not billions, to an either friendly or unfriendly country as well as oil conglomerate as long as it can some up with the cash!
****SPOILERS**** Jimmy knowing his way around Chinatown and speaking the local lingo, Mandarin Chinese, slowly uncovers a plot to get the map but at the same time eliminate all those, except him or herself, involved so he wouldn't have to split the money, from the oil companies, with them. Setting a trap for Dr.Benton's, and later butler Mason's-John Holland-killer, Jimmy Leee Wong floats this made up story that the pilot on the expedition Jonas, William Costello, who was reported lost in the Mongolian Desert has shown up alive and is , after recovering from heat stroke, about to talk in who's responsible in Dr. Benton's murder not disappearance! How he could have known that in being some 7,000 miles away from the murder scene, is never explained? With him impersonating the at first dead now fully alive Jonas Jimmy Lee Wong has Dr. Benton's killer come out of the shadows and into the, in a well lit hospital room, light! Just as Captain Street and a half dozen members of the SFPD make the pinch on him as well as, this is the big surprise in the movie, his accomplice!