The Seven Crystal Balls (French: Les Sept boules de cristal) is the thirteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero.
It was first published in the Le Soir newspaper from December 1943 to September 1944 but was postponed three-quarters of the way through when, following the liberation of Belgium at the end of World War II, Hergé and other members of the Le Soir were investigated for working for a collaborationist newspaper. The story was resumed in Prisoners of the Sun in the newly-launched Tintin magazine in 1946.

Storyline

A mysterious illness is afflicting members of an archaeological expedition recently returned from the Andes, where they had unearthed the tomb of the Inca, Rascar Capac.

5 days earlier:

One by one, the expedition members fall into a mysterious coma. The only clue is shards of crystal found near each victim, which are fragments of shattered crystal balls. Concerned, Tintin, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus go to stay with Calculus's old friend, and expedition member, the ebullient Professor Tarragon, who is keeping Rascar Capac's mummy in his house. But the mummy soon disappears when a lightning storm sends a ball of fire down the chimney, and, after each being visited in their nightmares by the mummy, the three wake to find Tarragon comatose, with the telltale shards of crystal by his bed. Tarragon later wakes up but screams about mysterious figures attacking him. Tintin later visits a hospital where all the other stricken explorers go through the same horrors at a precise time of day.

The plot thickens even further, however, when Calculus, taking a stroll around Professor Tarragon's house, discovers a striking gold bracelet, puts it on (remarking on how nicely it goes with his coat), and then mysteriously disappears. The bracelet had previously been worn by the now-vanished mummy.

While looking for Calculus, Tintin and the Captain are fired upon by an unseen gunman who escapes in a black car, having kidnapped Calculus. The alarm is raised and the police set up road blocks, but the kidnappers switch cars and slip through the net....

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