Murder Mirage: A Doc Savage Adventure Read online

  * A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *

  This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the eBook (other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of the eBook. If either of these conditions applies, please contact a https://www.fadedpage.com administrator before proceeding. Thousands more FREE eBooks are available at https://www.fadedpage.com.

  This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

  Title: Murder Mirage

  Date of first publication: 1936

  Author: Kenneth Robeson (pseudonym of Lawrence Donovan) (1885-1948)

  Date first posted: Sep. 17, 2019

  Date last updated: Sep. 17, 2019

  Faded Page eBook #20190943

  This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

  DOC SAVAGE

  Unique among men is Doc Savage, man of amazing abilities and of but one goal in life—to do good for everyone.

  His bronzed features, his golden-flaked eyes, are symbols of power and mercy. There is strength unknown in the mighty sinews of his body and knowledge unfathomable in the brain of this remarkable man. Where others are experts in one line, he is a superman in many.

  MURDER MIRAGE

  Doc Savage and his five companions

  in another thrilling exploit

  Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed

  THE MAN OF BRONZE HEX

  THE THOUSAND-HEADED MAN RED SNOW

  METEOR MENACE WORLD’S FAIR GOBLIN

  THE POLAR TREASURE THE DAGGER IN THE SKY

  BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF MERCHANTS OF DISASTER

  THE LOST OASIS THE GOLD OGRE

  THE MONSTERS THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH

  THE LAND OF TERROR THE SEA MAGICIAN

  THE MYSTIC MULLAH THE MAN WHO SMILED NO MORE

  THE PHANTOM CITY THE MIDAS MAN

  FEAR CAY LAND OF LONG JUJU

  QUEST OF QUI THE FEATHERED OCTOPUS

  LAND OF ALWAYS-NIGHT THE SEA ANGEL

  THE FANTASTIC ISLAND DEVIL ON THE MOON

  MURDER MELODY HAUNTED OCEAN

  THE SPOOK LEGION THE VANISHER

  THE RED SKULL THE MENTAL WIZARD

  THE SARGASSO OGRE HE COULD STOP THE WORLD

  PIRATE OF THE PACIFIC THE GOLDEN PERIL

  THE SECRET IN THE SKY THE GIGGLING GHOSTS

  COLD DEATH POISON ISLAND

  THE CZAR OF FEAR THE MUNITIONS MASTER

  FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE THE YELLOW CLOUD

  THE GREEN EAGLE THE MAJII

  THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND THE LIVING FIRE MENACE

  DEATH IN SILVER THE PIRATE’S GHOST

  THE MYSTERY UNDER THE SEA THE SUBMARINE MYSTERY

  THE DEADLY DWARF THE MOTION MENACE

  THE OTHER WORLD THE GREEN DEATH

  THE FLAMING FALCONS MAD MESA

  THE ANNIHILIST THE FRECKLED SHARK

  THE SQUEAKING GOBLINS QUEST OF THE SPIDER

  MAD EYES THE MYSTERY ON THE SNOW

  THE TERROR IN THE NAVY SPOOK HOLE

  DUST OF DEATH MURDER MIRAGE

  RESURRECTION DAY

  MURDER MIRAGE

  A DOC SAVAGE ADVENTURE

  BY KENNETH ROBESON

  MURDER MIRAGE

  Originally published in DOC SAVAGE Magazine January 1936

  Copyright © 1935 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.

  CONTENTS

  I MIDSUMMER SNOW 1

  II “CORPUS DELICTI” IN GLASS 9

  III MEN OF DARK FACES 17

  IV WINDOW ATTACK 24

  V AN ANCIENT WARNING 27

  VI ANALYZING THE STONE 35

  VII A MOB GOES BLIND 40

  VIII FUSSEIN, THE BEDOUIN 45

  IX CHASE THROUGH THE FOG 55

  X BLACK MAGIC 59

  XI WHEN THE BAY BURNED 64

  XII THE BLACK YACHT SINKS 73

  XIII DEATH RIDES THE SKY 77

  XIV CROSS-EYED BEGGAR 84

  XV VANISHED RAIDERS 94

  XVI THE DIRIGIBLE DISSOLVES 98

  XVII VALLEY OF TASUS 104

  XVIII STAND IN THE TOMBS 111

  XIX THE STAKED WOMAN 120

  XX OUT OF THE TOMBS 127

  XXI BURIED DEATH GLOW 134

  XXII FLEET OF DEATH 144

  XXIII THE ALL-WISE ONE 150

  Chapter I

  MIDSUMMER SNOW

  Patrick Brennan, police patrolman, was the first to see the beautiful woman of glass. Unfortunately, Patrolman Brennan did not live long enough to report the incredible apparition. The policeman died heroically in the discharge of duty.

  The snow had been pelting down. It had started more than an hour before the lovely, vivid woman was transformed into a horrible, shadowy silhouette in the window of plate glass. The twin phenomena of the snow and the ghastly shadow seemed to be wholly unrelated.

  Patrolman Brennan might have told something of what really happened, if he had survived. As it was, the policeman was left lying in the street. His service revolver had belched death. It had taken double toll of his attackers, but that had not been enough to save him.

  Snow is not unusual in Manhattan. Blizzardfalls, such as this one, are rare, but they happen occasionally in proper time and season. This snowfall was remarkable. It was being recorded by the United States weather bureau as an all-time mark in freakish weather.

  It was nearly midnight when the first stinging particles whipped the faces of the theater crowds on Broadway. Amazed voices intoned unbelief.

  “Can you imagine? A sleet storm! Of all things!”

  These and kindred exclamations greeted the beginning of the storm.

  * * *

  In the offices of the government weather bureau was even more amazement than elsewhere. A gray-haired, scholarly observer divided his time between a window and his instruments. He frequently consulted his various graphs.

  “Look at that night map,” he growled. “We are directly in the area of high pressure extending a couple of hundred miles into the Atlantic. So it couldn’t be possible!”

  “Sure, that’s what the map says,” boomed a deep voice. “But that stuff on the window isn’t taffy candy, mister. I felt it, and I tasted it. It’s snow. You’ll have to make a new map.”

  The speaker was an authority on maps. For his name stood among the ten or dozen most eminent engineers in the world. The man’s fists were approximately of the size of his head. And his head was of leonine proportions.

  He was Colonel John Renwick, known to the weather bureau officials, and to thousands of others, as “Renny.” His fame as an engineer was perhaps somewhat less than his position of note as one of the five adventuring companions of Clark Savage, Jr., better known as the man of bronze, Doc Savage.

  “You are correct,” stated a smaller man, whose face was thin and of an unhealthy pallor. “It is undoubtedly snow. Moreover, within a short time there will be a violent thunderstorm.”

  “You’re crazy!” promptly declared the grayish weather observer. “How could there be a thunderstorm? Look! The nearest area of low pressure is south of the Carolinas! So there couldn’t be an electrical storm.”

  The small, thin man shook his head.

  “How could there be a snowstorm in midsummer?”

  The thin man was Major Thomas J. Roberts, known as “Long Tom.” He was another of the
companions of Doc Savage, an electrical wizard.

  This was the incredible part of the snowstorm. For it was midsummer. To be exact, it was the midnight of July 4th. In a matter of only minutes, it would be the morning of July 5th. So, as the weather observer had insisted, “it couldn’t be snowing.”

  The oldest resident of Manhattan had never witnessed such a phenomenon. As long as there had been a weather bureau there had been no such freakish occurrence.

  “Look at this,” directed the grayish weather observer. “All of the Middle West is having the worst heat wave of the summer. Boston and all the way to Portland, Maine, show high temperatures. Right now, Washington and Philadelphia are in the eighties!”

  * * *

  While unbelievable, almost fantastic weather history was being recorded in the offices of the government, downtown streets rapidly became deserted. Shortly after midnight but little traffic moved in the vicinity of the shopping districts. The snow had not been deep enough actually to block motor vehicles, but summer-clad residents had faded from the streets.

  The pale headlight beams of a small car penciled into a deserted block near an elevated railway corner. The little car was a yellow coupe of the “for rent” variety. The driver held to almost the exact middle of the street. As the coupe turned into the street, there was a loud, squishy blop! Air hissed for a few seconds.

  “Oh!” breathed a tense voice. “I was afraid something would happen!”

  A front tire had blown out.

  Street lights picked out the face of the driver. The face was small, with features exquisitely formed. Large, luminous eyes reflected the outside light. Slender white hands gripped the steering wheel. These hands were inadequate to driving with a front tire flat.

  The small coupe coughed over to the curb. One side bedded down where the snow had drifted some.

  “We’ll have to get out here and go on quickly,” said another woman, who was seated beside the driver. “I know we were followed when we left the airport. We should have separated then.”

  The fear in the woman’s voice was immediately confirmed. Two other cars were turning into the block. Both were black, closed sedans. The curtains of both cars were tightly drawn.

  The slender young woman under the wheel slid from her position. She pushed the door open against the storm.

  “We’ll go different ways!” she exclaimed, breathlessly. “I’ll endeavor to catch an elevated train! Then you can slip over to the next street and take a taxi!”

  The two closed cars, one trailing the other, were moving down upon the coupe. The young woman who had spoken reached into the little car and snatched a satchel purse of metallic chain mesh from the seat. She slipped and floundered with her first steps, but she gained the sidewalk and started running.

  “You go the other way then!” she cried out to her companion. “Oh, hurry! I’ll get the message to Mr. Savage! I’ll wait, if you do not get there first!”

  One of the two sedans swerved past the yellow coupe. Its invisible driver pulled the car in again close to the young woman on the sidewalk. She had caught up her light skirts and her trim legs flashed with silk as she ran. The clinging snow was more than ankle deep.

  Four figures sprang from the sedan into the snowy street. These were men of unusually upright stature, but they moved stiffly. Their feet made dragging motions, as if their legs and bodies were impeded by some heavy weight.

  These men were between the young woman and the elevated stairs at the corner. But they did not move as if they intended intercepting her. When they sprang from the sedan, they took up a position near the middle of the street.

  The young woman’s mouth was opened gaspingly. Her luminous eyes widened with terror. She could see the faces of the four men in the street.

  “Oh! They’ve come!” she gasped. “I knew they’d come!”

  * * *

  The faces of the four men were of the color of dull lead. Any one observing them would have had the impression of corpses walking. Perhaps the young woman imagined that, or it might have been something more sinister, more appalling.

  For a few yards, the four men merely kept pace with the fleeing woman. The color in their faces was caused by masks. These were fitted snugly over their noses and chins. They covered their necks and appeared to be attached to the heavy material under their rough outer clothing.

  These men did not display any weapons openly. Two carried peculiar-looking instruments. These could have been an iceman’s tongs, only they had handles several feet in length. The men paced the woman with these strange devices over their shoulders.

  The young woman was nearing the stairway to the “el.”

  Again she cried out, as if to reassure herself, “I’ll get it to Mr. Savage——”

  The black sedan from which the four men had emerged scooted suddenly ahead. The four men edged out into the street and made way for it. The car speared in between them and the running woman.

  The young woman then was in front of the plate glass windows of a store. This store handled musical instruments. Its double windows were filled with the gleam of polished silver and brass. The plate glass was fitted in from the level of the sidewalk. The woman’s shadow was reflected on it like a fleeing ghost.

  The door of the sedan next to the sidewalk, popped open. A globe twice the size of a football rolled out. This sphere had been impelled sharply from inside of the car. The sedan door snapped shut. The globe struck the sidewalk pavement in several inches of snow.

  The snow did not impede the progress of the spherical object. For where the globe touched, there was instantly no snow.

  The fronts of buildings, the skeleton-like structure of the “el,” the coupe and the other cars were abruptly bathed in a weird, greenish light. The light was a warm glowing, yet it seemed to have some substance. It was as if the air had suddenly been filled with invisible particles.

  * * *

  The second sedan had been pulled to the opposite side of the street, some distance away. Two men sprang from this car, running as they hit the street. These men were unmasked. Their white faces looked drawn and desperate under visors of caps pulled low over their eyes.

  The two men swung automatic pistols of heavy caliber. They seemed intent upon reaching the four men with the dull leaden masks. But they did not shoot. The sedan from which they had come remained standing.

  The air was filled with a low, slow hissing. The rolling globe lost the impetus it had been given. It was close to the young woman.

  The woman, then in front of one of the plate glass windows, gave forth a scream. The cry was high-pitched, almost animal in its utter anguish. Only death could wring such an emanation from a human throat.

  There was another, lesser scream. It was like a minor echo of the death wail. This came from the yellow coupe from which the young woman had come. A slender figure, closely hooded and cloaked, slipped from the little car. This was the other woman.

  The glowing of the strange globe on the sidewalk was blinding in its intensity. The two men armed with automatics skidded to a halt in the snow. They cursed wildly and swabbed their coat sleeves across their eyes.

  The slim figure from the car crossed the sidewalk. It reached the building front. The woman ran along the buildings, guiding herself with one lightly touching hand. Arriving at a cross alley between streets, she darted into it.

  For a few more seconds the whole street was filled with the low, slow hissing. The invisible particles seemed to fill the air with a minor crackling. The fluorescent, greenish glow gave the snow an unearthly aspect.

  With the one soul-chilling scream, the young woman who was attempting to reach the elevated, vanished from before the tall plate glass window. The space between this spot and the stairs of the “el” was brightly illuminated. But the woman did not reach the steps of the “el.”

  For a matter of seconds, it appeared she might have fallen in the snow; that the fleecy downfall had buried her. But all around, the snow was melting as if to
uched by sudden, fierce heat. And when the pavement in front of the plate glass windows was smooth and bare, the woman was not there.

  The four men in the masks of leaden color moved like automatons. The pair with the long-handled tongs reached the sidewalk. Between them, they trapped and nipped the globe that had come from the sedan. With the tongs they swung it back into an opened door of the car.

  All climbed in quickly. The sedan jumped away with a clashing of gears. The driver did not appear to be an expert, but he was in a hurry to leave. The car skidded around the corner, following the line of “el” pillars.

  * * *

  Patrick Brennan, the patrolman, was ringing in at a box in the next cross avenue when the woman screamed. The patrolman’s teeth had been playing like castanets. His light, summer uniform had not been made for a July blizzard.

  Dropping the patrol box phone, Brennan whipped toward the corner.

  Blinding luminance shut off the policeman’s vision as if a camera shutter had clicked. He groped with one hand around the corner building.

  Patrolman Brennan first saw the outline of the yellow coupe. He hard-heeled toward it. His feet were hitting bare pavement. He clop-clopped over to the little car. His vision caught the music store window. He stared for a moment, his lower jaw dropping.

  Beyond the coupe, the two men from the second sedan started running. They held automatics. Both stumbled as if partly blinded.

  “Hold it, you two!” barked Patrolman Brennan. “What’s this all about? Stop, I say!”

  This was a mistake on the part of the policeman. His voice provided the two white-faced men with a target. Their hands whipped up and the automatics erupted with a mean ripple.

  Patrolman Brennan sagged, and he coughed. One hand on the side of the coupe prevented him from collapsing. The erupting streams from the automatics were all that guided his aim. Though his big body was slowly sinking, Patrolman Brennan’s hand was steady.