The Mystic Mullah Read online

  * * *

  “Johnny,” the bony man—he was actually William Harper Littlejohn, world-renowned expert on archæology and geology—gestured over his shoulder with the monocle magnifier.

  “Come here, Monk,” he said, then included the dapper man. “You too, Ham.”

  “Monk,” the homely gorilla of a man, and “Ham,” the immaculate fashion plate, advanced hurriedly. A moment before, they had seemed on the point of blows; now their quarrel was suddenly suspended. It was always thus. No one who knew these two could recall one having addressed a civil word to the other.

  Monk, whose low forehead did not look as if it afforded room for more than a spoonful of brains, was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, generally conceded to be one of the most accomplished of industrial chemists; while Ham, the fashion plate, was Major General Theodore Marley Brooks, a lawyer who possessed probably the sharpest legal mind ever trained by Harvard.

  Monk and Ham, rounding the hallway angle and sighting Hadim’s body with its grotesquely twisted head, jerked to a stop and became slack-jawed.

  “Blazes!” Monk sniffed, sampling the air like an animal. “I smell burned gunpowder. Who shot the guy?”

  “No one,” said Johnny. “I fired a few shots subsequently.”

  Monk ambled over to the body, hands swinging below his knees, and stared intently.

  “What’s wrong with his neck?” he asked.

  “Broken,” Johnny replied.

  Monk asked, “Who broke it?”

  “No one,” answered the gaunt geologist. “As far as I can tell.”

  “Yeah,” Monk growled. “Then who’d you shoot at?”

  “A peculiar, nebulous green corporeity with the optical aspects of a serpentine specimen suspended aërospherically,” said Johnny, his expression not changing. “It bore similarity to a phantasmagoria.”

  Monk lifted one hand and snapped thumb and forefinger loudly.

  “Now do it again with little words,” he requested.

  Johnny had once held the chair of natural science research in a famous university where he had been known as a professor who stunned most of his students with his big words, and he still had the habit. He never used a small word when he could think of a large one.

  “A green thing was floating in the air above the body,” said Johnny. “I shot. The bullet went through it, breaking the window. Then the thing floated out through the window and away.”

  Monk said unsmilingly, “I always did think those big words would drive you crazy.”

  Johnny pointed at the odd-looking marks scratched on the wall beside Hadim’s body.

  “The man obviously inscribed these when he felt demise imminent,” he said. “He used the tip of his knife.”

  Monk bent over, looked and said, “They don’t mean anything. He just dug the wall with his knife as he was flopping around.”

  “Those marks,” said Johnny, “are words, or word signs, rather, of Tananese, an obscure language with an Arabic derivative, spoken in certain parts of outer Mongolia.”

  “What do they say?” asked Monk.

  And Johnny, who probably knew as many ancient languages, written and spoken, as any half dozen of the ordinary so-called experts on the subject, drew a paper and pencil from his pocket and reproduced thereon the characters which the wall bore, here and there correcting a stroke which Hadim, in his dying agony, had made with slight error. Then Johnny wrote the English translation under the word signs. He passed it to Monk and Ham. They read:

  MANY LIVES WILL BE SPARED IF HE OF MOUNTAINS WHO CHARMS EVIL SPIRITS WILL GO TO FISH THAT SMOKES ON WATER WHERE THE KHAN SHAR AND JOAN——

  “It ends there,” said Johnny. “You can see the name ‘Joan’ is scratched out in the nearest thing an Asiatic could come to English letters.”

  Ham, the dapper lawyer, fumbled absently with his slim black cane, and in doing so, separated the handle slightly from the rest of the cane, revealing that there was a long, slender blade of razor-sharp steel housed in the cane body.

  “That sounds silly,” he said. “What does it mean?”

  Monk suddenly banged a fist on a knee, something he could do without stooping.

  “Remember that radio we got a few days ago?” he demanded. “The message was signed, ‘Joan Lyndell.’ ”

  The gaunt Johnny said sharply, “I have been carrying it around with me,” and withdrawing a radiogram blank from a pocket, he passed it to the others, open for perusal. They had all seen it before, but they went over it again:

  DOC SAVAGE,

  NEW YORK.

  YOUR ASSISTANCE IMPERATIVE ON MATTER INVOLVING THOUSANDS OF LIVES AND POSSIBLY STABILITY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION. PLEASE RADIO ME APPOINTMENT TIME AND PLACE. MY LINER WILL REACH NEW YORK THREE DAYS.

  JOAN LYNDELL,

  ABOARD S.S. ATLANTIC QUEEN.

  Below the message, written in pencil, was another missive, one evidently penned as an answer to the radiogram. It read:

  JOAN LYNDELL,

  CARE TRANSATLANTIC LINER

  ATLANTIC QUEEN.

  SORRY BUT DOC SAVAGE NOT IN CITY AND NOT AVAILABLE TO COMMUNICATION. CANNOT SAY WHEN HE WILL RETURN.

  WILLIAM HARPER LITTLEJOHN.

  Monk rubbed his jaw and asked, “Connection?”

  “Between this message and the dead man?” Johnny shrugged. “He inscribed the name ‘Joan’ on the wall.”

  Ham pointed at the wall markings with his sword cane. “But what does the rest of that mean?”

  In the manner of a scholar giving a lecture, Johnny said, “The man could not write Doc Savage’s name, so he came as near to describing it as he could. The mountain men in the Tananese region are savages, so ‘He of Mountains’ probably is meant for Savage. And a Tananese doctor is called one who chases evil spirits.”

  Monk squinted admiringly. “Maybe there is something besides big words in that head. What about the ‘fish that smokes on water’?”

  “A boat,” said Johnny. “A boat in some manner connected with a fish, and probably an oil or a coal burner.”

  Ham said briskly, “I’ll see about this.”

  He strode down the corridor, opened the door on which was the name “Clark Savage, Jr.,” in small bronze letters, and entered a reception room which held an enormous safe, a costly inlaid table, and various other items of quiet but expensive furniture. Ham picked up a telephone.

  With the casual ease of a man who had done the thing before, Ham got a land-line-radio connection to the liner Atlantic Queen. He spoke for some minutes, then hung up.

  He did not leave the telephone immediately, but consulted the directory, then made a second call. Then he went out and joined the others.

  “His Majesty, Khan Nadir Shar of Tanan, and a young woman named Joan Lyndell were taken off the Atlantic Queen by the tug Whale of Gotham about three hours ago,” he repeated. “I called the owners of the Whale of Gotham. The tug is tied up at a wharf in the Hudson, off Twenty-sixth Street.”

  “Whale of Gotham,” Monk grunted. “That would be the ‘fish that smokes on the water.’ ”

  Ham eyed Johnny, then indicated the body of Hadim. “Just what did kill this fellow?”

  The thin geologist shook his head slowly. “That is a profound mystery, as great a mystery as the nature of the green body I saw.”

  Monk frowned at Johnny, at the rubber apron the tall geologist wore. “Busy, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Johnny admitted. “I am trying to assemble the vertebræ of a small dinosaur of the early Mesozoic——”

  “Stick here,” Monk advised. “Me and the tailor’s dream here will go down to this tugboat.”

  “Very well,” Johnny agreed, after hesitating.

  “If Doc Savage shows up, tip him off,” Monk finished.

  * * *

  Monk and Ham, departing, rode down to the basement in a private high-speed elevator which had undoubtedly cost a young fortune to install, and came out in a subterranean garage which held several motor ve
hicles, ranging from an open roadster of expensive manufacture and quiet color scheme to a large delivery van which, although it did not look the part, was literally an armored tank.

  The elevator, the garage, the assortment of cars, as well as the establishment on the eighty-sixth floor—there was an enormous scientific laboratory and a highly complete scientific library up there in addition to the reception room—were all a part of the New York headquarters maintained by Doc Savage.

  A strange individual, this Doc Savage. Probably one of the most remarkable of living men. A genius, a mental marvel and a giant of fabulous physical strength.

  He was literally a product of science himself, was this Doc Savage, for he had been trained from birth for one single purpose in life—the fantastic career which he now followed. Every trick of science had been utilized in his training. In no sense had he led a life that might be regarded as normal.

  Two hours of each day since childhood had been devoted to a routine of intense exercises calculated to develop not only muscles, but physical senses and mental sharpness. All of his early life had been devoted to study under masters of trades, sciences, professions, until he possessed a knowledge that was, to the ordinary man, uncanny.

  The result of this studied upbringing was an individual who was a remarkable combination of scientific genius and physical capacity.

  Stranger even than the man himself was the career to which his life was dedicated—the business of helping others out of trouble, of aiding the oppressed, of dealing with those evildoers who seemed beyond the touch of the law. For all of which Doc Savage made it an unbending rule to accept no payment in money, under any circumstances.

  Long ago, Doc Savage had assembled five men as his assistants, five men who were world-famed specialists in their respective lines, five men who associated themselves with him because they loved adventure, excitement, and because they were drawn by admiration for the giant of bronze who was Doc Savage.

  Monk, the chemist, and Ham, the lawyer, were two of the five aides. Johnny, the archæologist, was another. Two others—Colonel John “Renny” Renwick, engineer, and Major Thomas J. “Long Tom” Roberts, electrical wizard—were, at the moment, elsewhere in the city, engaged in the private business which they carried on when not actively assisting Doc Savage.

  The present whereabouts of Doc Savage himself was something that no one knew. The bronze man had vanished. He had told no one where he was going. No one, not even his five aides, knew how to reach him. But they were not worried, these five, for they were confident that the bronze man had gone away to some mysterious rendezvous, where he could be alone for intensive study.

  And, although Doc’s five aides were not sure, they believed this place to which the bronze man retired, this remote trysting place with reflection which he called his Fortress of Solitude, was located on an island in the remote Arctic. It was certain, though, that no one would hear of Doc Savage until he should return, mysteriously as he had gone.

  Monk and Ham, nearing the Hudson River water-front in a coupe which presented no outward hint that it was a rolling fortress with bullet-proof glass and armored body, exchanged comments punctuated with insults.

  “We should’ve asked that walkin’ encyclopedia, Johnny, more questions,” Monk grumbled. “Where’s Tanan, the place where this Khan Shar is supposed to be a king?”

  “Didn’t you study geography?” Ham asked sarcastically.

  “Well, where is it?”

  “In Asia.”

  Monk scowled. “Do you, or do you not, know where it is?”

  “I know as much about it as you do,” Ham snapped.

  “Which is not a dang thing.” Monk used a spotlight to ascertain a street number. “What’s this king over here for? And what’s he want with Doc?”

  “Nothing was said about the king wanting Doc,” Ham pointed out. “It was this Joan Lyndell who sent that radiogram.”

  Monk said, “Wonder who she is?”

  “How would I know?” Ham said sourly.

  They parked the car and got out. Monk rummaged for a flashlight, but was unable to find one, then they moved away from the machine.

  Monk mused aloud, “Wonder what broke that brown-skinned guy’s neck. Wish we’d figured that out.”

  Ham began, “Say, you hairy baboon—wuh!” He ended the statement with a sort of choked explosion.

  Monk’s jaw sagged, pulling his big mouth open cavernously; his fingers made absent straying movements. His little eyes seemed on the point of jumping from their pits of gristle.

  They had been moving along a warehouse side, a wall of brick, unbroken by windows or other apertures. The darkness was intense.

  Ahead of them, a face had appeared, materializing with an eerie unexpectedness. This was all the more startling, because the darkness was so thick that neither Monk nor Ham could see the other. Yet they saw the face clearly.

  It was a fantastic thing, that face. Its color was not human, but a greenish hue, the tint that comes to meat in the first stages of decay. The green countenance shone with a fantastic luminosity; it was not exactly fluorescent, nor did it seem to have a light playing upon it, yet it was plainly visible.

  The face had slant eyes, the contour of the Orient, and when it rolled lips back in a grin, the effect was anything but pleasant, for the tongue in the mouth, which should have been in shadow, was as plainly discernible as the other features. It was the same unholy green.

  Monk said, “What the devil?” thickly.

  Chapter 3

  THE MYSTIC MULLAH TALKS

  It was very silent beside the warehouse, for Monk and Ham were too surprised for further speech. Somewhere near, waves lapped with sounds like women sobbing, and farther away, there was a hissing, as of steam escaping from the boilers of a tugboat. Out in the harbor, whistles and foghorns still made occasional clamor in the thick fog.

  The face hung suspended, like something disembodied, for the darkness was too thick to permit Monk and Ham to see the nature of the body to which it was attached. The effect was ghostly.

  When the unearthly green lips writhed and words came from the verdant face, both Monk and Ham jumped. They could not help it.

  “Try to control your surprise,” the voice said.

  Monk growled, “What the heck kind of hocus pocus is this, anyhow?”

  “Do not jump at conclusions, my friends,” said the voice. “You of the Western civilization are too prone to try to make science explain all that you see. You like to call all exhibitions of the occult by the plain terms of magic, meaning mechanical fakery. You make the mistake of not believing in the occult, the supernatural. Your minds are too practical.”

  “Jove!” Ham said vaguely. “I do not get this.”

  Monk grunted, “Why the lecture?”

  The voice—it was hollow and unreal—went on.

  “You are looking at something now that you do not understand,” it said. “You think you see a face. Perhaps you think you see my body. You are wrong. You see neither face nor body.”

  “Nuts!” Monk felt under an arm where nestled a padded holster holding a machine pistol scarcely larger than an ordinary automatic.

  “In a material sense,” said the fantastic voice, “you are looking at a nonentity, at nothing. You think you see a face; but actually, there is nothing.”

  Monk got his machine pistol out, and directed sourly, “All right, I guess half a pound or so of lead won’t hurt you, Mr. Nonentity.”

  “Listen to me,” said the voice. “I am the green soul of the Mystic Mullah. I am the master of all souls, the power infinite. I have touched many men, so that they have died and their souls come to me.”

  Ham unsheathed his sword cane. He preferred the weapon, because the tip was coated with a drug concoction which produced a quick, temporary unconsciousness.

  The voice of the Mystic Mullah droned on, and there was no perceptible lip motion on the uncanny green face.

  “Go back,” it said. “Forget what has h
appened to-night. Forget it so thoroughly that you will not remember to tell this bronze man, Doc Savage.”

  Monk laughed; he laughed loudly, for somehow it made him feel better to hear the crash of his own false mirth.

  Ham said dryly, “Very dramatic, Mr. Green Soul. Our lives are in danger, too, I suppose?”

  “Only your physical bodies,” said the voice. “Your souls will live on, green, serpentine, ghostly worms that travel in the night and do my bidding.”

  Monk thought of the green things which Johnny had seen. He began to perspire.

  “I died a million years ago, before time began,” said the Mystic Mullah. “I do not live, even now. I tell you to forget. It would be well for you to heed.”

  “And if we don’t?” Monk asked curiously.

  “My slaves, the green souls that are like flying serpents, will come to you,” said the Mystic Mullah. “Then you will join me.”

  Out of the side of his mouth, Monk breathed, “Let’s take this nut, whoever he is!”

  “Righto!” Ham breathed back.

  A string of powder blazes came from Monk’s machine pistol. They came so swiftly that they resembled a short, solid red rod, and the noise of the remarkable gun was a tremendous bawl of sound.

  The greenish lips writhed and the voice said calmly, “I am not a being who can be killed.”

  * * *

  Monk snorted and waited. He was surprised, but still hopeful. His machine pistol fired mercy bullets, hollow shells filled with a drug which caused unconsciousness without doing permanent damage. That was why he had shot. The slugs would not harm the green-faced one to any extent, and they would teach the fellow a lesson.

  But nothing happened. The green face remained suspended where it was.

  “Dang it!” Monk ripped, and lunged forward.

  The green countenance vanished then—simply vanished. It turned slightly as it disappeared, and afterward there was no trace.

  Monk fired again. The red blaze from the machine pistol muzzle furnished some light, by which Monk fully expected to see his foe.