Читать книгу The Majii: A Doc Savage Adventure - J. Allan Dunn - Страница 7

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The newspapers made a big splurge next morning. The headlines said:

THIEVES ATTACK RAMA TURA

Raid on Quarters of Mysterious Mystic

Results in Death of Pair

Two alleged robbers were killed in the hotel apartment of Rama Tura, man of amazing powers, last night. According to Rama Tura, the slaying followed a terrific hand-to-hand fight with three assailants, one a woman, who escaped.

This story was corroborated by Rama Tura’s servant, and the hotel clerk, who was himself forced to guide the thieves to Rama Tura’s quarters.

There was more of it, a detailed resumé of the banditry efforts as told by Rama Tura, and it was a convincing yarn, perfectly logical.

The motive, according to Rama Tura, had been a desire on the part of the thieves to force him to reveal how he made jewels out of worthless pebbles and bits of glass.

In the center of the front page of one newspaper was a box, editorial in nature, discussing the mysterious Rama Tura, and his powers. It was headed:

WHAT IS HE?

Rama Tura came to the United States from the Orient, from a wild mountain province called Jondore.

Rama Tura takes pebbles and makes diamonds, rubies, emeralds. Jewel experts say they are genuine beyond doubt. They back their judgment by purchasing the stones.

One third of the selling price of these stones goes to American charity. Two thirds goes to a fund for charity administration in Jondore, Rama Tura’s native land. Rama Tura himself takes no money.

What manner of being is this Rama Tura? Is he a faker? This paper had three of the greatest jewel experts pass on Rama Tura’s products as genuine.

How does Rama Tura make his jewels? If he uses fakery, the most intense skeptics are baffled.

Rama Tura claims to be a disciple of the Majii. The Majii was a horrendous war chief who lived thirty centuries ago and conquered much of the Oriental world of that day. The Majii was a magician who could bring himself to life after being killed on the field of battle. He could slay thousands with a stare. He was cruel.

The Majii is believed by historians to be only a myth.

But Rama Tura is no myth. Just what is he?

Some other newspapers carried yarns along the same vein, elaborating on the queer personality of Rama Tura, and one even went over the strange fact that Rama Tura apparently had actually been brought from Jondore to the United States in a coffin.

One paper further stated that Rama Tura slept in his coffin, and was said to come alive only on special occasions, but the police disproved this by stating that Rama Tura had been in his bed when the thieves walked in on him.

Another journal hooked the robbery in with the slaughter in the subway, pointing out that the two thieves killed in Rama Tura’s apartment were of the same nationality as some of those killed in the subway, namely Jondoreans.

The police hinted there might have been a quarrel prior to the robbery, but failed to indicate how such a thing might have come about.

Several newspapers bore quiet advertisements that afternoon.

RAMA TURA WILL APPEAR TONIGHT

IN TEMPLE NAVA

To those who read this, and who had been following the affair in the newspapers, the item meant that Rama Tura would that night make jewels out of worthless articles in Temple Nava.

Temple Nava was not a building by itself, but an establishment on the upper floor of a Park Avenue building which was nothing if not exclusive.

It had been installed by a cult of wealthy thrill-seekers who had, after the depression came along, been too busy to indulge in whimsies.

The furnishings, very rich, had been intact—no one could be found with enough money to buy such costly gimcracks—when Rama Tura leased it and began to set New Yorkers by the ears.

The swanky Temple Nava was the gathering place of many of the nabobs of the metropolis that night. There were many scientists and jewel experts. Rama Tura invited efforts to prove himself a fake.

There were many sensation-seekers, also, but those fry were not even permitted into the building. Policemen handled the traffic, and to enter the premises, one had to exhibit a bit of cardboard bearing cabilistic symbols. These were issued to the proper persons by detective agencies hired by Rama Tura.

It is a common thing for ladies to wear gloves the year around, so the presence of such covering on the hands of one woman who presented a card attracted no undue attention. No one, of course, imagined the gloves covered blue finger nails.

The lady herself did get a good deal of attention. A formal gown of black set off a remarkable figure, and her wide brown eyes stared aloofly from a face that would have been perfection except for a certain grimness about the mouth.

Her manner suggested someone bent on a mission that might not be exactly pleasant. She had an olive skin.

Her card was satisfactory, and she was admitted.

Not long after, a choleric dowager complained that she had lost her card of invitation, perhaps to a thief. She happened to be well known, and she was admitted anyway.

Straight into Temple Nava stalked the woman with the remarkable figure and the determined manner.

Many men saw her and admired her. Others saw her and looked as if a hungry tiger had walked into their midst. These latter were aides of Rama Tura. He seemed to have an incredible number of them. One hurried to present himself before Rama Tura.

Rama Tura had just been carried into Temple Nava in a plain black coffin, and he was being photographed by newspaper cameramen.

It was plain to see that the cameramen considered the coffin business ridiculous fakery, but it made good stuff for their papers, and they had orders to get the photographs.

The messenger made signals furtively, and the cameramen were bustled out.

Rama Tura had lain in the coffin all of the time, very much like a dead man. Some of the photographers had touched him and he had seemed quite cold and lifeless.

The messenger leaned over the casket and said, “The Ranee is here.”

Rama Tura opened his eyes. He opened his mouth and it stayed open.

“I know it,” he said in the tongue of Jondore.

“Some one told you first,” gulped the messenger.

“No,” said Rama Tura. “I know all things.”

There seemed no way of refuting this, so the messenger swallowed several times.

“We did not scare her into leaving New York,” he pointed out. “She is here because she intends to make more trouble.”

“She had nerve to walk in boldly,” said Rama Tura.

“There are police,” reminded the other. “She will expect them to save her.”

“She will be mistaken,” intoned the other.

The messenger squirmed uneasily. “But she is the Ranee——”

“The Majii, my master, has waited thirty centuries for what he is now preparing to do,” murmured Rama Tura. “The Majii has a plan of such vast size that you would not even understand it, my servant. If the Ranee insists on meddling, she must be put out of the way. No one must interfere.”

The messenger nodded, then asked a very natural question. “How?”

“My magic will take care of that,” Rama Tura advised him.

A little later, Rama Tura was carried out on the floor of Temple Nava by six big men of Jondore who were naked above the waist. It was a very effective entrance.

Rama Tura, it developed, was not to perform his feats on anything so prosaic as a stage, but in the center of the floor. Comfortable seats for the spectators—who would later be customers, perhaps—had been arrayed about the open space.

A large circular cloth of scarlet was carried in and placed on the floor, and Rama Tura was lifted from his coffin-like box and placed on this.

Very slowly, like something arising from the dead, Rama Tura got to his feet. He began to speak in a hollow, macabre voice. He did, however, use excellent English.

“I am not going to bore you with a mystic monologue,” he told those present. “You probably would not believe me, anyway. I care not whether you think I am a fakir and a showman, for it is not important.”

He turned slowly, like a machine, to survey those assembled in Temple Nava. His eyes were weird brown disks in his big, shiny skull. Several people shuddered.

“Perhaps,” Rama Tura continued, “it has occurred to some of you to wonder why India has always been the world’s treasure house of precious stones, for you all must have heard of the fabulous collections of the Rajahs. It is because jewels have a significance in the Orient, a significance that goes back some thirty centuries to a fabulous being known as the Majii. The Majii could do anything.”

He paused, as if for that to sink.

“Anything,” he repeated. “It is my opinion that the Majii was the basis for the well-known story of Aladdin and the lamp. The Majii was really the Genie who appeared when Aladdin rubbed the lamp. In other words, this tale which is thought to be fiction is true.”

He paused again.

“But that is neither here nor there. I do not attempt to explain my methods, except to tell you something I know your minds are too undeveloped to grasp. You will not believe that thought can be converted into matter, that the essence of the mind is supreme over all things. Yet this is quite true and the foundation of all so-called miracles.

“You find this hard to believe. All right—do not try. The primitive native cannot understand how an admixture of yellow and blue paints will produce a green paint, not knowing aught of the science of light. He knows that it does. You will watch me and know that I do produce jewels in a way you cannot understand.”

This lengthy harangue was received with great interest, and while it was going on, Rama Tura’s assistants had been circulating through the crowd, eyes alert, and had found two persons surreptitiously trying to use miniature cameras.

These individuals had been conducted to the front row and, to their embarrassment, requested to use the cameras openly.

Something vague and heavy came into the atmosphere of the room. An odor it was, with a tomblike mustiness. The audience tensed.

“Will some one bring an object forward for me to convert into a gem?” Rama Tura requested. “Hard, crystalline substances are the most suitable. Artificial jewels are excellent. Other things require too much time and effort.”

Some one got up hurriedly and offered a large red imitation stone. The bearer admitted this had been purchased in the dime store that afternoon.

“Make a pearl out of it,” some one shouted.

Rama Tura was cupping the paste stone in the basket of bones that was his hands.

“No,” he said. “Pearls are an animal product, rather, the secretion of a sick oyster, and not true jewels.”

Rama Tura now went into action. Those in the audience who had been there before began to whisper to their companions, giving advance information on what was to happen. A woman or two complained uneasily to an escort of the indefinable odor that weighted the air.

Two big, dark Jondoreans brought in a cube of substance that resembled ordinary fire brick and sat it down on a metal tripod about level with Rama Tura’s waist. On this, the worthless jewel was placed.

Rama Tura began to stare at the paste gem. The manner of this staring was somewhat unnerving. His eyes seemed about to come out of his head. His paper-thin lips writhed over a few ugly teeth which were plainly in the last stages of decay.

Some wag in the audience whispered, “If he’s such a whiz, why don’t he think himself into a new set of choppers.”

If Rama Tura heard this reference to his teeth, he gave no signs. He was going through all the motions of a man in terrific agony. He groaned, mumbled, grimaced. He picked up the fake gem repeatedly and warmed it in his palms.

Suddenly he emitted a rasping whine.

The audience became aware that streamers of strange-looking vapor were gathering in various parts of the room, and floating toward Rama Tura. The things looked like wisps of colored fog.

The streamers began to gather about the black cube on which the stone lay. They bundled, thickened there. An awful cracking and popping filled all of the room.

Those who had miniature cameras began to take pictures madly.

The bundle of vapor about the gem began to glow. It grew hotter and hotter, giving off a light as blinding as the glow of an electric arc. Every one in the room distinctly felt the frightful heat.

Then the heat died away, the glow disappeared, and aching eyes could make out the block of the fire brick on the stand.

A beautiful uncut diamond, as large as a pigeon egg, lay on the fire brick.

Rama Tura said calmly, “Such is the power of concentrated thought.”

A man of Jondore in a silken robe placed the gem in a satin-lined box and passed through the audience showing it, making little speeches indicating that it was for sale, and that a third of the proceeds would go to American charity, two thirds to the fund for administering charity in Jondore.

The latter fund, it was explained, was directed by prominent individuals in Jondore.

Several jewel experts were present. They gave the gem a thorough test. They all passed the same opinion.

“Genuine, undoubtedly,” they admitted. “Blue-white, and nearly perfect.”

Unexpectedly, a woman stood erect in the audience.

“Let me see that jewel!” she commanded loudly.

It was the Ranee. The man with the gem bowed and came over. He let the woman examine the bauble. This she did with a magnifying glass.

The scrutiny had a remarkable effect upon her. She waved her arms and cried out for attention.

“Police!” she shrilled. “Arrest this Rama Tura!”

Every eye in Temple Nava was now on her.

“He is a fiend!” the woman shrieked. “He is doing something that menaces your very lives! He is plotting wholesale murder!”

She looked over the crowd, and what she saw there did not satisfy her. Expressions on most of the faces said they thought that she was just a hysterical woman.

“Fools!” she screamed. “Rama Tura is doing something which may cause many in this very room to die!”

From where he stood in the center of the open space, Rama Tura began to intone timbreless words.

“It is unfortunate and I apologize for her,” he said. “She is suffering from a form of madness of the mind prevalent among the people of my country.”

Rama Tura now advanced. He came slowly, and he was very much like a hideous corpse walking through the medium of manipulated strings.

The Ranee watched him. There was horror in her eyes. She trembled. She still held the jewel, but it dropped out of her hands, rolled under the seat and there was a scramble as several tried to get it.

Unexpectedly, the Ranee screamed, and every muscle in her slender frame seemed to loosen and she fell flat in the aisle.

Rama Tura stopped where he was.

“It is too bad,” he said in English. “Her ailment is far advanced and she will now die.”