Читать книгу The Mystic Mullah: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 7

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On the tug Whale of Gotham, there was tense suspense. The skipper stood with both hands cupped behind his ears, listening. He had heard the cries of Monk and Ham.

The deckhand who had seen Hadim’s knife stood near by, also listening.

“Something’s up,” he said.

“You bet there is!” agreed the skipper. “Where’s a lantern? And hand me that signal pistol. I’m gonna investigate.”

“That signal pistol won’t help much,” muttered the deckhand.

“Hell it won’t!” The skipper scowled. “Ever see how one of them rocket balls will burn a man?”

He got his lantern and his signal pistol and clambered down out of the pilot house. He was a hard, bold man, this tug captain, and there was no cowardice in his makeup, and not much caution. He approached a spot from which he could leap to the dock.

A tall figure reared up in the lantern light and stood with folded arms. The hook-nosed face was inscrutable; the flowing abah, the embroidered jubbah and the queer-looking shirwals lent the figure an exotic appearance.

The tug skipper, recognizing his passenger, the Khan Nadir Shar, stopped.

“I would not,” said the Khan, “go ashore.”

“You wouldn’t?” growled the captain. “Why not?”

“It would not be advisable,” said the Khan, speaking his English that was so perfect it was almost unpleasant.

The skipper put out his jaw and swung his rocket pistol where it showed distinctly in the lantern light. The rocket pistol resembled a single-barreled shotgun sawed off and fitted with a revolver grip.

“Why not?” he repeated.

“I hoped it would not be necessary to tell you this,” said the Khan Nadir Shar. “But my life is in danger. So is the life of Joan Lyndell, the American woman who accompanies me. I believe that noise might have been made to decoy you ashore, that you might be put out of the way, leaving us alone and defenseless.”

The skipper expanded a little under that. So these people depended on him? That appealed to his fighting instincts.

The Khan Nadir Shar dipped a hand inside his jubbah and brought out a big automatic. The tug captain took it. It was an American army gun.

“An extra hundred dollars,” promised the Khan, “if you will stand guard, letting no one aboard without first calling me.”

The skipper did not consider long. A hundred was a hundred.

“Sure,” he said.

The Khan Nadir Shar now went below, walking slowly, as if he had no concern in the world. He did not walk into Joan Lyndell’s stateroom this time, but knocked first and spoke softly.

Joan Lyndell was sitting in the same chair, as if she had not moved, and she held her blue automatic precisely as she had before.

“What was it?” she asked.

“The Mystic Mullah, I fear,” the Khan said precisely. “I have heard his victims die before. They have a peculiar way of crying out as they feel the touch of the Mystic Mullah’s green soul slaves, and their shrieks gradually die away, taking about the same time before——”

“Stop it!” the girl rapped.

The Khan bowed. “Sorry.”

Knuckles banged the door.

“Guy out here that says he wants to see you,” said the tug skipper’s voice. “He looks like a walking skeleton and he just got here.”

“What is his name?” the Khan asked precisely.

“Says it’s William Harper Littlejohn,” said the tug captain.

The Khan Nadir Shar absently traced a hand along the embroidery of his jubbah. On his forehead, the serpent design coiled about the jewel seemed to stand out more distinctly than before.

“A William Harper Littlejohn signed the radiogram which came to us at sea,” he said. “The message which informed us that Doc Savage was not available for the time being.”

Joan Lyndell stood up. She was very tall and there was a regal quality about her.

“Hadim must have delivered his message,” she said. “Let this Littlejohn in. He is one of Doc Savage’s aides.”

The door was opened. The man who came in was very tall, very thin, and had a prominent forehead. His clothes hung upon him as on the lath frame of a scarecrow. In one hand, he juggled a monocle which had a thick lens that was obviously a strong magnifier.

He looked at the Khan Nadir Shar, at the design tattooed on the man’s forehead, and he plainly recognized it for what it signified, for he bowed slightly. Then he eyed the girl, and bowed again.

“Where are my associates, Monk and Ham?” he asked.

The Khan said nothing.

Joan Lyndell looked puzzled.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Doc Savage was not in town,” said the bony man. “I am Johnny, one of his five assistants. Monk and Ham are two more of Doc’s men. They came down to see you.”

Joan Lyndell held her gun tightly and said, “The noises we heard! The screams!”

The skeleton of a man frowned. “Elucidate, please?” he said.

“Strange noises which might have been shrieks, some minutes ago,” said the Khan.

Joan Lyndell asked, “Then Hadim got to you?”

“Hadim?” The tall man stopped juggling the monocle magnifier. “Was he the brown gentleman with the large knife up his sleeve?”

“Was?” The girl lowered her gun. “What do you mean?”

“We found him dead in the corridor, with his neck broken,” said the bony man.

A short, sharp whistle came from the Khan. He had jerked breath in through his teeth. Joan Lyndell held her gun tightly at her side and her breathing was audible.

“The Mystic Mullah!” she said hoarsely.

The unnaturally thin man said sharply, “What are you talking about?”

“The Mystic Mullah’s victims die from broken necks,” the Khan Nadir Shar said precisely.

The bony man waved an arm.

“Wait a minute!” he said. “We’ll get all of this straightened out later. Doc Savage came back after Monk and Ham had left. I told him what had happened. He sent me down here to get you all and bring you to him.”

“He will help us?” the girl asked eagerly.

“How can he tell?” asked the gaunt man. “He does not know what it is all about.”

“But I thought Hadim——”

“Hadim died before he could do more than scratch a clue on the wall which led us down here,” replied the bony man. “Will you go with me, please. I will take you to Doc Savage.”

The Khan asked, “But what about the other two—Monk and Ham?”

The tall man shrugged. “Doc Savage will know what to do about that.”

“We have no luggage,” said Joan Lyndell. “Let’s go.”

The tugboat captain watched them disappear into the night, then looked at the hundred-dollar bill which the Khan had given him. He snapped it in his hands, held it close to the lantern, then looked doubtful, for he had not seen enough hundred-dollar bills to know what they resembled. After that, he made a washing gesture with his hands, as if cleaning them of the whole affair.

The deckhand loomed out of the wet murk.

“Hey, cap,” he said. “I think we oughta call the cops and spill this whole thing.”

The skipper hastily stowed the greenback.

“Why?” he demanded.

The deckhand came close and spoke in a low voice.

“Just before that long bony guy got here, I thought I’d look around, so I crawled up on the dock,” he said. “I eased up alongside a pile of boxes. And boy, did I get an earful! After I listened a minute, I thought I was nuts!”

“What did you hear?” asked the skipper.

Instead of answering, the deckhand said, “Oh!” rather loudly, then another “Oh!” that was even louder. The second “Oh!” was choked up with something.

The skipper lifted his lantern, his eyes protruded and he jumped madly backward. He opened his mouth to bark something having to do with astonishment, but he was so shocked that no sound came forth.

The deckhand was flailing his arms and crying “Oh!” again and again, each time in a more horrible tone. The breath puff of each “Oh!” seemed to distort the hideous green worm of a thing that was rolling against his face, coiling around it, as if caressing it.

The deckhand struck at his own features and his hands, it was quite plain, passed completely through the nebulous green horror, with the result that the verdant thing was separated into two sections, each of which seemed to take on added life and slide over the man’s nose.

The deckhand sucked in breath, and one of the green snakelike things crawled partially inside his mouth, then hastily out again. The deckhand shrieked more hoarsely and fell flat on his face, where his squirmings became rapidly less, and his head began to bend backward strangely, as if something invisible, some unseen master of strength, had gripped his neck.

The skipper was yelling now, striking with his lantern at one of the green bodies in the air in front of him. He succeeded in fanning it away with his lantern, but stepped backward directly into another of the citrine horrors. He shrieked; and jumping away, slipped and banged his lantern down, batting its flame out and extinguishing it.

After that, there was intense darkness, out of which came unearthly and sickening sounds of a man making a rendezvous with death.

In the midst of the other sounds there was a hollow crack, as if some one had broken a stick of candy while it was still wrapped in its paper covering. A bit later, there was another crack, almost identical; and after that, there was silence except for the bubbling suck of waves and the far-away foghorns.

For perhaps the span of a minute, the quiet held.

A light appeared. It was a weird beam, thin as a white string, and it laced about with eerie speed until it found the two forms on the tug deck.

Both skipper and deckhand lay with postures grotesquely distorted, their heads bent back in a manner which indicated with certainty that their necks were broken. There was no sign of the nebulous green monstrosities.

The thin, white beam of light collapsed suddenly. Quiet again gripped the vicinity, except for the small sounds of the water, which were sufficient to cover other minor noises. A wave nudged the tug into the dock, and the fenders screamed out like condemned souls, as they ground between hull planking and dock spiles.

There was no sound of anything living, no trace that the wielder of the thin-beamed flashlight had moved; yet inshore, toward the end of the dock, where there was a little glow reflected from a distant street light, a shadow moved unexpectedly. It was a very large shadow and quite shapeless, with nothing definite enough about it to identify it.

A bit later, the shadowy figure materialized again, some distance down the street, near where three other figures stood.

The other three figures were Joan Lyndell, the Khan Nadir Shar, and the skeleton-thin man with the magnifying monocle. They were close under a street lamp, hugging it as if its brilliance were an actual protection.

Joan Lyndell was saying, “I think we had better go back.”

The Khan shivered. He looked scared.

“I do not know what we should do,” he said.

The bony man exhaled noisily as if trying to relax from an unpleasant tension. He jerked his head.

“The thing to do is get you two to Doc Savage,” he said sharply. “Let Doc get hold of this thing.”

“We have come half around the world to do that very thing,” murmured the girl. “But something happened back at the tug. I could hear it.”

And the bony man snapped, “We’re not going back. Come on!”

They advanced, the skeleton of a man now using a flashlight. The beam soon picked up a car, a large sedan. The thin man got behind the wheel and put the machine into motion.

It was raining again, cold, bitter drops which ran over the car top with sounds like small-footed unseen things. The windshield wiper began to swick-swuck monotonously. They passed through streets that were like the avenues of the dead, for none were abroad in the rain.

The sedan covered many blocks, but did not get over in the theatrical district with its tinsel blaze. When the machine stopped finally, it was before a gloomy structure that resembled a shabby factory building. The headlight glow, splashing sidewise, revealed a “To Rent” sign which looked old.

The bony man got from behind the wheel, came around and opened the rear door adjacent to the curb. He leaned far inside and switched on the dome light.

A blue revolver was disclosed in his hand. It shifted its menace from the Khan to the girl.

“Think it over,” the skeleton man advised. “The boss said to kill you if you got funny.”

The Khan choked, “Then Doc Savage——”

“Doc Savage—hell!” the other said harshly. “I’ve never even seen Doc Savage!”

The girl said in a small dry voice, “Then you——”

“I’m doing this job for the Mystic Mullah,” the skeleton man told her. “Get out! Go inside! And no——”

The bony man fell silent.

He was silent because of a sound. A sound that had come into existence so gradually that it had at first not been noticed. The sound was still vague, but it was real, so real that it possessed a quality of menace, of promised events.

It was a trilling. It traced a fantastic musical scale, rising and falling, but not repeating its notes or indicating in any way that it adhered to a definite tune. It was low, nearly impossible of description. It might have been the product of a chill wind through the fog, or the song of some exotic tropical bird. And it was entirely unnatural, awe-inspiring.

The skeleton-thin man glared at the Khan and the girl. There was nothing to show from whence the weird sound came, but he thought one of them was making it.

“Cut it out!” he snarled. “Get out of there and pile into this old factory!”

He stepped back. Then he convulsed violently. His gun dropped from his hand. He tried to cry out, but his mouth, open at its widest, emitted no sound. He twisted around, staring, seeming not to understand what had happened to him.

Only when he got his head around was he aware of the giant form which had floated soundlessly out of the fog and fastened upon him. The giant was a man, but he seemed huge beyond all human proportions. Maybe the fog helped that impression, the fog and the incredible strength of the mighty hand which held his neck in a paralyzing clutch, and the other hand which, gripping his arm, had twisted and caused the gun to fall.

The giant dropped the gun in a coat pocket. He seemed unhurried. His free hand went to the thin man’s neck and did something to nerve centers. The man became tense, as if seized with a spell that he could not break, and when he was released, he fell to the slimy sidewalk and did not move, except to roll his eyes in horror.

The giant stepped close to the car and the dome light showed his features. They were features of an amazing regularity. But the handsomeness of the big man’s face did not make it distinctive. It was his bronze hue; his countenance might have been moulded from metal. Too, it was his eyes, like pools of flake-gold stirred by tiny winds. Weird eyes, they seemed possessed of a compelling power, an ability to literally convey orders with their glance.

The bronze man wore no head covering, and his hair, of a bronze hue only slightly darker than his skin, lay smooth and unruffled as a metallic skullcap. His neck was bundled with fantastic sinews, and the tendons on the backs of his bronze hands were of unnatural size.

The girl, Joan Lyndell, had her blue automatic out, but she did not lift it. Instead, she spoke throatily.

“You are Doc Savage,” she told the bronze man.

The remarkable bronze man did not reply. He studied the pair in the sedan. Then he made a small gesture at the skeleton man so weirdly paralyzed on the sidewalk.

When he spoke, his voice was in keeping with his striking appearance, a voice that was deep and cultivated, conveying the impression that it was capable of great flexibility.

“This man told you he was Johnny—William Harper Littlejohn?” he asked.

“Isn’t he?” the girl countered.

“No,” said the bronze man. “He has made himself up to look something like Johnny.”

The Khan Nadir Shar seemed to have been beyond speech. Now he reached up and absently touched the design tattooed on his forehead; that seemed to awaken him.

“You are—Doc Savage,” he said precisely. “How did you get here?”

“I have been away,” the bronze man said simply. “A short while ago, I returned to my headquarters and learned that Monk and Ham, two of my aides, had gone to the tug. My arrival there was simultaneous with your own departure. I followed you.”

The girl said rapidly, “Something happened back at the tug shortly after we left. Do you have any idea what it was?”

“I heard the sounds,” admitted the bronze man. “I went back and used a flashlight. Two men, apparently the skipper of the tug and one of his deckhands, were dead. Their necks seemed to be broken. There was not time to investigate thoroughly, because it was necessary to follow you.”

“The Mystic Mullah!” the girl said hoarsely. “His green soul slaves!”

Doc Savage studied her, his metallic features inscrutable.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“The Mystic Mullah’s victims always die with their necks broken,” replied the girl. “The green soul slaves—do that.”

The Khan Nadir Shar knotted and unknotted his hands and his jeweled finger rings ground together softly.

“The Mystic Mullah is here!” he moaned. “His green soul slaves will find us! They go everywhere——” He fell silent.

Doc Savage continued to study them. His flake-gold eyes, catching the glow from the dome light, gave the impression of being strangely luminous.

“This will all have to be explained,” he said. “But first, our friend here will talk.”

The bronze man stepped back and picked up the skeleton-thin man. He did something to the nerve centers near the fellow’s neck, and the man regained the use of his limbs as if by magic. He tried to fight, but he was battered against the car with a fierce roughness and held so helpless that he began to whimper.

“Where is the Mystic Mullah?” Doc Savage asked.

The victim stared, moaned as the bronze hands hurt him more, then seemed to reach a sudden conclusion that it would be wise to tell what he knew.

“I don’t know,” he groaned. “Listen; I wouldn’t have gone into this if I had known I would have to buck you, Savage. I’ve heard of you, see. I’m an actor. A ham. I’ve been having it tough.

“A guy telephones me and asks me will I go to the tug and get these two people, tell them my story, and bring them here. I get two hundred for the job. I never seen the guy who hired me, see. He left a picture at my hotel and telephoned me to make up like the picture. The picture’s in my pocket.”

Doc Savage dipped a hand inside the man’s coat and brought out a piece of cardboard to which was pasted a newspaper cutout of William Harper Littlejohn, the eminent archæologist and geologist.

“The guy on the telephone said you were out of town and would never know,” moaned the bony man. “What a sucker I was!”

Doc Savage watched the man steadily, making the other return his stare, turning the other’s face when he sought to avoid the menace of the fantastic flake-gold eyes.

The thin man squirmed and more and more horror came upon his cadaverous face; his tongue swabbed over his lips, but it was dry and left no wetness, and his eyelids rolled back until most of the eyeballs showed.

“I told you the truth!” he shrieked suddenly. “What are you going to do with me?”

The nature of the answer, if there was an answer intended, was never known, for a voice shrilled out suddenly from the depths of the grimy old factory building.

“Don’t!” it screamed. “Get those things off me!”

It was Monk’s voice.