Western Historical Manuscript Collection: The first item on the microfilm is a one-page overview titled What is Behind the Story. The title shown on the page is "The Mystic Mullah" and it is labeled as the 23rd Doc Savage story.
Following this is an eleven-page chapter outline of the story. There are nineteen chapters. Khan Shar and Jone Lynn arrive in New York courtesy of a British Navy destroyer. The plot is substantially the same until Chapter Sixteen. Oscar Gibson has allowed himself to be taken prisoner by the Mystic Mullah's men. Unknown to them, Gibson has a radioactive substance that can be detected from a distance. Doc Savage uses a sensitive detector to locate the gang's hideout.
Next is the story itself which is mostly in complete agreement with the printed version. Jone Lynn's name has evolved into Joan Lyndell.
The final page of the manuscript contains a lead-in for the next story which is to be "The Always-Night Land." Obviously this title became The Land of Always-Night. But it was not the next story to be printed. Instead Red Snow followed The Mystic Mullah with The Land of Always-Night following it.
As noted by Will Murray, Richard Sale wrote two chapter of this story before abandoning it. Those chapters are included on the microfilm.
The Monk-Ham feud is again explained in the typical fashion but with a little more detail. It is revealed that the incriminating evidence implicating Ham was his billfold and private papers.
Dent has written on the first page of Sale's work. In the top left-hand corner of the paper is written this:
Lester Dent
101 W 55th St
New York City
Circle 7-6301
Also penciled in is the notation "22nd Doc Savage" on the top right along with "60,000 words".
Readers learn that Doc’s aides have a long association as his assistants. Now the question is just how long is "long ago"? The Mystic Mullah is the twenty-third story and not quite two years have passed since the first adventure. The implication here is that these guys have been doing something for many years now and not just since March 1933.
Check out the name of the Khan Nadir Shar. Here's the definition from the on-line version of the 1913 Webster's dictionary. Nadir: The lowest point; the time of greatest depression.
It is a suitable name for the scoundrel and symbolizes the Khan's low position in the story as a villain and betrayer of the very people he is supposed to protect. Later in the story we learn that slavery is still practiced in Tanan. The Khan is not a very admirable ruler.
In November 1933, King Nadir Shah of Afghanistan was assassinated. The name is very similar to the one Dent used in his story.
It appears that many of the elements in this story were recycled in The Majii.
Again, we find an unusual reference to Doc's skin
color. The story refers to Doc Savage as
a “white devil ghost who is
not white.”
One thing that always piques my interest in reading older fiction is any kind of literary device that might have influenced Lester Dent and been later reincarnated in a Doc Savage adventure.
In this case the story is Kim by Rudyard Kipling. Here's a quote from Kim dealing with hypnotism:
That lay with a sparkle of water in its curve, as it were a star on the floor. Kim looked intently. Lurgan Sahib laid one hand gently on the nape of his neck, stroked it twice or thrice, and whispered: 'Look! It shall come to life again, piece by piece. First the big piece shall join itself to two others on the right and the left - on the right and the left. Look!'
Kim resists the hypnotic spell and throws it off.
'It is there as it was there,' said Lurgan, watching Kim closely while the boy rubbed his neck. 'But you are the first of many who has ever seen it so.' He wiped his broad forehead.
Now having just recently finished The Majii and The Mystic Mullah the hypnotic aspects of Kipling's story are very intriguing. What is especially interesting is that fact that Lurgan is doing something to Kim's neck while attempting to hypnotize him.
Exactly what Lurgan's hands were doing on Kim's neck is not explained.
The question is was Lurgan manipulating the nerves in Kim's neck to enhance his hypnotic spell? Apparently Kim feels the need to rub his neck after the spell is broken. That indicates to me Lurgan was attempting to do something with the nerves rather than a soothing caress.
In The Mystic Mullah Dent reveals that Doc has studied hypnotism in India. Perhaps he has met Lurgan Sahib? Apparently Lurgan knows something about the nerves in the neck. Does he also know the secret of the paralyzing nerve pinch?
Kipling's tale ends with some thoughts on metaphysics, souls and meditation. The holy man, Teshoo Lama, conquers time and space while his soul meditates a thousand thousand years. A variation of this type material appears in The Mystic Mullah and The Majii.
This business of a thousand thousand years (which is a million years) crops up in The Mystic Mullah as we learn this mysterious entity has been dead a "thousand thousand" years.
Like the Teshoo Lama, the Mystic Mullah is big on meditation having spent a thousand years in one spot thinking. And like Lurgan Sahib, Rama Tura from The Majii is a master of hypnotism.
Kim was first published in 1900 only a few years before Lester Dent's birth. It has become a timeless classic and it is not an unreasonable thought that a lonely boy marooned on a cattle ranch in Wyoming could have read this book.
January 3, 1935 - Bruno Hauptmann goes on trial for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby.
January 11, 1935 - Amelia Earhardt flies solo across the Pacific from Hawaii to California.
January 16, 1935 – The Barker Gang is killed in an FBI shoot-out.
January 24, 1935 – The SS Mohawk sinks after colliding with the Norwegian freighter Talisman.
