The Five Chameleons

Chapter I — A Squealer Dies

"The Shadow!"

The hoarse, frightened cry came from a man who cowered beside the wall of the little room. His beady, blinking eyes were staring wildly at a tall form clad in black.

"Yes, I am The Shadow!"

The reply came in a mocking whisper, from unseen lips. A cold pause followed; then the sinister voice repeated its taunting statement.

"I am The Shadow. I bring you doom, Hawk Forster!"

The cornered crook could only stare in terror. "Hawk" was facing The Shadow, dread avenger, whose name brought fear to the hordes of the underworld — even to the overlords of crime. To such rats as Hawk Forster, a meeting with The Shadow occurred only once in a lifetime. The cringing gangster knew the verdict that now awaited him.

Death!

The Shadow, tall and mysterious, garbed in black cloak and slouch hat, was a stern, inexorable figure. His countenance was obscured by the upturned collar of his cloak and the tilting slope of his dark hat. Hawk Forster, blinking nervously, could see only the glow of two penetrating eyes that shone from unfathomable depths. Those eyes were the sign of doom!

A single arm extended from the folds of the black cloak. The gloved hand held an automatic. The muzzle of the gun was trained upon the huddled gangster.

The setting of this strange scene was the squalid room of an old hotel. An open bag upon the floor showed that the gangster had been about to leave. A doorlike window, with the dim rail of a small balcony beyond, showed the path by which The Shadow had entered to surprise the fleeing man.

"You fear death." The Shadow's voice was ironic. "You killed two men in cold blood, but you fear death, yourself. So I shall let you live" — the sudden hope that came in Forster's eyes ended with the next words — "for a little while!"

The crook chewed his puffy lips. His face had turned white. His eyes were pleading. The Shadow laughed again — the same sardonic laugh that had announced his presence here.

"Murderer though you are," he declared, "you have a coward's heart. Three nights ago you killed two men and fled. You were recognized. The police have been searching for you. They could not find you."

"But I, The Shadow, learned where you were hiding. Now, the police have learned of this place. They are on their way here. Soon, they will arrive."

Hawk threw a frightened glance toward the heavy door. It was his only way of escape.

Yet he dared not move.

The Shadow laughed. The plight of this trapped killer pleased him.

"But unfortunately," resumed The Shadow, "the police do not move as swiftly as The Shadow. Knowing that you might be planning an escape, I came here to hold you for them. Cowards such as you do not belong to The Shadow. So you may live — with one goal: the electric chair at Sing Sing."

"No! No!" gasped Hawk. "No! Let me go! I'll—"

His words were interrupted by sounds from the hallway outside the room. A heavy fist pounded on the strong door. Hawk Forster knelt in quaking silence.

"Open in the name of the law!" came through the door.

The muffled command went unheeded. Hawk Forster shuddered as he crouched against the wall, afraid to move. The Shadow, silent as a statue, made no attempt to force him. Sharp blows resounded. Hawk Forster turned his face toward the door. He could see the stout wood quiver from each blow. Again he faced The Shadow, in the center of the room. Hawk's pasty face was pitiful. He knew that he could expect no mercy from The Shadow; yet he held one furtive hope.

"Let me go!" he pleaded. "If you do, I'll tell! Yes, I'll tell what even you don't know! I'll give you the lay on the biggest game—"

He stopped as The Shadow laughed. The menacing automatic seemed endowed with life as it moved slowly forward. The glowing eyes were livid. Hawk Forster was learning the menace of The Shadow to the full.

To The Shadow, Hawk Forster was just another rat of the underworld. Time and again, The Shadow had trapped creatures of his ilk. They always pleaded for mercy — offered to squeal; to barter with The Shadow to save their own worthless skins. The Shadow had a way of dealing with them.

"You will squeal?" His voice was a harsh, weird whisper. "Squeal, then! Tell me what you know that I do not know. Speak!"

The words were a command. They offered no conditions. The Shadow's voice meant doom, with no escape.

Hawk Forster knew it; but his fear of The Shadow made him speak. Against his will, he squealed, while the battering at the door continued its mighty tattoo.

"It's a big game!" gasped Hawk. "They've been layin' low until it was ripe. Now it's all set. But before they start, there's one guy that's due to get his!"

"Be quick!"

The Shadow's command was terse and low as Hawk paused to lick his thick lips and stare in terror toward the slowly yielding door.

"Dan Antrim" — Forster was gasping what he knew — "Dan Antrim, the lawyer. He's crooked. Mixed up with the racket. He's a double-crosser! That's why he's goin' to get his. It's comin' from a guy that he thinks is—"

The words became a terrified squeal as the cowardly gangster saw the door bulge inward under the impact of a mighty smash. Hawk threw his arms before his face. The Shadow's left hand struck them down. His burning eyes were close to Hawk's hideous, distorted countenance.

"Who is after Antrim?"

"I'll tell you!" cried Hawk. "A guy I used to know — long ago. He's given me the lay. He's comin' here — to New York — to get—"

Before the miserable man could continue, the door was lifted bodily from its hinges, and hurled into the room. It had yielded unexpectedly. As it fell, two men sprawled headlong upon it.

The Shadow, never forgetting his purpose here, moved swiftly and silently. In three long, rapid strides, he was by the window. There, he turned for one quick, parting glance. Hawk Forster was pouncing forward. The Shadow saw the reason. In front of one of the men who was clambering from the flattened door lay a gleaming revolver.

The rising man was Detective Joe Cardona, ace of the New York force. His gun had shot from his grasp when he plunged in with the door.

That revolver meant salvation for Hawk Forster. The inrush of the police had ended The Shadow's opportunity to hear what Hawk knew. Now the menacing figure had departed, and Hawk saw his chance to thwart the men who sought to capture him.

Hawk's clawing fingers closed upon the revolver. Up came the weapon, before Cardona could reach it with a futile clutch. The second detective was raising his gun, too late. Hawk's finger was on the trigger of the revolver. The gangster's puffy lips were snarling their triumph.

As Hawk's finger moved, a shot resounded. It did not come from the gun that the murderer had grabbed. Instead, the report issued from the balcony outside the window.

The Shadow's automatic had spoken! Hawk's last chance was gone! The revolver dropped from his hand as The Shadow's bullet shattered his wrist. For a split second, the men on the floor formed an unmoving tableau.

Hawk Forster was staring at his useless hand. Joe Cardona was sprawled forward, at the end of a hopeless effort to seize the gangster's arm. The second detective was stupefied as he rested on one knee. None noticed the curl of smoke that weaved inward from the opened window. Hawk was the first to act, despite his bewilderment. He shot out his left hand to seize the gun. Cardona was wriggling sidewise to gain the weapon. The other detective had his opportunity, and used it. He fired twice over Cardona's back.

Hawk's mad spring ended in a twisting slump. The rat-faced gangster fell sidelong, and rolled upon his back. His bulging eyes must have fancied that they again saw the black clad figure of The Shadow, for terror came over Hawk's face as he coughed out inarticulate words.

Cardona heard the utterances, but could not understand them. He did not know that the dying man was trying to complete an interrupted statement; that Hawk Forster, on the rim of the beyond, was squealing. Then the eyes closed. The rat-faced gunman was dead.

Joe Cardona, his revolver regained, scrambled to his feet and looked about the room. His companion sprang forward to look at the dead man.

"Where did that shot come from?" growled Cardona. "Somebody clipped him right when we needed it most. Wasn't any of us—"

He paused as his gaze took in the opened window. Cardona motioned his companion back toward the doorway, while he himself slipped along the wall and approached the blackened casement. True, the single shot had saved Cardona's life; but had the man who fired it intended to aid the detective or hinder him? Cardona had seen shots like that go astray through strange twists of luck. While his brother officer, now wary, covered the window, Cardona stepped boldly to the balcony. All appeared dark outside. Deep fog blanketed the street.

Peering down into the gloom, Cardona made out a balcony on the floor below. Then there was a drop to the street. A swift, agile man could have escaped that way.

Through the fog, a street lamp showed the sidewalk below the balcony. A uniformed policeman dashed into the lamplight, staring upward. Evidently he had been attracted by the sound of the gunfire. Cardona shouted down to him. The patrolman recognized the brusque voice of the detective, the most widely known of all headquarters men.

"Any one down there?" demanded Cardona.

"No," came the officer's reply.

"Look under the balcony."

"No one there."

"Send for the wagon, then. We've got a dead one up here."

The policeman hurried away toward the patrol box, at the corner. Cardona peered downward; then shrugged his shoulders and went back to look at the body of Hawk Forster.

In the patch of light upon the sidewalk, a splotch of blackness appeared. It wavered there while a man emerged from a spot beside the dark wall of the old hotel.

The darkness disappeared as a tall form flitted across the street and merged with the misty light. Through the thickness of the fog resounded the tones of a weird, chilling laugh. Joe Cardona, viewing the body from the window, heard that laugh. It awakened a responsive chord in the detective's mind. His forehead furrowed as he caught the hint echoes of sinister mirth. The laugh of The Shadow!

Cardona knew that laugh. It had come to his ears at other times, when he had been miraculously saved from death at the hands of evildoers. To Cardona, the weird merriment brought enlightenment. He knew now that he had been brought here by The Shadow. He knew the source of the telephone call that had told him where Hawk Forster, wanted murderer, could be found. A quiet voice had spoken to Cardona over the phone — not the voice of The Shadow.

But Cardona had cause to believe that the avenger of crime employed trusted subordinates. The Shadow! He had spotted, captured and thwarted Hawk Forster, the killer. It was one more token of The Shadow's relentless war against crime; another blow struck in the cause of justice. Joe Cardona understood and thought that he knew all.

Cardona was wrong. He did not know that Hawk Forster was a rat who had tried to squeal; that the murderer had known the schemes of more potent crooks, and had been about to blab them to The Shadow when the detectives made their premature entrance.

Cardona suspected nothing. Only The Shadow knew that some great crime was brewing.

Yet he had gained only an inkling from Hawk Forster before circumstances had forced him to make a rapid exit. Danger threatened Daniel Antrim, a lawyer who dealt with criminals. When that danger struck, it would mark the beginning of rampant crime.

Vile plans were under way! With Hawk Forster dead, none but the schemers themselves knew what the details were.

Only The Shadow could meet these enemies of the law. To do so, he must learn both source and nature of the contemplated crime which Hawk Forster's sealed lips could never tell!

Could The Shadow uncover the plot, wherever it might be brewing?