"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 017 - The Five Chameleons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

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