"His campaign began with the bleeding of the other bank. Thousands of dollars were removed — taken from the County National Bank, and stowed in the vault of the Trust Company. Two murders proved necessary. Wellington was killed. Hubert Salisbury was framed. Roland Delmar's death was made to appear a suicide. The run began. The National Bank failed.
"Then into the coffers of your controlled bank poured all the resources of this territory. For every dollar of good paper money, your Chameleons had a dollar of the queer. Bad money for good.
"The vault of the Middletown Trust Company holds more cash than its books show. But none of the money is real. The millions pilfered from the public lies in those boxes — ready for a shipment that will never take place!"
Bronlon groaned. The others were silent.
"Your payrolls, Bronlon; the bonus you gave — all in counterfeit notes. Money — cash — drawn into Middletown; that you and your fellow crooks might reap a mighty harvest!" The Shadow paused. A laugh again echoed from his lips. He spoke now, slowly and emphatically.
"I trust that I have not wearied you" — his tones were cold and ironical — "for the knowledge that I possess is no news to you. I have been forced to pass a little while with you here. We are waiting — waiting for the officers whom I have summoned to this place!"
The voice of The Shadow was dragging. His efforts had been great tonight. He was still a wounded man. A feeling of dizziness was coming over him. His body swayed and almost toppled. Judge — keen in the face of danger — realized the reason. This was his chance. Like a tiger, he sprang forward to attack The Shadow.
The sudden thrust brought back The Shadow's fading strength. He raised his right arm as Judge fell upon him. The revolver barked. Judge's body rolled upon its back. The Shadow's shot had reached his heart. Bronlon leaped forward. Critz joined him. Deacon was drawing his revolver. Had Bronlon and his henchman not made their wild attack, Deacon could have shot The Shadow. But now The Shadow was beneath his enemies. His revolver fired muffled shots.
The men on the floor were writhing, as Deacon dashed to their aid.
One patch of that black form was all that Deacon wanted. It came to view as Bronlon's heavy body slumped to one side. But as Deacon saw his opportunity, the hand of The Shadow lifted with its gleaming revolver.
Twice the finger pressed the trigger, before Deacon had a chance to fire. And then the fifth Chameleon dropped in his tracks.
The Shadow slowly pushed aside the body of Jake Critz. With his right hand, the figure of vengeance raised itself to its feet. The Shadow arose, a motionless figure of belated justice.
On the floor lay Judge and Deacon, dead. Bronlon was groaning, moving feebly. Critz was gasping, his hands clasped against his side.
Slowly and painfully, The Shadow walked from the strong room, faltering on toward the reviving air. Thin gray wreaths of revolver smoke clouded his black-cloaked form. Then he was gone, out into the darkness. The scene of death lay waiting for the forces of the law.
The last of the Five Chameleons had perished — by the hand of The Shadow. Alone, he had ended the careers of the quintet of notorious criminals.
With the forms of Judge and Deacon lay the writhing bulk of Harvey Bronlon the millionaire crook, who had financed the game of crime.
Chapter XXV — Justice Wins
All Middletown was amazed by the revelations that followed the end of the Five Chameleons. The first inkling of their dastardly work had been the finding of the dead and crippled vigilantes in the home of Martha Delmar.
Then came a phone call that led police to Harvey Bronlon's strong room. They found the bodies of Judge and Deacon. Jake Critz was dying. Harvey Bronlon was suffering from wounds from which he died two days later.
Had the hand of The Shadow purposely allowed this man to live a while? That might have been the master fighter's design. For Harvey Bronlon, taken with the cases of well-packed bills and gold certificates, weakened under the quizzing of his captors.
It was he who gasped out the confession of the crime — virtually the story which The Shadow had recounted when he had held his last foes at bay. Bronlon, cowed by impending death, told of the secret passage in the block that he had built.
The investigators found the bodies of Major, Ferret, and Butcher. They were laid in the morgue, and with them were placed the forms of Judge and Deacon.
The Five Chameleons united, in the room which they had used as base of operations.
Together there in life, they were together now, in death.
The money at Bronlon's was brought back to the vault of the County National Bank. State officials arrived to take charge. Government men came to Middletown to investigate the spurious money that had flooded the entire district.
While the bodies of the Five Chameleons lay on their slabs, some unknown hand placed envelopes there — one on the form of each man. The officer who discovered the envelopes opened them one by one. Each contained the pretended name of the victim upon which it had lain. David Traver, Howard Best, Maurice Exton, Joel Hawkins, George Ellsworth: all were listed. But as the officer stared at the writing, an unexplainable change took place. The writing faded, and new words immediately appeared. The nicknames: Judge, Deacon, Major, Ferret, and Butcher were revealed by the invisible hand. These names gave the government agents a working clue. They quickly dug up the past records of all the notorious crooks.
That was not the only strange episode that followed the clean-up of the counterfeiters.
The other was observed by only one other person — Martha Delmar.
She was back in Middletown. The truth of her father's suicide was explained, for the first sheet of his last note had been found in Bronlon's home. The girl's friends had all returned. She had forgotten the past.
Why not? Hubert Salisbury's story had been substantiated by the finding of the secret passage. The young man was free — and he and Martha Delmar celebrated his release by a wedding. It was among the many gifts received that Martha observed the strange token. A beautiful clock — the finest of all the gifts — stood upon the mantelpiece. It had come without the donor's card. All wondered who had sent it; and only Martha knew.
For in the evening, when the lamps above the mantelpiece were lighted, the tall clock threw an odd, mysterious shadow on the floor before the fireplace.
It was the shadow of a tall, slender form that terminated in the silhouette of a face with a hawklike nose, the broad brim of a slouch hat above the profile.
It was the shadow of The Shadow! Like the flashing girasol, a symbol that Martha Delmar could never forget, it told, more graphically than words, the identity of the donor who had sent the valuable gift. Martha looked at the shadow often. It brought back a weird memory. It spoke of that eventful night when The Shadow himself had come in response to her call.
The Shadow! The man of retribution!