“Leave the store—­quick!” rang out Kennedy’s voice.

We backed away as fast as those behind us would permit.  Kennedy and Bennett were the last to leave, in fact paused at the door.

Down below the crooks were beating a hasty retreat through a secret entrance which they had effected.

“The bag!  The bag!” we could hear one of them bellow.

“The bomb—­run!” cried another voice gruffly.

A second later came an ominous silence.  The last of the three must have fled.

The explosion that followed lifted us fairly off our feet.  A great puff of smoke came belching up through the hole, followed by the crashing of hundreds of dollars’ worth of glass ware in the jewelry shop as fragments of stone, brick and mortar and huge splinters of wood were flung with tremendous force in every direction from the miniature volcano.

As the smoke from the explosion cleared away, Kennedy could be seen, the first to run forward.

Meanwhile Martin’s detectives had rushed down a flight of back stairs that led into a coal cellar.  With coal shovels and bars, anything they could lay hands on, they attacked the door that opened forward from the coal cellar into the front basement where the robbers had been.

A moment Kennedy and Bennett paused on the brink of the abyss which the bomb had made, waiting for the smoke to decrease.  Then they began to climb down cautiously over the piled up wreckage.

The explosion had set the basement afire, but the fire had not gained much headway, by the time they reached the basement.  Quickly Kennedy ran to the door into the coal cellar and opened it.

From the other side, Martin, followed by the police and the detectives, burst in.

“Fire!” cried one of the policemen, leaping back to turn in an alarm from the special apparatus upstairs.

All except Martin began beating out the flames, using such weapons as they already held in their hands to batter down the door.

To Martin there was one thing paramount—­the jewels.

In the midst of the confusion, Elaine, closely followed by her friend Susie, made her way fearlessly into the stifle of smoke down the stairs.

“There are your jewels, Mr. Martin,” cried Kennedy, kicking the precious burlap bag with his foot as if it had been so much ordinary merchandise, and turning toward what was in his mind the most important thing at stake—­the direction taken by the agents of the Clutching Hand.

“Thank heaven!” ejaculated Martin, fairly pouncing on the bag and tearing it open.  “They didn’t get away with them—­after all!” he exclaimed, examining the contents with satisfaction.  “See—­you must have frightened them off at just the right moment when you sent the bomb back at them.”

Elaine and Susie pressed forward eagerly as he poured forth the sparkling stream of gems, intact.

“Wasn’t he just simply wonderful!” I heard Susie whisper to Elaine.