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.
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