Jack did not remain senseless long. When he recovered he became aware of a confused shouting, and an acrid smell of smoke filled his nostrils.
"Jack! Jack!" he heard Jennie and her mother shouting. "Jack, are you hurt?"
By a great effort, overcoming the faintness that seemed to be returning,
Jack scrambled to his feet. It was dead black in the place now.
"I'm all right!" Jack cried, "but something has happened. They've been here all right Stay up there until I call you."
He struck a match, for he had a box in readiness in his pocket.
A glance into the room where the safe stood showed what havoc had been wrought by the explosion. It was not much, for only a small charge had been used. But the door of the safe was blown off, and some damage was done to the fixtures and furniture of the place.
The interior of the strong box—for it was that and nothing more, being an old-fashioned safe—was plainly exposed to view. Jack was in front of it on the jump. Lighting another match he peered within.
"They're gone!" he cried aloud. "He's got the Argent letters! And me sleeping right beside them! This is fierce!"
With trembling fingers, and a deep sense of humiliation in his heart, Jack lighted a lamp. But even with this greater light there was no trace of the missing packet. Only that seemed to have been taken, as far as Jack could make out.
But now Jennie and her mother, frightened and alarmed, were begging to know what had happened. There was no trace of the masked man. He had slipped out while Jack lay unconscious, our hero thought. Though, indeed, he felt little like a hero just then.