And then, without the quiver of a nerve, Storm performed an act of reckless heroism that drew a great gasp from the crowd. He threw away the butt of his cigarette, and reached boredly to his pocket. Those who were near him saw something hard and blue-black leap out with his hand.... He fired, and as he fired he hurled himself forward, The man with the bombs sagged and crumpled with a little choking cry. Storm was upon him even before he fell, had wrenched the bombs from the spastic clutch of the dead hands, and was racing towards the door. Beyond that door was a long marble corridor which led to the vaults wherein the treasures offered for sale at Moraine's were stored at night. With a grunt he flung the two bombs far from him and jerked himself back into the room. They detonated in mid-air, and he was only just in time to avoid the fragments of metal that came whizzing back on the earth-shaking reverberation. The tense effort left him gasping weakly, and the screams of panicking men and women came to him through a red haze. But it was only for a moment. "Attaboy!" His cheery voice rose above the pandemonium. "Three shies a penny--_after 'em, you hounds of Hell!_" The detectives, led by Teal, poured out of the other door which led to the street, and were met by the inrush of the outside guards who had heard the explosion. Storm watched them go, and then went towards the fighting, stampeding mass of people who were striving to follow them. At a glance he saw that the flying splinters of the bombs had done no physical damage, and he let his parade-ground voice go like a whip crack. He cursed and insulted them into silence, and barked them back into the room. "You poor henripped sheep!" he snapped when he had cowed them into some sort of order. "There'll be no more fireworks. Form single rank, all ladies to the right, and go out quietly--not like a lot of milling white rabbits!" He marched them out like a string of beaten dogs. Only one protested at this assumption of command, and he was a man whom Storm had marked down in the stampede--a gross, expensively dressed bounder, white and shaking with terror, who had striven to claw his way to safety through a mob of frightened women. "I'll have the coat off your back, sir!" he fumed, his voice shrill with the reaction from fear. "You--you--you insolent young puppy, swearing at us as if we were the scum of the earth! I'll report you to your chief! I'll have you kicked out of the Force! You're a disgrace to the police, sir--a disgrace! You--you endanger our lives, and then you have the--the impertinence--the impertinence--I demand to know your name, sir! I shall go straight to Scotland Yard!" "I am Captain Arden," said Storm coldly, and his lip curled. "Ask for Mr. Kennedy, who is my chief. And put a cushion in the seat of your trousers before you go, because he will quite certainly kick you down the stairs."