“Very well,” said Frank; “I’ll come tomorrow.”

“We’ll have big news for you,” the man announced.  He shut the door hastily and double-locked it.

Frank decided to remain in the neighborhood.  He might learn something.  The morning papers had been getting the best of it recently in the way of news.

It proved a tiresome vigil.  And the night was chilly.  Frank began to walk briskly up and down the block.  A dozen times he did this without result.  Then the sudden rumble of a motor car spun him about.  He saw two men hasten down the steps of Heney’s office, almost leap into the car.  Instantly it drove off.  Frank, who followed to the corner, saw it traveling at high speed toward Fillmore street.  He looked about for a motor cab in which to follow.  There was none in sight.  Reluctantly he turned toward home.  He had been outwitted, doubtless by a watcher.  But not completely.  For he was morally certain that one of the men who left Heney’s office was Big Jim Gallagher.  That visit was significant.  From his hotel Frank tried to locate the editor of his paper by telephone.  He was not successful.  He went to bed, disgusted, after leaving a daylight call.

It was still dark when he dressed the next morning, the previous evening’s events fresh in his thought.

He had scarcely reached the street before a newsboy thrust a morning paper toward him.  Frank saw that the upper half of the front page was covered with large black headlines.  He snatched it, tossing the boy a “two-bit piece,” and, without waiting or thinking of the change, became absorbed in the startling information it conveyed.

Sixteen out of the eighteen Supervisors had confessed to taking bribes from half a dozen corporations.  Wholesale indictments would follow, it was stated, involving the heads of public service companies—­men of unlimited means, national influence.  Many names were more than hinted at.

Ruef, according to these confessions, had been the arch-plotter.  He had received the funds that corrupted an entire city government.  Gallagher had been the go-between, receiving a part of the “graft funds” to be divided among his fellow Supervisors.

Each of the crooked sixteen had been guaranteed immunity from imprisonment in consideration of their testimony.

“Well, that saves Aleta’s friend, at any rate,” thought Frank.  He recalled his uncle’s prediction that Ruef’s capture would result in extraordinary revelations.  But it had not been Ruef, after all, who “spilled the beans.”  Ruef might confess later.  They would need his testimony to make the case complete.

As a matter of fact, Ruef had already begun negotiations with Langdon and Heney looking toward a confession.

* * * * *

The Grand Jury acted immediately upon the wholesale confessions of Ruef’s Supervisors.  They summoned before them the heads of many corporations, uncovering bribery so vast and open that they were astounded.  They found that $200,000 had been paid for the trolley franchise and enormous sums for permits to raise gas rates, for telephone franchises, for prize-fight privileges and in connection with a realty transaction.