When he awoke the following morning a hospital attendant brought him his suit, cleaned and pressed, with a new shirt and collar which, he learned, had been left for him by Brennan. His head had ceased its aching and after breakfast he could only feel a trace of the weakness that had caused him to faint the night before.
As he entered the local room of the newspaper office P. Q. stopped work to rush toward him and Brennan, looking up from his typewriter, emitted a "rousing" cheer.
CHAPTER XXIII
All that day the giant presses roared, turning out thousands upon thousands of the newspapers with the story stripping the mask off Gibson and revealing the nefarious plot between him and "Gink" Cummings. All day long delivery trucks piled high with bundles of the papers distributed them to newsboys in the downtown district and throughout the city. Never in the history of Los Angeles had there ever been such a tremendous single-day issue of a newspaper.
Under the glaring headlines was Benton's flashlight photograph of Gibson and Cummings emerging from the rear door of the Spring street saloon where their conversation had been overheard by the reporters. The picture was clear enough to enable anyone who knew either of them to recognize them both. On one side of the cut was Brennan's signed and copyrighted story of the complete exposure of the alliance between the police commissioner and the underworld boss, a clear, concise, dramatic narrative of every event leading up to the denoument. On the other side was Ben Smith's stenographic transcript of the conversation between the conspirators, with all its tell-tale and condemning elements.
Beneath the cut were reproductions of affidavits by John, Brennan, Smith, the mayor, "Big Jim" Hatch and Evelyn Hatch, swearing to the facts contained in Brennan's comprehensive story that jumped from the first page and filled the second. On pages three and four were photographs of Gibson and the mayor; Brennan and Gallant, his face in bandages; Murphy on his cot at the hospital; Murphy's room; the mayor's automobile with its shattered windshield; "Gink" Cummings; "Slim" Gray, Joe and Louie and reproductions of their black-jack and brass knuckles.
There were separate stories dealing in detail with John's experience in Gibson's raid on the Spring street bookmakers; the regulation of the crime wave by Cummings to enable Gibson to add to his false reputation as the feared enemy of crooks; "Big Jim" Hatch's story of how he had been arrested by Gibson because he would not split money he stole in bunko swindles with Cummings; the "beating up" of Murphy and the attack on John; Evelyn Hatch's corroboration of her husband's claims and the pistol shots fired by either Gibson or Cummings, or both, the night they were trapped in the saloon. A strongly-worded editorial branded Gibson as the worst traitor the city had ever known and demanded his immediate retirement as a police commissioner and candidate for mayor. Police detectives it was announced, were searching for Cummings, who would be arrested as soon as he was located, and held for murder if Murphy died.