As McKenzie steps out of a restaurant, King, a gun-man, is seen to take careful aim from behind a telegraph pole, and McKenzie drops. A crowd quickly gathers. Frank Corridon, the detective, is passing nearby and is attracted. He elbows his way into the crowd and, for a moment, comes face to face with "the face in the crowd," the leering countenance of Blackton, the vice king, as he later discovers. News of the murder is taken to headquarters, where alarm is felt because the vice ring have been threatening McKenzie and he has applied for protection for himself and his children. The police inspector is persuaded to call Corridon in on the case. Corridon leaves for police headquarters and meets little Dorothy McKenzie on the street, when she clings to him, a stranger, to shrink away from King who passes. At police headquarters Corridon asks it there are any of the gun-men that have been seen in town, and he is shown the photo of King from the rogues' gallery, recognizing him as the man that scared the child. When he discovers that the child is a daughter of McKenzie, he persuades her to tell of King, and learns that King had been threatening the murdered McKenzie. King is arrested, released at the request of Corridon, and followed by Corridon to a rendezvous with Blackton, whom he recognizes as the man whose face he saw in the crowd. Corridon is captured, but escapes and plans to block their further moves. McKenzie is out of the way. but the ring must obtain a written statement left which involves them. This is in the state's attorneys office, and failing to get it otherwise, the office is blown up to destroy the paper together with Corridon and the state attorney. But Corridon and the state's attorney have been unexpectedly called out and they are at the entrance of the building and apprehend the ring leaders as they seek to leave after the explosion.
