Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/186

 he was working to clear up. One tong used revolvers of a certain make; the other of a different make. The bullet which had killed Bertha Curtis and later Nichi Moto was from a pistol like that of the Hep Sings.

The difference in the makes of guns seemed at once to suggest something to Kennedy and instead of mixing actively in the war of the highbinders he retired to his unfailing laboratory, leaving me to pass the time gathering such information as I could. Once I dropped in on him but found him unsociably surrounded by microscopes and a very sensitive arrangement for taking microphotographs. Some of his negatives were nearly a foot in diameter, and might have been, for all I knew, pictures of the surface of the moon.

While I was there O'Connor came in. Craig questioned him about the war of the tongs.

"Why," O'Connor cried, almost bubbling over with satisfaction, "this afternoon I was waited on by Chin Jung, you remember?—one of the leading merchants down there. Of course you know that Chinatown doesn't believe in hurting business and it seems that he and some of the others like him are afraid that if the tong war is not hushed up pretty soon it will cost a lot in money. They are going to have an anniversary of the founding of the Chinese republic soon and of the Chinese New Year and they are afraid that if the war doesn't stop they'll be ruined."

"Which tong does he belong to?" asked Kennedy, still scrutinising a photograph through his lens.

"Neither," replied O'Connor. "With his aid and