CHAPTER II

THE CRYPTIC RING


Kennedy had been engaged for some time in the only work outside of
the Dodge case which he had consented to take for weeks.

Our old friend, Dr. Leslie, the Coroner, had appealed to him to
solve a very ticklish point in a Tong murder case which had set
all Chinatown agog. It was, indeed, a very bewildering case. A
Chinaman named Li Chang, leader of the Chang Wah Tong, had been
poisoned, but so far no one had been able to determine what poison
it was or even to prove that there had been a poison, except for
the fact that the man was dead, and Kennedy had taken the thing up
in a great measure because of the sudden turn in the Dodge case
which had brought us into such close contact with the Chinese.

I had been watching Kennedy with interest, for the Tong wars
always make picturesque newspaper stories, when a knock at the
door announced the arrival of Dr. Leslie, anxious for some result.

"Have you been able to find out anything yet?" he greeted Kennedy
eagerly as Craig looked up from his microscope.

Kennedy turned and nodded. "Your dead man was murdered by means of
aconite, of which, you know, the active principle is the deadly
alkaloid aconitine."