, but the Carnegie
Institution has just published a minute, careful, and dry study of the
blood of human beings and of animals. In fact, they have been able to
reclassify the whole animal kingdom on this basis, and have made some
most surprising additions to our knowledge of evolution. Now I don't
propose to bore you with the details of the tests, but one of the
things they showed was that the blood of a certain branch of the
human race gives a reaction much like the blood of a certain group of
monkeys, the chimpanzees, while the blood of another branch gives a
reaction like that of the gorilla. Of course there's lots more to it,
but this is all that need concern us now.

"I tried the tests. The blood on the handkerchief conformed strictly
to the latter test. Now the gorilla was, of course, out of the
question--this was no _Rue Morgue_ murder. Therefore it was the negro
waiter."

"But," I interrupted, "the negro offered a perfect alibi at the start,
and--"

"No buts, Walter. Here's a telegram I received at dinner:
'Congratulations. Confronted Jackson your evidence as wired.
Confessed.'"

"Well, Craig, I take off my hat to you," I exclaimed. "Next you'll be
solving this Kerr Parker case for sure."

"I would take a hand in it if they'd let me," said he simply.

That night, without saying anything, I sauntered down to the imposing
new police building amid the squalor of Center Street. They were very
busy at headquarters, but having once had that assignment for the
_Star_, I had no trouble in getting in. Inspector Barney O'Connor of
the Central Office carefully shifted a cigar from corner to corner of
his mouth as I poured forth my suggestion to him.

"Well, Jameson," he said at length, "do you think this professor
fellow is the goods?"

I didn't mince matters in my opinion of Kennedy. I told him of the
Price case and showed him a copy of the telegram. That settled it.

"Can you bring him down here to-night?" he asked quickly.

I reached for the telephone, found Craig in his laboratory finally,
and in less than an hour he was in the office.

"This is a most baffling case, Professor Kennedy, this case of Kerr
Parker," said the inspector, launching at once into his subject. "Here
is a broker heavily interested in Mexican rubber. It looks like a good
thing--plantations right in the same territory as those of the Rubber
Trust. Now in addition to that he is branching out into coastwise
steamship lines; another man