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 bating 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
associated with him is heavily engaged in a railway scheme from
the United States down into Mexico. Altogether the steamships and
railroads are tapping rubber, oil, copper, and I don't know what
other regions. Here in New York they have been pyramiding stocks,
borrowing money from two trust companies which they control. It's
a lovely scheme--you've read about it, I suppose. Also you've
read that it comes into competition with a certain group of
capitalists whom we will call 'the System.'