Professor Kennedy

“ The only professors who have anything to do with them are some of the jay young profs from the West, with no families; the funny old La Rues—you know what a hopeless dowd Madame La Rue is—and Professor Kennedy, and though he comes from a swell family he's an awful freak himself. They live on a farm, like farmers, at the ends of the earth from anybody that anybody knows. They are never asked to be patrons of any swell college functions. None of the faculty ladies with any social position ever call on Mrs. Marshall—and no wonder. ”

“ He rose and mumbled an excuse about having something to do in the outer office.
"Oh, it is a wonderful country, Professor Kennedy," went on Whitney, throwing himself back in his chair. "I am deeply interested in it—its mines, its railroads, as well as its history. Let me show you a map of our interests down there."
He rose and passed into the next room to get the map. The moment his back was turned, Kennedy reached over to a typewriter desk that stood in a corner of the office, left open by the stenographer, who had gone. He took two thin second sheets of paper and a new carbon sheet. ”

“ In 1823 Kennedy went to St. John's College, Cambridge. Professor J. E. B. Mayor (Classical Review, May 1889) says that the list of what he had then read ‘sounds like the record of a Scaliger.’ In January 1824, when only in his second term, he won the Pitt university scholarship. During the examination Dean Law set Isaiah ch. xiv. 6–17 for Greek iambics, and Kennedy's translation (see Between Whiles) was so good that the Greek professor, Dobree, had it printed and circulated. His other university distinctions were the Porson prize for the second time in 1824, and for the third in 1826 ”

“ Professor Woodrow Wilson once said that every man sent out from a university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time, and I am confident that the men and women who carry the honor of graduating from this institution will continue to give from their lives, from their talents, a high measure of public service and public support.
"There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university," wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities—and his words are equally true today. ”

“ South American exhibit just what he wants."
We waited several minutes in the office until finally he returned carrying a gourd, incrusted on its hollow inside surface with a kind of blackish substance.
"That is what he wants, I think," the director remarked, wrapping it up carefully in a box. "I don't need to ask you to tell Professor Kennedy to watch out how he handles the thing. He understands all about it."
We thanked the director and hurried out into the car again, carrying the package, after his warning, as though it were so much dynamite. ”

“ The upshot had been that he had called up Chicago and talked for a long time with Professor Clark, a former classmate of ours who was now in the technology school of the university out there. Kennedy and Clark had been in correspondence for some time, I knew, about some technical matters, though I had no idea what it was they concerned.
"There's one thing we can always do," I remarked as we walked slowly over to the laboratory from our apartment. ”

“ And what a life she would lead you—with your confounded microscope and your test-tubes!"
Kennedy smiled indulgently. "If it should be the case," he replied, coolly, "it would only prove my theory. It's very simple. Two atoms are attracted like the electrically charged pith-balls—or repulsed. In love very often like repels like and attracts unlike—the old law, you know, as you saw it in the physics laboratory. We see it in this case, with these very people. All your fine-spun theories and traditions of society and law do not count for the weight of a spider thread [91] against nature. ”

“ There's the ink from the druggist, this is from the Vandam library, this is from Farrington's room, and this is from Mrs. Popper's apartment.”
“Thank you, Inspector. I don't know what I'd do without your help,” said Kennedy, eagerly taking four small vials from him. “Science is all right, but organisation enables science to work quickly. And quickness is the essence of this case.”
During the afternoon Kennedy was very busy in his laboratory, where I found him that night after my hurried dinner, from which he was absent. ”

“ During the remainder of the day Kennedy was closely confined in his laboratory with his microscopes, slides, chemicals, test-tubes, and other apparatus. As for myself, I put in the time speculating which of the fakirs had been in some mysterious way connected with the case and in what manner. Many were the theories which I had formed and the situations I conjured up, and in nearly all I had one central figure, the young man whose escapades had been the talk of even the fast set of a fast society. ”

“ She could retire a few days into the dope joint next door and she would emerge literally a new woman ready to face us, even with Bertillon's portrait parle against her."
It was amazing how quickly Kennedy pieced the facts together into an explanation.
"Yes," he concluded triumphantly, "that blonde woman was our dark-skinned mulatto made over—Marie. But they can't escape the power of science, even by using science themselves. She might change her identity to our eyes, but she could not before the Reichert test and the microscope. ”

“ Kennedy looked up calmly from the rack of scientific instruments that surrounded him, test tubes, beakers, carefully labelled bottles.
He had been examining a piece of cloth and had laid it aside in disappointment near his magnifying glass. Just now he was watching a reaction in a series of test tubes standing on his table. He was looking dejectedly at the floor as I came in.
"Indeed?" he remarked coolly going back to the reaction.
"Yes," I cried. "It is a scientific criminal who seems to leave no clues." ”

“ Kennedy arrived at Camford at mid-day, and as but few men had yet come up, he beguiled the time by going out to make the usual formal call on his tutor. As he passed the door of the room where temptation had brought on him so many heavy hours, he could hardly repress an involuntary shudder; but on the whole, he was in high spirits, and Mr Grayson received him with something almost approaching to cordiality.
“You did very well in the examination, Mr Kennedy; very well indeed. With diligence you might have been head of your year—as it was, you were in the first ten.” ”

“ But when Mr Baer’s letter confirmed the fact that Kennedy had not been reading with a tutor either in classics or mathematics during the previous quarter, it seemed impossible for any one any longer to shut his eyes to the truth.
When the real state of the case forced itself on Mr Kennedy’s conviction, his affliction was so deep that no language can adequately describe what he suffered. In a few days his countenance became sensibly older-looking, and his hair more grey. His favourite and only surviving son had proved unworthy and base. ”

“ Often Kennedy depended upon hidden scientific instruments to catch the faint outward signs of the emotions of his people in a seance of this sort, to allow the comparison of their reactions in the course of his review of the evidence, to give him what amounted to a very sure proof of the one person's guilt. ”

“ Kennedy smiled, in good humor. "Searching a man isn't always the scientific method. You won't find the word 'frisk' in any scientific dictionary."
"No?" The police officer's eyes twinkled. There was enough of the Irish in him to enjoy an encounter of this kind. "Maybe not, but you might find things in a chap's pocket which is better." With a flourish he produced a hypodermic syringe, the duplicate of the one I had appropriated, and a tiny bottle. "The man's a dope," he added. ”

“ Kennedy was throughout life a student, and he seems to have belonged to the type of the recluse and self-denying scholar. He is described as working sixteen hours a day, and as spending all his money on manuscripts and munshies, and in relieving the wants of others. He contributed several papers to the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and in 1824 he published at Bombay a Maratha dictionary. ”

“ Kennedy received rather hard treatment at the hand of the Senior Dean, who was a very worthy and excellent man, but so firm and punctilious that he could neither conceive nor tolerate the existence of beings less precise in their nature than himself. ”

“ It's a funny place to do research—Kennedy's got a big suite on Fifth Avenue, right up in the classy district. Beautiful office. The name of his outfit is Sentiment, Inc."
"Hm. Why should a research-team take such a name? Well, go on."
"Oh, there isn't much else to tell. Kennedy was very nice. He took me into a laboratory full of all sorts of dials and meters and blinking lights and os—what do you call them? Those things that make wiggly pictures."
"Oscilloscopes. You'll never make a scientist, my dear."
She grinned. "But I know one scientist who'd like to—Never mind! ”

“ His success was due to his energetic nature; his enthusiasm, like all genuine enthusiasm, was contagious, and his pupils left him possessed of the true key of knowledge—a genuine and vigorous love of knowledge for its own sake. The veneration in which he was held by them is sufficiently proved by the large sum which was raised for a testimonial to him on his retirement in 1866. The money was devoted partly to the building of the chancel of the present chapel at Shrewsbury School, and partly to the founding of a professorship of Latin in the university of Cambridge. Kennedy added 500l. ”

“ This gentleman, eminent in American politics and literature, was born in Baltimore, graduated at the College of Baltimore, and died in the same city. He served several years in the Legislature of his native state, and three terms in the United States House of Representatives. He was Secretary of the Navy during a part of President Fillmore's administration, and was active in sending out the famous Japan expedition, and Dr. Kane's expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. Mr. Kennedy wrote several novels, as well as political and other papers. ”

“ Kennedy's judgments were the fruit of great experience and learning, of an intellect which, though acute, was never the victim of its own subtlety, and of a complete mastery of lucid expression. His self-effacing nature kept him free from any trace of intellectual vanity or legal pedantry. His care and patience in weighing the merits of the weakest case were as unvarying as his courtesy and kindness to practitioners, especially to the less experienced among them, and he was regarded with affection as well as admiration by a wide circle of colleagues and friends. ”

“ XIV THE CRIMEOMETER The alarm wakened me all right, but to my surprise Kennedy had already gone, ahead of it. I dressed hurriedly, bolted an early breakfast, and made my way to Trimble's. He was not there, and I had about concluded to try the laboratory, when I saw him pulling up in a cab from which he took several packages. Donnelly had joined us by this time, and together we rode up in the elevator to the jewelry department. I had never seen a department-store when it was empty, but I think I should like to shop in one under those conditions. ”

“ Kennedy nodded. "By examining the records in the laboratory, looking them over under a microscope—yes. I can count the overtones, say, in a singing voice, and it is on the overtones that the richness depends. I can recognize a voice—mathematically. In short," Craig concluded enthusiastically, "it is what you might call the Bertillon measurement, the finger-print, the portrait parle of the human voice!" ”

“ XVI THE BLOOD TEST We arrived late at night, or rather in the morning, but in spite of the late hour Kennedy was up early urging me to help him carry the stuff over to Cushing's laboratory. By the middle of the morning he was ready and had me scouring about town collecting his audience, which consisted of the Winslows, Borland and Lathrop, Dr. Howe, Dr. Harris, Strong and myself. The laboratory was darkened and Kennedy took his place beside an electric moving picture apparatus. ”

“ At the lower end of the lobby Kennedy turned suddenly and we started to retrace our steps. Alfonso's back was toward us now. Again we passed them, just in time to catch the words, in a low tone, from the young man, "Yes, I have seen him at the University. Every one there knows that he is—"
The rest of the sentence was lost. But it was not difficult to reconstruct. It referred undoubtedly to the activities of Kennedy in unravelling mysteries. ”

“ KENNEDY, BENJAMIN HALL (1804–1889) , English scholar, was born at Summer Hill, near Birmingham, on the 6th of November 1804, the eldest son of Rann Kennedy (1772–1851) , who came of a branch of the Ayrshire family which had settled in Staffordshire. Rann Kennedy was a scholar and man of letters, several of whose sons rose to distinction. B. H. Kennedy was educated at Birmingham and Shrewsbury schools, and St John’s College, Cambridge. After a brilliant university career he was elected fellow and classical lecturer of St John’s College in 1828. ”

“ I laid down the paper with a questioning look at Kennedy.
"As a scientist," he replied deliberately, "the theory, of course, does appeal to me, especially in the ingenious way in which that writer applied it. However, as a detective"—he shook his head slowly—"I must deal with facts—not speculations. It leaves much to be explained, to say the least."
Just then the door buzzer sounded and Carton himself sprang to answer it. ”