The person whom Lecoq had come to consult was a man celebrated for wonderful shrewdness and penetration, well-nigh exceeding the bounds of possibility.  For five-and-forty years he had held a petty post in one of the offices of the Mont de Piete, just managing to exist upon the meagre stipend he received.  Suddenly enriched by the death of a relative, of whom he had scarcely ever heard, he immediately resigned his functions, and the very next day began to long for the same employment he had so often anathematized.  In his endeavors to divert his mind, he began to collect old books, and heaped up mountains of tattered, worm-eaten volumes in immense oak bookcases.  But despite this pastime to many so attractive, he could not shake off his weariness.  He grew thin and yellow, and his income of forty thousand francs was literally killing him, when a sudden inspiration came to his relief.  It came to him one evening after reading the memoirs of a celebrated detective, one of those men of subtle penetration, soft as silk, and supple as steel, whom justice sometimes sets upon the trail of crime.

“And I also am a detective!” he exclaimed.

This, however, he must prove.  From that day forward he perused with feverish interest every book he could find that had any connection with the organization of the police service and the investigation of crime.  Reports and pamphlets, letters and memoirs, he eagerly turned from one to the other, in his desire to master his subject.  Such learning as he might find in books did not suffice, however, to perfect his education.  Hence, whenever a crime came to his knowledge he started out in quest of the particulars and worked up the case by himself.

Soon these platonic investigations did not suffice, and one evening, at dusk, he summoned all his resolution, and, going on foot to the Prefecture de Police, humbly begged employment from the officials there.  He was not very favorably received, for applicants were numerous.  But he pleaded his cause so adroitly that at last he was charged with some trifling commissions.  He performed them admirably.  The great difficulty was then overcome.  Other matters were entrusted to him, and he soon displayed a wonderful aptitude for his chosen work.

The case of Madame B——­, the rich banker’s wife, made him virtually famous.  Consulted at a moment when the police had abandoned all hope of solving the mystery, he proved by A plus B—­by a mathematical deduction, so to speak—­that the dear lady must have stolen her own property; and events soon proved that he had told the truth.  After this success he was always called upon to advise in obscure and difficult cases.