Monsieur Lecoq | Page 9

you have my permission."
"What! you will allow me?"
"I not only allow you, I order you to do it. You are going to remain here
with any one of your comrades you may select. And if you find
anything that I have not seen, I will allow you to buy me a pair of
spectacles."

II
The young police agent to whom Gevrol abandoned what he thought an
unnecessary investigation was a debutant in his profession. His name
was Lecoq. He was some twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, almost
beardless, very pale, with red lips, and an abundance of wavy black hair.
He was rather short but well proportioned; and each of his movements
betrayed unusual energy. There was nothing remarkable about his
appearance, if we except his eyes, which sparkled brilliantly or grew
extremely dull, according to his mood; and his nose, the large full
nostrils of which had a surprising mobility.
The son of a respectable, well-to-do Norman family, Lecoq had
received a good and solid education. He was prosecuting his law
studies in Paris, when in the same week, blow following blow, he
learned that his father had died, financially ruined, and that his mother
had survived him only a few hours. He was left alone in the world,
destitute of resources, obliged to earn his living. But how? He had an
opportunity of learning his true value, and found that it amounted to
nothing; for the university, on bestowing its diploma of bachelor, does
not give an annuity with it. Hence of what use is a college education to

a poor orphan boy? He envied the lot of those who, with a trade at the
ends of their fingers, could boldly enter the office of any manufacturer,
and say: "I would like to work." Such men were working and eating.
Lecoq sought bread by all the methods employed by people who are in
reduced circumstances! Fruitless labor! There are a hundred thousand
people in Paris who have seen better days. No matter! He gave proofs
of undaunted energy. He gave lessons, and copied documents for a
lawyer. He made his appearance in a new character almost every day,
and left no means untried to earn an honest livelihood. At last he
obtained employment from a well-known astronomer, the Baron Moser,
and spent his days in solving bewildering and intricate problems, at the
rate of a hundred francs a month.
But a season of discouragement came. After five years of constant toil,
he found himself at the same point from which he had started. He was
nearly crazed with rage and disappointment when he recapitulated his
blighted hopes, his fruitless efforts, and the insults he had endured. The
past had been sad, the present was intolerable, the future threatened to
be terrible. Condemned to constant privations, he tried to escape from
the horrors of his real life by taking refuge in dreams.
Alone in his garret, after a day of unremitting toil, assailed by the
thousand longings of youth, Lecoq endeavored to devise some means
of suddenly making himself rich. All reasonable methods being beyond
his reach, it was not long before he was engaged in devising the worst
expedients. In short, this naturally moral and honest young man spent
much of his time in perpetrating--in fancy--the most abominable crimes.
Sometimes he himself was frightened by the work of his imagination:
for an hour of recklessness might suffice to make him pass from the
idea to the fact, from theory to practise. This is the case with all
monomaniacs; an hour comes in which the strange conceptions that
have filled their brains can be no longer held in check.
One day he could not refrain from exposing to his patron a little plan he
had conceived, which would enable him to obtain five or six hundred
francs from London. Two letters and a telegram were all that was
necessary, and the game was won. It was impossible to fail, and there
was no danger of arousing suspicion.
The astronomer, amazed at the simplicity of the plan, could but admire
it. On reflection, however, he concluded that it would not be prudent

for him to retain so ingenious a secretary in his service. This was why,
on the following day, he gave him a month's pay in advance, and
dismissed him, saying: "When one has your disposition, and is poor,
one may either become a famous thief or a great detective. Choose."
Lecoq retired in confusion; but the astronomer's words bore fruit in his
mind. "Why should I not follow good advice?" he asked himself. Police
service did not inspire him with repugnance--far from it. He had often
admired that mysterious power whose hand is everywhere, and which,
although unseen and unheard, still manages to hear and