Contenson went into the cafe, asked for a glass of brandy, and did not look at Canquoelle, who sat reading the papers; but when he had gulped down the brandy, he took out the Baron’s gold piece, and called the waiter by rapping three short raps on the table. The lady at the desk and the waiter examined the coin with a minute care that was not flattering to Contenson; but their suspicions were justified by the astonishment produced on all the regular customers by Contenson’s appearance. “Was that gold got by theft or by murder?” This was the idea that rose to some clear and shrewd minds as they looked at Contenson over their spectacles, while affecting to read the news. Contenson, who saw everything and never was surprised at anything, scornfully wiped his lips with a bandana, in which there were but three darns, took his change, slipped all the coppers into his side pocket, of which the lining, once white, was now as black as the cloth of the trousers, and did not leave one for the waiter. “What a gallows-bird!” said Pere Canquoelle to his neighbor Monsieur Pillerault. “Pshaw!” said Monsieur Camusot to all the company, for he alone had expressed no astonishment, “it is Contenson, Louchard’s right-hand man, the police agent we employ in business. The rascals want to nab some one who is hanging about perhaps.” It would seem necessary to explain here the terrible and profoundly cunning man who was hidden under the guise of Pere Canquoelle, as Vautrin was hidden under that of the Abbe Carlos. Born at Canquoelles, the only possession of his family, which was highly respectable, this Southerner’s name was Peyrade. He belonged, in fact, to the younger branch of the Peyrade family, an old but impoverished house of Franche Comte, still owning the little estate of la Peyrade. The seventh child of his father, he had come on foot to Paris in 1772 at the age of seventeen, with two crowns of six francs in his pocket, prompted by the vices of an ardent spirit and the coarse desire to “get on,” which brings so many men to Paris from the south as soon as they understand that their father’s property can never supply them with means to gratify their passions. It is enough to say of Peyrade’s youth that in 1782 he was in the confidence of chiefs of the police and the hero of the department, highly esteemed by MM. Lenoir and d’Albert, the last Lieutenant-Generals of Police. The Revolution had no police; it needed none. Espionage, though common enough, was called public spirit. The Directorate, a rather more regular government than that of the Committee of Public Safety, was obliged to reorganize the Police, and the first Consul completed the work by instituting a Prefect of Police and a department of police supervision.