In the wake of a brazen, daylight robbery at the Louvre that saw thieves make off with an estimated $100 million in historic jewelry, the internet has found its protagonist. And he wears a fedora.

Social media has been set ablaze by an image of a mysterious, impeccably dressed man near the scene of the crime. Kitted out in a waistcoat, tie, and the now-iconic fedora, speculation has soared that the dapper gentleman is a French detective straight from central casting, tasked with cracking the high-stakes case.

The rumor mill went into overdrive. One viral post on X from writer Melissa Chen declared, “Actual shot (not AI!) of a French detective working the case of the French Crown Jewels that were stolen from the Louvre in a brazen daylight robbery.” The post racked up nearly 3 million views.

Another influencer, Ian Miles Cheong, added to the mythos, telling his followers, “The man in the fedora, who looks like he came out of a detective film noir from the 1940s, is an actual French police detective who’s investigating the theft of the Crown Jewels at the Louvre. Pure aesthetic.”

So, have the French authorities really summoned a time-traveling Hercule Poirot to solve the crime of the century?

No one knows. Newsweek went so far as to say that the man in the photograph is not, in fact, on the case, but rather a stylish passerby who had the good fortune — or misfortune — to be walking past a crime scene while looking exceptionally dapper. Other photos from the scene show similarly uninvolved, though perhaps less fashionable, onlookers.

The Associated Press, whose cameraman shot the photo, didn’t want to kill the idea so quickly, noting that “authorities are keeping it very hush-hush. ‘We’d rather keep the mystery alive ;)’ the Paris prosecutor’s office said with a wink in an email response to AP questions.”

In the digital age, facts are often just a minor inconvenience to a good story. The internet, in its infinite wisdom, has decided this man is the hero we need, a real-life Inspector Clouseau, but with better taste (and clearly, with that style, not as bumbling as Peter Sellers’ character in the Pink Panther movies).

The internet later moved on to muse that perhaps the chic detective wasn’t the best man to crack the case. “To solve it, we need an unshaven, overweight, washed-out detective who’s in the middle of divorce. A functioning alcoholic who the rest of the department hates. Never gonna crack it with a detective who wears an actual fedora unironically,” Ms. Chen later quipped on X.

While social media writes its fanfiction, the actual investigation continues. French police are analyzing DNA evidence, and the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon remains closed. Detectives investigating the audacious heist now believe it may have been an inside job, sources close to the investigation told The Telegraph.

Digital forensic evidence reportedly shows that a museum security guard was in contact with the suspected perpetrators before the robbery. It is believed the gang received sensitive internal information about the museum’s security system, which allowed them to execute the raid.

“There is digital forensic evidence that shows there was cooperation with one of the museum’s security guards and the thieves,” a source told the U.K. paper. “Sensitive information was passed on about the museum’s security which is how they were aware of the breach.”

As for the stylish mystery man, his identity remains unknown. But in a world short on glamor, perhaps it’s no surprise that the internet chose to believe, just for a moment, that a hero in a fedora was on the case.