Page:The Big Four (Christie).pdf/218

 one had been before us. The contents of drawers and cupboards were strewn all over the floor. Locks had been forced, and small tables had even been overthrown, so violent had been the searcher’s haste.

Poirot began to hunt through the debris. Suddenly he stood erect with a cry, holding out something. It was an old fashioned photograph frame—empty.

He turned it slowly over. Affixed to the back was a small round label—a price label.

“It cost four shillings,” I commented.

“Mon Dieu! Hastings, use your eyes. That is a new clean label. It was stuck there by the man who took out the photograph, the man who was here before us, but knew that we should come, and so left this for us—Claud Darrell—alias Number Four!”