small saucepan on it. A small quantity of a dark fluid remained
in the saucepan, and an empty cup and saucer that had been drunk
out of stood near it.

I wondered how I could have been so unobservant as to overlook
this. Here was a clue worth having. Poirot delicately dipped
his finger into liquid, and tasted it gingerly. He made a
grimace.

"Coco--with--I think--rum in it."

He passed on to the debris on the floor, where the table by the
bed had been overturned. A reading-lamp, some books, matches, a
bunch of keys, and the crushed fragments of a coffee-cup lay
scattered about.

"Ah, this is curious," said Poirot.

"I must confess that I see nothing particularly curious about
it."

"You do not? Observe the lamp--the chimney is broken in two
places; they lie there as they fell. But see, the coffee-cup is
absolutely smashed to powder."

"Well," I said wearily, "I suppose some one must have stepped on
it."

"Exactly," said Poirot, in an odd voice. "Some one stepped on
it."