famous oil painting

She sold penny time-tables.This was a big one-kind of thing onlySmith's or a big stationer would keep." A light came into Poirto's eyes.He leant forward. A light came into the inspector's eye also. "A railway guide，you say.A Bradshaw-or an A B C?" "By the lord，"he said."It was an A B C."
I think that I can date my interest in the case from that first mentionof the A B C railway guide.Up till then I had not been able to raise muchenthusiasm.This sordid murder of an old woman in a back-street shop was solike the usual type of crime reported in the newspapers that it failed tostrike a significant note.In my own mind I had put down the anonymous letterwith its mention of the 21st as a mere coincidence.Mrs Ascher，I feltreasonably sure，had been the victim of her drunken brute of a husband. But now the mention of the railway guide (so familiarly known by itsalphabetical order)sent a quiver of excitement through me. Surely-surely this could not be a second coincidence?