万圣节前夜的谋杀20

Nineteen

“Mrs.—Leaman—” said Poirot, writing down the name.

“That’s right. Harriet Leaman. And the other witness seems to havebeen a James Jenkins. Last heard of going to Australia. And Miss OlgaSeminoff seems to have been last heard of returning to Czechoslovakia, orwherever she came from. Everybody seems to have gone somewhereelse.”

“How reliable do you think this Mrs. Leaman is?”

“I don’t think she made it all up, if that’s what you mean. I think shesigned something, that she was curious about it, and that she took the firstopportunity she had of finding out what she’d signed.”

“She can read and write?”

“I suppose so. But I agree that people aren’t very good sometimes, atreading old ladies’ handwriting, which is very spiky and very hard toread. If there were any rumours flying about later, about this Will or codi-cil, she might have thought that that was what she’d read in this rather un-decipherable handwriting.”

“A genuine document,” said Poirot. “But there was also a forged codicil.”

“Who says so?”

“Lawyers.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t forged at all.”

“Lawyers are very particular about these matters. They were preparedto come into court with expert witnesses.”

“Oh well,” said Mrs. Oliver, “then it’s easy to see what must havehappened, isn’t it?”

“What is easy? What happened?”

“Well, of course, the next day or a few days later, or even as much as aweek later, Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe either had a bit of a tiff with her de-voted au pair attendant, or she had a delicious reconciliation with hernephew, Hugo, or her niece Rowena, and she tore up the Will or scratchedout the codicil or something like that, or burnt the whole thing.”

“And after that?”

“Well, after that, I suppose, Mrs. Llewellyn- Smythe dies, and the girlseizes her chance and writes a new codicil in roughly the same terms in asnear to Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’s handwriting as she can, and the two wit-nessing signatures as near as she can. She probably knows Mrs. Leaman’swriting quite well. It would be on national health cards or something likethat, and she produces it, thinking that someone will agree to having wit-nessed the Will and that all would be well. But her forgery isn’t goodenough and so trouble starts.”

“Will you permit me, chère Madame, to use your telephone?”

“I will permit you to use Judith Butler’s telephone, yes.”

“Where is your friend?”

“Oh, she’s gone to get her hair done. And Miranda has gone for a walk.

Go on, it’s in the room through the window there.”

Poirot went in and returned about ten minutes later.

“Well? What have you been doing?”

“I rang up Mr. Fullerton, the solicitor. I will now tell you something. Thecodicil, the forged codicil that was produced for probate was not wit-nessed by Harriet Leaman. It was witnessed by a Mary Doherty, deceased,who had been in service with Mrs. Llewellyn- Smythe but had recentlydied. The other witness was the James Jenkins, who, as your friend Mrs.

Leaman has told you, departed for Australia.”

“So there was a forged codicil,” said Mrs. Oliver. “And there seems tohave been a real codicil as well. Look here, Poirot, isn’t this all getting alittle too complicated?”

“It is getting incredibly complicated,” said Hercule Poirot. “There is, if Imay mention it, too much forgery about.”

“Perhaps the real one is still in the library at Quarry House, within thepages of Enquire Within upon Everything.”

“I understand all the effects of the house were sold up at Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’s death, except for a few pieces of family furniture and some fam-ily pictures.”

“What we need,” said Mrs. Oliver, “is something like Enquire Withinhere now. It’s a lovely title, isn’t it? I remember my grandmother had one.

You could, you know, inquire within about everything, too. Legal informa-tion and cooking recipes and how to take ink stains out of linen. How tomake homemade face powder that would not damage the complexion. Oh—and lots more. Yes, wouldn’t you like to have a book like that now?”

“Doubtless,” said Hercule Poirot, “it would give the recipe for treatmentof tired feet.”

“Plenty of them, I should think. But why don’t you wear proper countryshoes?”

“Madame, I like to look soigné in my appearance.”

“Well, then you’ll have to go on wearing things that are painful, and grinand bear it,” said Mrs. Oliver. “All the same, I don’t understand anythingnow. Was that Leaman woman telling me a pack of lies just now?”

“It is always possible.”

“Did someone tell her to tell a pack of lies?”

“That too is possible.”

“Did someone pay her to tell me a pack of lies?”

“Continue,” said Poirot, “continue. You are doing very nicely.”

“I suppose,” said Mrs. Oliver thoughtfully, “that Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe,like many another rich woman, enjoyed making Wills. I expect she made agood many during her life. You know; benefiting one person and then an-other. Changing about. The Drakes were well off, anyway. I expect she al-ways left them at least a handsome legacy, but I wonder if she ever leftanyone else as much as she appears, according to Mrs. Leaman and ac-cording to the forged Will as well, to that girl Olga. I’d like to know a bitmore about that girl, I must say. She certainly seems a very successful dis-appearess.”

“I hope to know more about her shortly,” said Hercule Poirot.

“How?”

“Information that I shall receive shortly.”

“I know you’ve been asking for information down here.”

“Not here only. I have an agent in London who obtains information forme both abroad and in this country. I should have some news possiblysoon from Herzogovinia.”

“Will you find out if she ever arrived back there?”

“That might be one thing I should learn, but it seems more likely that Imay get information of a different kind—letters perhaps written duringher sojourn in this country, mentioning friends she may have made here,and become intimate with.”

“What about the schoolteacher?” said Mrs. Oliver.

“Which one do you mean?”

“I mean the one who was strangled—the one Elizabeth Whittaker toldyou about?” She added, “I don’t like Elizabeth Whittaker much. Tiresomesort of woman, but clever, I should think.” She added dreamily, “Iwouldn’t put it past her to have thought up a murder.”

“Strangle another teacher, do you mean?”

“One has to exhaust all the possibilities.”

“I shall rely, as so often, on your intuition, Madame.”

Mrs. Oliver ate another date thoughtfully.

 

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