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each other. Put that in your moustache and smoke it."
Chapter 19
"Mrs Leaman," said Poirot, writing down the name.
"That's right. Harriet Leaman. And the other witness seems to have been a James Jenkins. Last heard of
going to Australia. And Miss Olga Seminoff seems to have been last heard of returning to
Czechoslovakia, or wherever she came from. Everybody seems to have gone somewhere else."
"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 she signed something, that she was
curious about it, and that she took the first opportunity 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, at reading old ladies' handwriting,
which is very spiky and very hard to read. If there were any rumours flying about later, about this Will
or codicil, she might have thought that that was what she'd read in this rather undecipherable
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 prepared to come into court with expert
witnesses."
"Oh well," said Mrs Oliver, "then it's easy to see what must have happened, isn't it?"
"What is easy? What happened?"
"Well, of course, the next day or a few days later, or even as much as a week later, Mrs Llewellyn-
Smythe either had a bit of a tiff with her devoted au pair attendant, or she had a delicious reconciliation
with her nephew, Hugo, or her niece, Rowena, and she tore up the Will or scratched out 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 girl seizes her chance and writes a new
codicil in roughly the same terms in as near to Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe's handwriting as she can, and the
two witnessing signatures as near as she can. She probably knows Mrs Leaman writing quite well. It
would be on national health cards or something like that, and she produces it, thinking that someone
will agree to having witnessed the Will and that all would be well. But her forgery isn't good enough
and so trouble starts."
"Will you permit me, chere 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. The codicil, the forged codicil that
was produced for probate was not witnessed by Harriet Leaman It was witnessed by a Mary Doherty,
deceased, who had been in service with Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe but had recently died. 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 to have been a real codicil as well. Look here, Poirot, isn't this all getting a little too
complicated?"
"It is getting incredibly complicated," said Hercule Poirot. "There is, if I may mention it, too much
forgery about."
"Perhaps the real one is still in the library at Quarry House, within the pages 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 family pictures."
"What we need," said Mrs Oliver, "is something like Enquire Within here 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
information and cooking recipes and how to take ink stains out of linen. How to make home-made 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 treatment of tired feet."
"Plenty of them, I should think. But why don't you wear proper country shoes?" "Madame, I like to look
soigne in my appearance."
"Well, then you'll have to go on wearing things that are painful, and grin and bear it," said Mrs Oliver.
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