Nineteen
“Mrs.—Leaman—” said Poirot, writing down the name.
“That’s right. Harriet Leaman. And the other witness seems to have been a James Jenkins. Lastheard of going to Australia. And Miss Olga Seminoff seems to have been last heard of returning toCzechoslovakia, 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 shewas curious about it, and that she took the first opportunity she had of finding out what she’dsigned.”
“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 spiky¹ and very hard to read. If there were any rumours² flying aboutlater, about this Will or codicil³, she might have thought that that was what she’d read in this ratherundecipherable 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 withexpert 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 tiff⁴ with her devoted⁵ au pair attendant, or she had adelicious reconciliation⁶ with her nephew, Hugo, or her niece Rowena, and she tore up the Will orscratched 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 andwrites a new codicil in roughly the same terms in as near to Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’s handwritingas she can, and the two witnessing signatures as near as she can. She probably knows Mrs.

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