I did sit across from someone in a bus just before I left London, and here it is all working out beautifully inside my head. I shall have the whole story soon. The whole sequence, what she's going back to say, whether it'll run her into danger or somebody else into danger. I think I even know her name. Her name's Constance. Constance Carnaby. >There's only one thing would ruin it.'
'And what is that?'
'Well, I mean, if I met her again in another bus, or spoke to her or she talked to me or I began to know something about her. That would ruin everything, of course.'
'Yes, yes. The story must be yours, the character is yours. She is your child. You have made her, you begin to understand her, you know how she feels, you know where she lives and you know what she does. But that all started with a real, live human being and if you found out what the real live human being was like well then, there would be no story, would there?'
'Right again,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'As to what you were saying about Judith, I think that is true. I mean, we were together a lot on the cruise, and we went to see the places but I didn't really get to know her particularly well. She's a widow, and her husband died and she was left badly off with one child, Miranda, whom you've seen. And it's true that I've got rather a funny feeling about them. A feeling as though they mattered, as though they're mixed up in some interesting drama. I don't want to know what the drama is. I don't want them to tell me. I want to think of the sort of drama I would like them to be in.'
'Yes. Yes, I can see that they are well, candidates for inclusion for another best seller by Ariadne Oliver.'
'You really are a beast sometimes,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'You make it all sound so vulgar.' She paused thoughtfully. 'Perhaps it is.'
'No, no, it is not vulgar. It is just human.'
'And you want me to invite Judith and Miranda to my flat or house in London?'
'Not yet,' said Poirot. 'Not yet until I am sure that one of my little ideas might be right.'
'You and your little ideas! Now I've got a piece of news for you.'
'Madame, you delight me.'
'Don't be too sure. It will probably upset your ideas. Supposing I tell you that the forgery you have been so busy talking about wasn't a forgery at all.'
'What is that you say?'
'Mrs. Jones Smythe, or whatever her name is, did make a codicil to her Will leaving all her money to the au pair girl and she signed it, and two witnesses saw her sign it, and signed it also in the presence of each other. Put that in your moustache and smoke it.'
'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. 'All the same, I don't understand anything now. Was that Leaman woman telling me a pack of
