AgathaChristie-HalloweenParty

by Hallowe'en Party (lit)

  "You have perhaps heard that the dead

  girl Joyce was heard by several witnesses

  to say that she had with her own eyes

  witnessed a murder."

  "In a place like this," said Mr.

  Fullerton, "one usually hears any rumour

  that may be going round. One usually

  hears it, too, if I may add these words, in

  a singularly exaggerated form not usually

  worthy of credence."

  "That also," said Poirot, "is quite true.

  Joyce was, I gather, just thirteen years of

  age. A child of nine could remember something

  she had seen--a hit-and-run accident,

  a fight or a struggle with knives on

  a dark evening, or a school-teacher who

  was strangled, say--all these things might

  leave a very strong impression on a child's

  mind about which she would not speak, being uncertain, perhaps, of the actual

  facts she had seen, and mulling them over

  in her own mind. Forgetting about them

  even, possibly, until something happened

  to remind her. You agree that that is a

  possible happening?"

  "Oh yes, yes, but I hardly--I think it

  is an extremely far-fetched supposition."

  "You had, also, I believe, a disappearance

  here of a foreign girl. Her name, I

  believe, was Olga or Sonia--I am not sure

  of the surname."

  "Olga Seminoff. Yes, indeed."

  "Not, I fear, a very reliable character?"

  "No."

  "She was companion or nurse attendant

  to Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, was she not, whom you described to me just now? Mrs.

  Drake's aunt--"

  "Yes. She had had several girls in that

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  position--two other foreign girls, I think,

  one of them with whom she quarrelled

  almost immediately, and another one who

  was nice but painfully stupid. Mrs.

  Llewellyn-Smythe was not one to suffer

  fools gladly. Olga, her last venture, seems

  to have suited her very well. She was not, if I remember rightly, a particularly

  attractive girl," said Mr. Fullerton. "She

  was short, rather stocky, had rather a dour

  manner, and people in the neighbourhood

  did not like her very much."

  "But Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe did like

  her," suggested Poirot.

  "She became very much attached to her

  --unwisely so, it seemed at one moment."

  "Ah, indeed."

  "I have no doubt," said Mr. Fullerton, "that I am not telling you anything that

  you have not heard already. These things, as I say, go round the place like wildfire."

  "I understand that Mrs. LlewellynSmythe

  left a large sum of money to the

  girl."

  "A most surprising thing to happen,"

  said Mr. Fullerton. "Mrs. LlewellynSmythe

  had not changed her fundamental

  testamentary disposition for many years,

  except for adding new charities or altering

  legacies left void by death. Perhaps I am

  telling you what you know already, if you

  are interested in this matter. Her money

  had always been left jointly to her nephew,

  Hugo Drake, and his wife, who was also

  his first cousin, and so also niece to Mrs.

  Llewellyn-Smythe. If either of them

  predeceased her the money went to the

  survivor. A good many bequests were left

  to charities and to old servants. But what

  was alleged to be her final disposal of her

  property was made about three weeks

  before her death, and not, as heretofore,

  drawn up by our firm. It was a codicil

  written in her own handwriting. It

  included one or two charities—not so

  many as before—the old servants had no

  legacies at all, and the whole residue of

  her considerable fortune was left to Olga

  Seminoff in gratitude for the devoted

  service and affection she had shown her.

  A most astonishing disposition, one that

  seemed totally unlike anything Mrs.

  Llewellyn-Smythe had ever done before."

  "And then?" said Poirot.

  "You have presumably heard more or

  less the developments. From the evidence

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  of handwriting experts, it became clear

  that the codicil was a complete forgery. It

  bore only a faint resemblance to Mrs.

  Llewellyn-Smythe's handwriting, no more

  than that. Mrs. Smythe had disliked the

  typewriter and had frequently got Olga to

  write letters of a personal nature, as far as

  possible copying her employer's handwriting--sometimes,

  even, signing the

  letter with her employer's signature. She

  had had plenty of practice in doing this. It

  seems that when Mrs. LlewellynSmythe

  died the girl went one step further and

  thought that she was proficient enough to

  make the handwriting acceptable as that of

  her employer. But that sort of thing won't

  do with experts. No, indeed it won't."

  "Proceedings were about to be taken to

  contest the document?"

  "Quite so. There was, of course, the

  usual legal delay before the proceedings

  actually came to court. During that period

  the young lady lost her nerve and well, as

  you said yourself just now, she--

  disappeared."

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  13

  WHEN Hercule Poirot had taken

  his leave and departed, Jeremy

  Fullerton sat before his desk

  drumming gently with his fingertips. His

  eyes, however, were far away—lost in

  thought.

  He picked up a document in front of

  him and dropped his eyes down to it, but

  without focusing his glance. The discreet

  buzz of the house telephone caused him to

  pick up the receiver on his desk.

  "Yes, Miss Miles?"

  "Mr. Holden is here, sir."

  "Yes. Yes, his appointment, I believe,

  was for nearly three quarters of an hour

  ago. Did he give any reason for having

  been so late? . . . Yes, yes, I quite see.

  Rather the same excuse he gave last time.

  Will you tell him I've seen another client,

  and I am now too short of time. Make an

  appointment with him for next week, will

  you? We can't have this sort of thing going

  on."

  206

  "Yes, Mr. Fullerton."

  He replaced the receiver and sat looking

  thoughtfully down at the document in

  front of him. He was still not reading it.

  His mind was going over events of the

  past. Two years—close on two years ago

  —and that strange little man this morning

  with his patent leather shoes and his big

  moustaches, had brought it back to him,

  asking all those questions.

  Now he was going over in his own mind

  a conversation of nearly two years ago.

  He saw again, sitting in the chair opposite

  him, a girl, a short, stocky figure—the olive

  brown skin, the dark red generous mouth,

  the heavy cheekbones and the fierceness of


  the blue eyes that looked into his beneath

  the heavy, beetling brows. A passionate

  face, a face full of vitality, a face that

  had known suffering—would probably

  always know suffering—but would never

  learn to accept suffering. The kind of

  woman who would fight and protest until

  the end. Where was she now, he wondered?

  Somehow or other she had managed—what

  had she managed exactly? Who had helped

  her? Had anyone helped her? Somebody

  must have done so.

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  She was back again, he supposed, in

  some trouble-stricken spot in Central

  Europe where she had come from, where

  she belonged, where she had had to go

  back to because there was no other course

  for her to take unless she was content to

  lose her liberty.

  Jeremy Fullerton was an upholder of the

  law. He believed in the law, he was

  contemptuous of many of the magistrates

  of to-day with their weak sentences, their

  acceptance of scholastic needs. The

  students who stole books, the young

  married women who denuded the supermarkets, the girls who filched money from

  their employers, the boys who wrecked

  telephone boxes, none of them in real

  need, none of them desperate, most of

  them had known nothing but overindulgence

  in bringing-up and a fervent

  belief that anything they could not afford

  to buy was theirs to take. Yet along with

  his intrinsic belief in the administration of

  the law justly, Mr. Fullerton was a man

  who had compassion. He could be sorry

  for people. He could be sorry, and was

  sorry, for Olga Seminoff though he was

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  quite unaffected by the passionate arguments

  she advanced for herself.

  "I came to you for help. I thought you

  would help me. You were kind last year.

  You helped me with forms so that I could

  remain another year in England. So they

  say to me: 'You need not answer any questions

  you do not wish to. You can be

  represented by a lawyer.9 So I come to

  you."

  "The circumstances you have

  instanced--" and Mr. Fullerton remembered

  how dryly and coldly he had said

  that, all the more dryly and coldly because

  of the pity that lay behind the dryness of

  the statement "--do not apply. In this

  case I am not at liberty to act for you

  legally. I am representing already the

  Drake family. As you know, I was Mrs.

  Llewellyn-Smythe's solicitor."

  "But she is dead. She does not want a solicitor when she is dead."

  "She was fond of you," said Mr.

  Fullerton.

  "Yes, she was fond of me. That is what

  I am telling you. That is why she wanted

  to give me the money."

  "All her money?"

  209

  "Why not? Why not? She did not like

  her relations."

  "You are wrong. She was very fond of

  her niece and nephew."

  "Well, then, she may have liked Mr.

  Drake but she did not like Mrs. Drake.

  She found her very tiresome. Mrs. Drake

  interfered. She would not let Mrs.

  Llewellyn-Smythe do always what she

  liked. She would not let her eat the food

  she liked."

  "She is a very conscientious woman, and

  she tried to get her aunt to obey the

  doctor's orders as to diet and not too much

  exercise and many other things."

  "People do not always want to obey a

  doctor's orders. They do not want to be

  interfered with by relations. They like

  living ther own lives and doing what they

  want and having what they want. She had

  plenty of money. She could have what she

  wanted! She could have as much as she

  liked of everything. She was rich—rich—

  rich, and she could do what she liked with

  her money. They have already quite

  enough money, Mr. and Mrs. Drake.

  They have a fine house and clothes and

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  two cars. They are very well-to-do. Why

  should they have any more?"

  "They were her only living relations."

  "She wanted me to have the money. She

  was sorry for me. She knew what I had

  been through. She knew about my father,

  arrested by the police and taken away. We

  never saw him again, my mother and I.

  And then my mother and how she died.

  All my family died. It is terrible, what I

  have endured. You do not know what it is

  like to live in a police state, as I have lived

  in it. No, no. You are on the side of the

  police. You are not on my side."

  "No," Mr. Fullerton said, "I am not on

  your side. I am very sorry for what has

  happened to you, but you've brought this

  trouble about yourself."

  "That is not true! It is not true that I

  have done anything I should not do. What

  have I done? I was kind to her, I was nice

  to her. I brought her in lots of things that

  she was not supposed to eat. Chocolates

  and butter. All the time nothing but

  vegetable fats. She did not like vegetable

  fats. She wanted butter. She wanted lots

  of butter."

  211

  "It's not just a question of butter," said

  Mr. Fullerton.

  "I looked after her, I was nice to her!

  And so she was grateful. And then when

  she died and I find that in her kindness

  and her affection she has left a signed

  paper leaving all her money to me, then

  those Drakes come along and say I shall

  not have it. They say all sorts of things.

  They say I had a bad influence. And then

  they say worse things than that. Much

  worse. They say I wrote the Will myself.

  That is nonsense. She wrote it. She wrote

  it. And then she sent me out of the room.

  She got the cleaning woman and Jim the

  gardener. She said they had to sign the

  paper, not me. Because I was going to get

  the money. Why should not I have the

  money? Why should I not have some good

  luck in my life, some happiness? It seemed

  so wonderful. All the things I planned to

  do when I knew about it."

  "I have no doubt, yes, I have no

  doubt."

  "Why shouldn't I have plans? Why

  should not I rejoice? I am going to be

  happy and rich and have all the things I

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  want. What did I do wrong? Nothing. Nothing, I tell you. Nothing"

  "I have tried to explain to you," said

  Mr. Fullerton.

  "That is all lies. You say I tell lies. You

  say I wrote the paper myself. I did not

  write it myself. She wrote it. Nobody can

  say anything different."

  "Certain people say a good many

  things," said Mr. Fullerton. "Now listen.

  Stop protesting and listen to me. It is true, is it not, that Mrs. Llewellyn-Sm
ythe in

  the letters you wrote for her, often asked

  you to copy her handwriting as nearly as

  you could? That was because she had an

  old-fashioned idea that to write typewritten

  letters to people who are friends or

  with whom you have a personal acquaintance, is an act of rudeness. That is a

  survival from Victorian days. Nowadays

  nobody cares whether they receive handwritten

  letters or typewritten ones. But to

  Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe that was discourtesy.

  You understand what I am saying?"

  'Yes, I understand. And so she asks me. She says 'Now, Olga/ she says. 'These

  four letters you will answer as I have told

  you and that you have taken down in

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  shorthand. But you will write them in

  handwriting and you will make the handwriting

  as close to mine as possible.' And

  she told me to practise writing her handwriting, to notice how she made her a's, her b's and her Fs and all the different

  letters. "So long as it is reasonably like my

  handwriting,5 she said, "that will do, and

  then you can sign my name. But I do not

  want people to think that I am no longer able to write my own letters. Although, as

  you know, the rheumatism in my wrist is

  getting worse and I find it more difficult, but I don't want my personal letters

  typewritten."

  "You could have written them in your

  ordinary handwriting," said Mr.

  Fullerton, "and put a note at the end

  saying 'per secretary" or per initials if you

  liked."

  "She did not want me to do that. She

  wanted it to be thought that she wrote the

  letters herself."

  And that, Mr. Fullerton thought, could

  be true enough. It was very like Louise

  Llewellyn-Smythe. She was always

  passionately resentful of the fact that she

  could no longer do the things she used to

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  do, that she could no longer walk far or

  go up hills quickly or perform certain

  actions with her hands, her right hand

  especially. She wanted to be able to say

  "I'm perfectly well, perfectly all right, and

  there's nothing I can't do if I set my mind

  to it." Yes, what Olga was telling him now

  was certainly true, and because it was true

  it was one of the reasons why the codicil

  appended to the last Will properly drawn

  out and signed by Louise LlewellynSmythe

  had been accepted at first without

  suspicion. It was in his own office, Mr.

  Fullerton reflected, that suspicions had