Crooked House - Agatha Christie [30]
“Quite properly,” said Philip. “The contents of the will were no business of the servants.”
“I see,” said Taverner. “At least—I don’t see.”
With a brisk movement he produced a long envelope and leaned forward to hand it to the lawyer.
“Have a look at that,” he said. “And tell me what it is.”
Mr. Gaitskill drew a folded document out of the envelope. He looked at it with lively astonishment, turning it round and round in his hands.
“This,” he said, “is somewhat surprising. I do not understand it at all. Where was this, if I may ask?”
“In the safe, amongst Mr. Leonides’ other papers.”
“But what is it?” demanded Roger. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“This is the will I prepared for your father’s signature, Roger—but—I can’t understand it after what you have all said—it is not signed.”
“What? Well, I suppose it is just a draft.”
“No,” said the lawyer. “Mr. Leonides returned me the original draft. I then drew up the will—this will,” he tapped it with his finger—“and sent it to him for signature. According to your evidence he signed the will in front of you all—and two witnesses also appended their signatures—and yet this will is unsigned.”
“But that’s impossible,” exclaimed Philip Leonides, speaking with more animation than I had yet heard from him.
Taverner asked: “How good was your father’s eyesight?”
“He suffered from glaucoma. He used strong glasses, of course, for reading.”
“He had those glasses on that evening?”
“Certainly. He didn’t take his glasses off until after he had signed. I think I am right.”
“Quite right,” said Clemency.
“And nobody—you are all sure of that—went near the desk before the signing of the will?”
“I wonder now,” said Magda, screwing up her eyes. “If one could only visualize it all again.”
“Nobody went near the desk,” said Sophia. “And grandfather sat at it all the time.”
“The desk was in the position it is now? It was not near a door, or a window, or any drapery?”
“It was where it is now.”
“I am trying to see how a substitution of some kind could be effected,” said Taverner. “Some kind of substitution there must have been. Mr. Leonides was under the impression that he was signing the document he had just read aloud.”
“Couldn’t the signatures have been erased?” Roger demanded.
“No, Mr. Leonides. Not without leaving signs of erasion. There is one other possibility. That this is not the document sent to Mr. Leonides by Mr. Gaitskill and which he signed in your presence.”
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Gaitskill. “I could swear to this being the original document. There is a small flaw in the paper—at the top left-hand corner—it resembles, by a stretch of fancy, an aeroplane. I noticed it at the time.”
The family looked blankly at one another.
“A most curious set of circumstances,” said Mr. Gaitskill. “Quite without precedent in my experience.”
“The whole thing’s impossible,” said Roger. “We were all there. It simply couldn’t have happened.”
Miss de Haviland gave a dry cough.
“Never any good wasting breath saying something that has happened couldn’t have happened,” she remarked. “What’s the position now? That’s what I’d like to know.”
Gaitskill immediately became the cautious lawyer.
“The position will have to be examined very carefully,” he said. “This document, of course, revokes all former wills and testaments. There are a large number of witnesses who saw Mr. Leonides sign what he certainly believed to be this will in perfectly good faith. Hum. Very interesting. Quite a little legal problem.”
Taverner glanced at his watch.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “I’ve been keeping you from your lunch.”
“Won’t you stay and lunch with us, Chief-Inspector?” asked Philip.
“Thank you, Mr. Leonides, but I am meeting Dr. Gray in Swinly Dean.”
Philip turned to the lawyer.
“You’ll lunch with us, Gaitskill?”
“Thank you, Philip.”
Everybody stood up. I edged unobtrusively towards Sophia.
“Do I go or stay?” I murmured. It sounded ridiculously like the title of a Victorian song.
“Go, I think,” said Sophia.
I slipped quietly out of the room in pursuit