Hallowe'en Party - Agatha Christie [50]
‘People do not always want to obey a doctor’s orders. They do not want to be interfered with by relations. They like living their 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 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.’
‘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 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-Smythe 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 hand-written 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 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 hand-writing, to notice how she made her a’s, and her b’s and her l’s and all the different letters. “So long as it is reasonably like my handwriting,” she said, “that will do, and then you can sign my name. But I do not want people to think that I am no