Hallowe'en Party - Agatha Christie [72]
‘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 soigné 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 lies just now?’
‘It is always possible.’
‘Did someone tell her to tell a pack of lies?’
‘That too is possible.’
‘Did someone pay her to tell me a pack of lies?’
‘Continue,’ said Poirot, ‘continue. You are doing very nicely.’
‘I suppose,’ said Mrs Oliver thoughtfully, ‘that Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe, like many another rich woman, enjoyed making Wills. I expect she made a good many during her life. You know; benefiting one person and then another. Changing about. The Drakes were well off, anyway. I expect she always left them at least a handsome legacy, but I wonder if she ever left anyone else as much as she appears, according to Mrs Leaman and according to the forged Will as well, to that girl Olga. I’d like to know a bit more about that girl, I must say. She certainly seems a very successful disappearess.’
‘I hope to know more about her shortly,’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘How?’
‘Information that I shall receive shortly.’
‘I know you’ve been asking for information down here.’
‘Not here only. I have an agent in London who obtains information for me both abroad and in this country. I should have some news possibly soon from Herzogovinia.’
‘Will you find out if she ever arrived back there?’
‘That might be one thing I should learn, but it seems more likely that I may get information of a different kind—letters perhaps written during her sojourn in this country, mentioning friends she may have made here, and become intimate with.’
‘What about the school-teacher?’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘Which one do you mean?’
‘I mean the one who was strangled—the one Elizabeth Whittaker told you about?’ She added, ‘I don’t like Elizabeth Whittaker much. Tiresome sort of woman, but clever, I should think.’ She added dreamily, ‘I wouldn’t put it past her to have thought up a murder.’
‘Strangle another teacher, do you mean?’
‘One has to exhaust all the possibilities.’
‘I shall rely, as so often, on your intuition, Madame.’
Mrs Oliver ate another date thoughtfully.
Chapter 20
When he left Mrs Butler’s house, Poirot took the same way as had been shown him by Miranda. The aperture in the hedge, it seemed to him, had been slightly enlarged since last time. Somebody, perhaps, with slightly more bulk than Miranda, had used it also. He ascended the path in the quarry, noticing once more the beauty of the scene. A lovely spot, and yet in some way, Poirot felt as he had felt before, that it could be a haunted