Forged Codicil Leaving the Estate to the Governess

The forged codicil attributed to Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe is a false testamentary document that appears to redirect her considerable fortune to Olga Seminoff, the young woman who had served her. Its importance lies not only in the apparent attempt to overturn the established inheritance, but in the discovery that a separate document may really have been written and signed: testimony about that document complicates the distinction between a forged paper and an act Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe actually performed.

The Inheritance It Appeared to Change

For many years, Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s wills followed a consistent pattern. She left something to charities and made legacies to old servants, sometimes changing the charities or adjusting bequests when a beneficiary had died. The bulk of her fortune, however, went jointly to her nephew, Hugo Drake, and his wife, Rowena Drake, who was also Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s first cousin and niece. If one spouse died before her, the other would inherit. Her lawyers, Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter of Medchester, had handled her legal business over many years.

The reported final disposition departed sharply from that history. Made about three weeks before Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s death, it was said to be a handwritten codicil, not a document drawn up by her usual firm. It reduced the previous pattern of charitable legacies, left no legacies to the old servants, and assigned the residue of her estate to Olga in gratitude for her devoted service and affection. Earlier accounts similarly described the residue as going to the young woman because of her care and kindness. The scale of the change made the document surprising even before its authorship was questioned.

The change also sat beside other provisions associated with Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s estate. She had left the bungalow she built to the landscape designer Michael Garfield for as long as he wished to live there, together with income intended to maintain Quarry Garden and allow the public to walk in it. Those provisions were described as part of her earlier arrangements; they do not establish the forged codicil’s precise effect on them. The key alleged change was the redirection of the residue, the fortune’s remaining balance, away from the familiar family arrangement and to Olga.

How Suspicion Took Shape

The family was understood to have grounds to argue that Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s judgment had been disturbed or that she had faced undue influence. But the lawyers’ response, as reported by Superintendent Spence, was swift: they recognized that the codicil was not convincing and detected the forgery almost at once. Mr Fullerton later explained that handwriting experts found only a faint resemblance between the document and Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s handwriting. The evidence therefore did not rest simply on the unusual inheritance; specialists examined the writing itself and rejected its claimed authorship.

Olga had, however, been given extensive practice in imitating that hand. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe disliked having personal letters typed and would ask Olga to write them by hand, make them resemble her own writing as closely as possible, and sometimes sign Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s name. Mrs Minden, the cleaning woman, had heard such an instruction. The routine gave Olga access to examples of the handwriting and experience reproducing it. Elspeth McKay reasoned that the young woman may have believed she could extend that practice to a testamentary document; the experts’ assessment showed that a familiar-looking imitation was not enough to withstand examination.

This history made Olga’s possible access and opportunity plausible, but it was not itself proof that she forged the codicil. The account connects her handwriting practice to the suspicion surrounding the document, while distinguishing that circumstantial explanation from the expert finding that the submitted codicil was forged. The document’s apparent handwriting and signature could resemble Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s without being accepted as genuine.

The Legal Challenge and Olga’s Disappearance

Once the forgery was identified, proceedings were being prepared to contest the document. Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter, a long-standing and reputable firm in Medchester, obtained expert examinations, and questions were asked about the codicil. Olga was questioned as well. Before proceedings could come to court, she lost her nerve and left, abandoning some of her belongings. The delay between preparing a challenge and bringing it to court gave her time to disappear.

Elspeth described how someone could leave the country before a full pursuit began, suggesting that Olga might have returned to her own country, changed her name, or gone to friends. These were possibilities, not confirmed outcomes: Olga’s destination and subsequent identity remained unknown in the account. The forged document thus produced consequences beyond the threatened loss of an inheritance. It placed its apparent beneficiary under questioning, made a legal contest imminent, and was followed by her sudden departure before that contest could be heard.

The document also entered a broader discussion of Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s death. The available account says that her death had been treated as natural and that there had not been a formal question about that ruling. A possible connection between Olga, medicines, and what Joyce Reynolds might have overheard was raised only as a supposition, not established as a fact. The distinction matters: suspicion surrounding the codicil and Olga’s disappearance could prompt further questions, but it did not by itself prove that Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe had been murdered.

The Other Codicil

A later recollection by Harriet Leaman introduced a document that did not fit neatly into the story of the forgery. Leaman remembered a day when Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe was unwell and had asked her and a young garden helper to come into her room. Papers lay on the desk. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe sent Olga out, explaining that she should not be involved in that part of the matter, then told the two visitors that she was writing her will and wanted them to witness both what she wrote and her signature.

Leaman recalled that Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe used her familiar scratchy pen rather than a ballpoint. With the upper part of the paper covered by blotting paper, she wrote two or three lines, signed her name, and directed Leaman and the young man to write their names and addresses beneath hers. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe said their signatures recorded that they had seen her write and sign. Leaman did not think much of the incident at the time, though she remembered turning her head as she was leaving because the door did not always latch properly. Her account establishes what she remembered seeing and doing; it does not, on its own, identify the full contents of the paper.

After telephoning Mr Fullerton, Hercule Poirot clarified the decisive discrepancy. The forged codicil produced for probate had not been witnessed by Leaman. Its witnesses were Mary Doherty, a former servant of Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe who had since died, and James Jenkins, the young helper who had left for Australia. Leaman’s recollection therefore did not authenticate the forged document. Instead, it supported the existence of a real codicil as well as the false one, leaving the investigation to distinguish between two papers and two sets of witnesses.

The episode’s central complication is consequently not that the forgery became genuine, but that a genuine act of writing and witnessing may have occurred separately. The experts’ finding concerned the codicil submitted for probate; Leaman’s testimony concerned another document she remembered seeing Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe write and sign. Keeping those claims separate prevents the unusual bequest, the forged paper, and the potentially real codicil from collapsing into one event. It also leaves an unresolved question about the real document’s contents and legal effect, rather than treating its existence as proof that the forged disposition was valid.