Forgery of Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s codicil

The Forgery of Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s codicil is the attempted diversion of a substantial inheritance to Olga Seminoff, an employee who had practised copying her employer’s handwriting. Its detection seemed at first to make the case straightforward: handwriting experts identified the probate document as forged, and Olga vanished as a legal challenge approached. Testimony about a separate signing, however, raised a crucial distinction between having witnessed Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe write a document and establishing that the document submitted for probate was genuine.

The expected inheritance and the disputed change

For years, Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s wills followed a stable pattern. After bequests to charities and legacies to old servants, the bulk of her fortune went jointly to her nephew, Hugo Drake, and his wife, who was also Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s cousin and niece. If either spouse died first, the survivor was to receive the money. Her lawyers, Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter of Medchester, had handled her legal affairs over many years, and changes to the arrangements had generally involved charities or legacies rendered void by a beneficiary’s death.

The disputed document departed sharply from that history. Made about three weeks before Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s death, it was described as a handwritten codicil, not one drawn up by her usual firm. It reduced the number of charitable bequests, left no legacies to the old servants, and assigned the entire residue of her considerable fortune to Olga in gratitude for her devoted service and affection. The size of the change, as well as its beneficiary, made the document strikingly unlike the previous pattern. The family might have argued that Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s mental balance had been disturbed or that she had been unduly influenced, but the lawyers’ discovery of forgery took precedence over those possible challenges.

How the forgery became possible

Olga had been asked to write many of Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s personal letters. Her employer disliked typed letters to friends and sometimes instructed her to copy the handwriting closely and sign Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s name. This gave Olga repeated practice not merely in imitating the appearance of the writing but, on some occasions, in reproducing the signature. According to the account given by Elspeth McKay, that familiarity suggested to Olga that she could create a document that would pass as her employer’s work.

The attempt did not withstand scrutiny. The lawyers obtained handwriting experts, whose examination showed that the codicil produced for probate bore only a faint resemblance to Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s hand. It was not a convincing imitation to trained examiners, and her own firm detected the problem quickly. The case therefore turns on two different kinds of evidence: Olga’s opportunity and practice, which explain how she could attempt the forgery, and the expert comparison, which established that the probate document was not Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s writing.

The challenge and Olga’s disappearance

Once the forgery was detected, proceedings were being prepared to contest the document. The legal process had not yet reached court; there was an interval before the challenge could be heard. During that delay, Olga lost her nerve and disappeared. She left one day with some of her belongings behind, before the lawyers could take proceedings against her. Elspeth speculated that she might have returned to her own country, changed her name, or gone to friends, but these were possibilities, not confirmed outcomes.

Olga’s disappearance left the fraud exposed without completing the story of her whereabouts. It also followed from the particular weakness of the scheme: the document’s intended effect depended on its acceptance as Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s own codicil, yet expert scrutiny could test that claim. A document could alter the apparent destination of an estate, but its effect remained vulnerable to proof about how it had been written and authenticated.

Harriet Leaman’s account of a signing

The apparent resolution became less secure when Harriet Leaman described an earlier visit to Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s room. On a day when Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe was unwell, Harriet and a young garden helper, Jim, were called inside. Papers lay on the desk. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe sent Olga out, saying she must 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 what she wrote and her signature.

A piece of blotting paper covered the upper part of the page, but the lower part was visible. Harriet recalled Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe writing two or three lines with the scratchy pen she habitually used, signing her name, and asking Harriet and Jim to write their names and addresses beneath. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe said they had seen her write and sign. Harriet initially thought little of the incident, though she wondered about it; as she was leaving, she turned her head while pulling the door shut, which did not always latch without a firm pull. Her account establishes what she remembered seeing and being asked to do, but the obscured page means it does not by itself identify the document’s full contents or settle its legal status.

The witness discrepancy and unresolved question

After checking with Mr Fullerton, Hercule Poirot reported that the forged codicil produced for probate had not been witnessed by Harriet Leaman. Its named witnesses were Mary Doherty, a former servant of Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe who had recently died, and James Jenkins, who had gone to Australia. Harriet had described a signing witnessed by herself and Jim; the probate document, by contrast, carried the names of Mary Doherty and James Jenkins. The difference makes witness identity a separate issue from the handwriting evidence and from the fact that Harriet recalled witnessing a signature.

The distinction prevents the evidence from collapsing into a simple choice between a forged document and a valid one. Harriet’s memory indicates that she and Jim saw Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe write and sign something, while expert examination shows that the codicil submitted for probate was forged and its witness list did not match Harriet’s account. Poirot consequently suggests that a real codicil may also have existed. The possibility complicates the apparent chain of events without proving what the other document said, whether it was completed or legally effective, or how it related to the forgery. The case’s central uncertainty is thus documentary as well as personal: a forged codicil is established, but the remembered signing opens the question of whether it was the only codicil.