Louise Llewellyn-Smythe's True Will Appendix

The genuine codicil to Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s will is distinct from the forged document presented for probate. According to Harriet Leaman’s recollection, Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe wrote and signed a codicil in front of witnesses; Harriet later found it concealed in a book. Hercule Poirot’s reconstruction gives the document a possible motive: Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe may have discovered that Rowena Drake and Michael Garfield were having an affair and changed her intended beneficiary to Olga Seminoff. The two codicils are not interchangeable: the one Harriet described and the one submitted for probate had different histories and witnesses.

Background and Intended Disposition

For many years, Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s wills followed a consistent pattern. Her fortune was left jointly to her nephew, Hugo Drake, and his wife, Rowena Drake, who was also Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s first cousin and niece; if either spouse died before her, the survivor would inherit. She also made charitable bequests and left legacies or keepsakes to former servants. The family’s lawyers understood this to be her established testamentary arrangement.

The change Harriet recalled was striking against that history. The codicil she later read was dated, in her memory, to the morning before she found it, and left Olga the entire fortune after the legacies specified in the will. Its stated reason was Olga’s kindness and attention during Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s illness. A solicitor later described a purported final codicil, made about three weeks before the death, as a radical departure from the long-standing pattern: it reduced the charitable gifts, made no bequests to the old servants, and left the residue to Olga in recognition of her devoted service and affection.

Writing, Witnessing, and Discovery

Harriet recalled being summoned to Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s room with a young garden helper. Papers lay on the desk. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe first sent Olga out, saying she should not be involved in that part of the business, then called the two witnesses closer. With the upper part of the paper covered by blotting paper, she said she was writing something and asked them to witness both the writing and her signature.

Harriet remembered Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe using a scratchy pen rather than a ballpoint pen, writing two or three lines, signing her name, and asking each witness to add a name and address. As Harriet left, she glanced back while pulling the door shut, which did not always latch without a firm pull. She did not initially understand what she had witnessed. Later, concerned because she had signed a document without knowing its contents, she searched the bookshelves and found an envelope containing folded paper on the bottom shelf, inside Enquire Within upon Everything.

Harriet said the document’s last page contained the writing she had seen Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe make, in the same scratchy pen and recognizably spiky hand. She remembered its substance rather than its exact wording: a codicil leaving the entire fortune to Olga Seminoff because of her care during Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s illness. The document bore Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s signature and the signatures of Harriet and the other witness. Harriet returned it to its place, reluctant for Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe to know she had searched among her belongings, and did not then pursue the matter.

The Forged Document and Its Witnesses

The document actually produced for probate was not witnessed by Harriet. After contacting the solicitor, Poirot established that its witnesses were Mary Doherty, a former servant who had died, and James Jenkins, who had gone to Australia. This distinction separated Harriet’s account of a codicil she had seen being written and signed from the provenance of the instrument submitted in the legal proceedings.

Handwriting experts judged the submitted codicil to be a complete forgery, bearing only a faint resemblance to Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s hand. She had disliked using a typewriter and often asked Olga to write personal letters in a close imitation of her handwriting; Olga had sometimes even signed her employer’s name. That practice offered a plausible explanation for how Olga might have acquired the skill to imitate the writing, and investigators initially considered that she could have made the forgery. But the existence of a genuine codicil, as Harriet described it, did not authenticate the different document presented for probate. Legal proceedings to contest the latter were expected, and Olga disappeared during the delay before the case could come to court.

Poirot’s Reconstruction and Inheritance Consequences

Poirot proposed that Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe had discovered the affair between Rowena and Michael, probably before Rowena’s husband died, and had responded by making a genuine codicil in Olga’s favour. He further surmised that Olga told Michael about the change because she hoped to marry him. This reconstruction explains why a real document could leave the estate to Olga without making the forged probate document genuine; it remains Poirot’s account of the circumstances, rather than a fact Harriet herself witnessed or established.

The legal consequences depended on which document could stand. The forged codicil was so readily identifiable as false that it would be contested and overturned, leaving the original will in force. By then Rowena’s husband had recently died, so under the longstanding arrangement she would inherit the estate as the surviving spouse named in the will. The genuine codicil therefore matters not only as evidence of a possible change in Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe’s intentions, but also as the element that makes the forgery and its apparent beneficiary difficult to interpret at first.