Hallowe'en Party

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 handwritten 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 handwriting, to notice how she made her a's, her b's and her Fs and all the different letters.

"So long as it is reasonably like my handwriting,5 she said, "that will do, and then you can sign my name. But I do not want people to think that I am no longer able to write my own letters. Although, as you know, the rheumatism in my wrist is getting worse and I find it more difficult, but I don't want my personal letters typewritten."

"You could have written them in your ordinary handwriting," said Mr.

Fullerton, "and put a note at the end saying 'per secretary" or per initials if you liked."

"She did not want me to do that. She wanted it to be thought that she wrote the letters herself."

And that, Mr. Fullerton thought, could be true enough. It was very like Louise Llewellyn-Smythe. She was always passionately resentful of the fact that she could no longer do the things she used to do, that she could no longer walk far or go up hills quickly or perform certain actions with her hands, her right hand especially. She wanted to be able to say "I'm perfectly well, perfectly all right, and there's nothing I can't do if I set my mind to it." Yes, what Olga was telling him now was certainly true, and because it was true it was one of the reasons why the codicil appended to the last Will properly drawn out and signed by Louise LlewellynSmythe had been accepted at first without suspicion. It was in his own office, Mr.

Fullerton reflected, that suspicions had arisen because both he and his younger partner knew Mrs. LlewellynSmythe's handwriting very well. It was young Cole who had first said, "You know, I really can't believe that Louise Llewellyn-Smythe wrote that codicil. I know she had arthritis lately but look at these specimens of her own writing that I've brought along from amongst her papers to show you. There's something wrong about that codicil."

Mr. Fullerton had agreed that there was something wrong about it. He had said they would take expert opinion on this handwriting question.

The answer had been quite definite. Separate opinions had not varied.