"That's right. Lived with the old lady, and a week or two after the old lady died, the au pair girl just disappeared."

"Went off with some man, I'd say," said Spence.

"Well, nobody knew of him if so," said Elspeth.

"And there's usually plenty of talk about here. Usually know just who's going with who."

"Did anybody think there had been anything wrong about Mrs.

LlewellynSmythe's death?" asked Poirot.

"No. She'd got heart trouble. Doctor attended her regularly."

"But you headed your list of possible victims with her, my friend?"

"Well, she was a rich woman, a very rich woman. Her death was not unexpected but it was sudden. I'd say offhand that Dr. Ferguson was surprised, even if only slightly surprised. I think he expected her to live longer. But doctors do have these surprises. She wasn't one to do as the doctor ordered. She'd been told not to overdo things, but she did exactly as she liked. For one thing, she was a passionate gardener, and that doesn't do heart cases any good."

Elspeth McKay took up the tale.

"She came here when her health failed.

She was living abroad before. She came here to be near her nephew and niece, Mr. and Mrs. Drake, and she bought the Quarry House. A big Victorian house which included a disused quarry which attracted her as having possibilities. She spent thousands of pounds on turning that quarry into a sunk garden or whatever they call the thing. Had a landscape gardener down from Wisley or one of these places to design it. Oh, I can tell you, it's something to look at."

"I shall go and look at it," said Poirot.

"Who knows it might give me ideas."

"Yes, I would go if I were you. It's well worth seeing."

"And she was rich, you say?" said Poirot.

"Widow of a big shipbuilder. She had packets of money."

"Her death was not unexpected because she had a heart condition, but it was sudden," said Spence.

"No doubts arose that it was due to anything but natural causes.

Cardiac failure, or whatever the longer name is that doctors use.

Coronary something."

"No question of an inquest ever arose?"

Spence shook his head.

"It has happened before," said Poirot.

"An elderly woman told to be careful, not to run up and down stairs, not to do any intensive gardening, and so on and so on.

But if you get an energetic woman who's been an enthusiastic gardener all her life and done as she liked in most ways, then she doesn't always treat these recommendations with due respect."

"That's true enough. Mrs. LlewellynSmythe made a wonderful thing of the quarry-or rather, the landscape artist did. Three or four years they worked at it, he and his employer. She'd seen some garden, in Ireland I think it was, when she went on a National Trust tour visiting gardens. With that in her mind, they fairly transformed the place. Oh yes, it has to be seen to be believed."

"Here is a natural death, then," said Poirot, "certified as such by the local doctor. Is that the same doctor who is here now? And whom I am shortly going to see?"

"Dr. Ferguson-yes. He's a man of about sixty, good at his job and well liked here."

"But you suspect that her death might have been murder? For any other reasons than those that you've already given me?"

"The opera girl, for one thing," said Elspeth.

"Why?"

"Well, she must have forged the Will.

Who forged the Will if she didn't?"

"You must have more to tell me," said Poirot.

"What is all this about a forged Will?"

"Well, there was a bit of fuss when it came to probating, or whatever you call it, the old lady's Will."

"Was it a new Will?"

"It was what they call something that sounds like fish a cod ia codicil."

Elspeth looked at Poirot, who nodded.

"She'd made Wills before," said Spence.

"All much the same. Bequests to charities, legacies to old servants, but the bulk of her fortune always went to her nephew and his wife, who were her near relatives."

"And this particular codicil?"

"Left everything to the opera girl," said Elspeth, "because of her devoted care and kindness. Something like that."

"Tell me, then, more about the au pair girl."

"She came from some country in the middle of Europe. Some long name."

"How long had she been with the old lady?"

"Just over a year."

"You call her the old lady always. How old was she?"

"Well in the sixties. Sixty-five or six, say."

"That is not so very old," said Poirot feelingly.

"Made several Wills, she had, by all accounts," said Elspeth.

"As Bert has told you, all of them much the same. Leaving money to one or two charities and then perhaps she'd change the charities and some different souvenirs to old servants and all that. But the bulk of the money always went to her nephew and his wife, and I think some other old cousin who was dead, though, by the time she died. She left the bungalow she'd built to the landscape man, for him to live in as long as he liked, and some kind of income for which he was to keep up the quarry gar dem and let it be walked in by the public. Something like that."

"I suppose the family claimed thia at the balance of her mind had been distuirbed, that there had been undue influence?" "I think probably it might have come to that," said Spence.

"But the lawyers, as I say, got on to the forgery sharply. Kt was not a very convincing forgery, apparently.

They spotted it almost at once."

"Things came to light to show tbiaat the opera girl could have done it quite eaasily," said Elspeth.

"You see, she wrote a great many of Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's lietters for her and it seems Mrs. LlewcellynSmythe had a great dislike of typed Idetters being sent to friends or anything like; that.

If it wasn't a business letter, she'd all ways say 'write it in handwriting and makee it as much like mine as you can and sign itt with my name'. Mrs. Minden, the clesaning woman, heard her say that one day, sand I suppose the girl got used to doing it it and copying her employer's handwriting^ and then it came to her suddenly that she c could do this and get away with it. And t that's how it all came about. But as I say, the lawyers were too sharp and spotted it."

"Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's own lawyers?"

"Yes. Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter.

Very respectable firm in Medchester.

They'd always done all her legal business for her. Anyway, they got experts on to it and questions were asked and the girl was asked questions and got the wind up. Just walked out one day leaving half her things behind her. They were preparing to take proceedings against her, but she didn't wait for that. She just got out. It's not so difficult, really, to get out of this country, if you do it in time.

Why, you can go on day trips on the Continent without a passport, and if you've got a little arrangement with someone on the other side, things can be arranged long before there is any real hue and cry. She's probably gone back to her own country or changed her name or gone to friends."

"But everyone thought that Mrs.

Llewellyn-Smythe died a natural death?" asked Poirot.

"Yes, I don't think there was ever any question of that. I only say it's possible because, as I say, these things have happened before where the doctor has no suspicion. Supposing that girl Joyce had heard something, had heard the au pair girl giving medicines to Mrs.

LlewellynSmythe, and the old lady saying 'this medicine tastes different to the usual one'.

Or "this has got a bitter taste' or "it's peculiar'."

"Anyone would think you'd been there listening to things yourself, Elspeth," said Superintendent Spence.

"This is all your imagination."

"When did she die?" said Poirot.

"Morning, evening, indoors, out of doors, at home or away from home?"