“Perfectly, perfectly,” said Poirot quickly. “But you will not, I am sure, object to just repeating them so that I can envisage the situation clearly.”
The lawyer bowed his head.
“I am at your service.”
Poirot began:
“Miss Arundell wrote to you giving you instructions on the seventeenth of April, I believe?”
Mr. Purvis consulted some papers on the table before him.
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Can you tell me what she said?”
“She asked me to draw up a will. There were to be legacies to two servants and to three or four charities. The rest of her estate was to pass to Wilhelmina Lawson absolutely.”
“You will pardon me, Mr. Purvis, but you were surprised?”
“I will admit that—yes, I was surprised.”
“Miss Arundell had made a will previously?”
“Yes, she had made a will five years ago.”
“That will, after certain small legacies, left her property to her nephew and nieces?”
“The bulk of her estate was to be divided equally between the children of her brother Thomas and the daughter of Arabella Biggs, her sister.
“What has happened to that will?”
“At Miss Arundell’s request I brought it with me when I visited her at Littlegreen House on April 21st.”
“I should be much obliged to you, Mr. Purvis, if you would give me a full description of everything that occurred on that occasion.”
The lawyer paused for a minute or two. Then he said, very precisely:
“I arrived at Littlegreen House at three o’clock in the afternoon. One of my clerks accompanied me. Miss Arundell received me in the drawing room.”
“How did she look to you?”
“She seemed to me in good health in spite of the fact that she was walking with a stick. That, I understand, was on account of a fall she had had recently. Her general health, as I say, seemed good. She struck me as slightly nervous and overexcited in manner.”
“Was Miss Lawson with her?”
“She was with her when I arrived. But she left us immediately.”
“And then?”
“Miss Arundell asked me if I had done what she had asked me to do, and if I had brought the new will with me for her to sign.
“I said I had done so. I—er—” he hesitated for a minute or two, then went on stiffly. “I may as well say that, as far as it was proper for me to do so, I remonstrated with Miss Arundell. I pointed out to her that this new will might be regarded as grossly unfair to her family who were, after all, her own flesh and blood.”
“And her answer?”
“She asked me if the money was or was not her own to do with as she liked. I replied that certainly that was the case. ‘Very well then,’ she said. I reminded her that she had known this Miss Lawson a very short time, and I asked her if she was quite sure that the injustice she was doing her own family was legitimate. Her reply was, ‘My dear friend, I know perfectly what I am doing.’”
“Her manner was excited, you say.”