“Certainly not—but you know how these ideas get about. But, I say—if there was a will, why wasn’t it produced?”
“I didn’t say that, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe. There was no will. The lawyer came to draw up a power of attorney, so that Miss Whittaker could sign cheques and so on for her aunt. That was very necessary, you know, on account of the old lady’s failing powers.”
“Yes—I suppose she was pretty woolly towards the end.”
“Well, she was quite sensible when I took over from Nurse Philliter in September, except, of course, for that fancy she had about poisoning.”
“She really was afraid of that?”
“She said once or twice, ‘I’m not going to die to please anybody, Nurse.’ She had great confidence in me. She got on better with me than with Miss Whittaker, to tell you the truth, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe. But during October, her mind began to give way altogether, and she rambled a lot. She used to wake up sometimes all in a fright and say, ‘Have they passed it yet, Nurse?’—just like that. I’d say, ‘No, they haven’t got that far yet,’ and that would quiet her. Thinking of her hunting days, I expect she was. They often go back like that, you know, when they’re being kept under drugs. Dreaming, like, they are, half the time.”
“Then in the last month or so, I suppose she could hardly have made a will, even if she had wanted to.”
“No, I don’t think she could have managed it then.”
“But earlier on, when the lawyer was there, she could have done so if she had liked?”
“Certainly she could.”