Poirot Bk3: Poirot Investigates (11/11)

The case of the missing will

Mystery:
-> Miss violet Marsh's uncle, Andrew's extraordinary will went missing.

Terms of the WIll:
1)Miss violet will inherit all of Andrew's fortune. - "During which Miss Violet Marsh may prove her wits"
2) All Andrew's fortune will be pass to various charitable institution. -"Andrew's wits will be proved better than Miss Violet Marsh.

=> Bottomline of the will is a spite. Miss violet needs to prove that she can outwit Andrew, so that she can get the inheritance, if not, the fortune will go to charity.

The story between the niece and uncle:
- Miss violet's parents died early during her childhood years.
- Andrew,her uncle, who was successful in agriculture business, took care of Violet
- Andrew was skeptic about girls studying in school, he thought girls should stay at home to do household chores
- However, Violet wanted to pursue studies and took up a scholarship.
- Andrew vowed that he can pit his wits against his niece anytime.

How did the will go missing?
- The old will would have left everything to the charity and was kept by the lawyers.
- The new will was testified by his housekeepers, Mr and Mrs Bakers, that his fortune would be given to Violet.
- Andrew had asked Mr Bakers to buy 2 printed will-form.
- Andrew wrote on one and made a mistake, so he tore it up and wrote again in the second printed will-form.
- Mr bakers brought the new will to the solicitor.
- However, when the solicitor searched for the will of Andrew, he could only find the old will.

Suspects, who might have stolen the will:
1) Mr Andrew Marsh-> If the story told by Miss Violet Marsh is true, it is possible for Mr Andrew Marsh to plot some methods to make his new will which is to leave everything to Violet disappears. And the old will that leaves everything to charity take into action. Hopefully, Poirot can find the new will assuming that the new will is searchable and that Mr Andrew never played a cheat to destroy the new will. Thus proving that himself will be smarter than his niece eventually.

2) Miss Violet Marsh-> could have managed to ask the Bakers family to fake their testimony on Andrew's new will. Probably, there wasn't any new will. Being the only person with blood ties, with Andrew, was upset about the Andrew not leaving anything to her. However, Violet claimed to be disinterested in the inheritance, since she had not done according to Andrew's wishes and Andrew had the rights to give his fortune to anyone he wished.

3) Mr and Mrs Bakers-> could have stolen the new will or in cahoot with Miss Violet. However, there wasn't any difference in their inheritance in old and new will. Mrs Bakers seemed to have better mind than her husband and was able to tell the details of new will by relating to other activities.

4) Employed workman from Plymouth-> had the opportunity to go to Mr Andrew's study room. However they provided valid and important information about Mr Andrew's study, that there was a secret compartment in the study which could be accessed by the switches.

Leads:
- The wills were written very clearly with date and the time of writting. If a will was written half an hour later, would render the older will useless.
- Poirot found an envelope but it was too small to contain the large will-form.

Poirot Bk3: Poirot Investigates (10/11)

The Adventure of the Italian Noblemen

Murdered:
Court Foscatini-> made a phone call to Dr Hawker and said that he had been killed. Dr Hawker, Poirot and Hasting rushed to Court Foscatini's apartment and found him dead.
-> was dealt with a terrible blow on the head by a marble statue
-> hand was grasping the telephone.
-> (On Mr Graves' account) was expected to have dinner with 2 other Italian men.
-> The murder time was speculated at 8:47pm. The autopsy of the body, the stopped clock and the phonecall timing were consistent.

Court Foscatini's dinning table:
-> a dish of fruit, but the 3 dessert playes were untouched.
-> 3 Coffee cups with remains of very black coffee in them
-> a box containing cigars and cigarettes stood on the table

Suspects:
1) Signor Ascanio and a young man-> Signor Ascanio is a Man of forty. Both were dinning with Court Foscatini.
- (On Mr Graves' account, Court Foscatini was going to settle the dispute among them, on the evening dinner of the day of murder.)
- No one saw them entering or leaving the hotel other than Mr Graves
- denied of having met Court Foscatini on the day he died
- had given Court Foscatini a large sum of money in exchange of the documents incriminating papers of a great man in Italy.
2) Mr Graves-> Court Foscatini's assistant
- had left Court Foscatini's room at about 8.30pm to meet a friend for a music concert in Edgware Road.

Curious:
- (On Signor's account, Foscatini was not a court, his name did not appear in the Almanach de Gotha.

Curious:
- Can a guy being stone on the head, on the verge of dying, could make a phone call?

Leads:
- Court Foscatini did not have coffee stained teeth.

Poirot Bk3: Poirot Investigates (9/11)

The disappearance of Mr Davenheim

Mystery:
Mr Davenheim-> a great financier and an owner of his bank- Davenheim Bank
-> Disappeared after returning home to take an envelope containing some document to meet his client Mr Lowen
-> was a man with balding head and thick beard
-> No one has seen Mr Davenheim and his body wasn't found.
-> His jacket was found in a lake quite a distance from his house
-> His automobile was still left in the garage, if he had taken another mode of transport, surely he would be seen by some people.
-> Mr Lowen had come to Mr Davenheim's house looking for Mr Davenheim after the first day of Mr Davenheim's disappearance.
-> The safe containing the precious jewel was broken in, and it was discovered after Mr Lowen came to the house.

Abnormal behaviour of Mr Davenheim before disappearance:
-> Mr Davenheim had not shared the same room as his wife since 3 months ago.
-> Mr Davenheim was physically less affectionate towards his wife
-> However, Mr Davenheim always brought precious jewels for his wife from business trip

Suspects:
1) Mr Davenheim ran away unnoticed-> Hardly the case because Mr Davenheim was a well known finanical figure.
2) Billy Kellert-> a thug
- had in possession of Mr Davenheim's seal gold ring and tried to pawn it.
- had assaulted a police officer and went to jail for 3 months.- saw a man with big moustache and dark complexion coming along the road to the village, throwing a small object over the hedge
- the description of the man fits Mr Lowen.
- went over and found Mr Davenheim's ring
-> seems to be more a thief than an apparent murderer
-> was out of the prison recently and could not possibly make up a fake story which has a perfecting fitting description of Mr Lowen
-> nevertheless Billy Kellert was a baddie.

3) Mr Lowen, Mr Davenheim's business client who was supposed to meet Mr Davenheim.
- However Mr Lowen claimed that he did not managed to meet Mr Davenheim at all.
- Was testified by Billy Kellert to have seen him on the day of disappearance of Mr Davenheim near his house.
- Was in the room whereby he could have broken the safe to steal the Jewels
- However, the sound of the breaking of the safe would definitly be heard and alerted.

4) Madame Davenheim-> wife of Mr Davenheim
- The story, of Mr Lowen breaking open the Safe to steal the jewellery unnoticed while she was also in the house, was not convincing.

Leads:
- Davenhiem Bank met with financial difficult and had to wind down.