The

The Welcome back, everyone to one thousand one classic short stories and tales.

This is your host, John Haggardorn.

It's time for another Ercule Poirot mystery.

This one called The Missing Will by Agatha Christie.

The problem presented to us by Miss Violet Marsh made a rather pleasant change from our usual routine work.

Poirot had received a brisk and business-like note from the lady asking for an appointment,

and he had replied, asking her to call upon him at 11 o'clock the following day.

She arrived punctually, a tall, handsome young woman, plainly but neatly dressed,

with an assured and business-like manner, clearly a young woman who met to get on in the

world.

I am not a great admirer of the so-called new woman myself, and in spite of her good

looks, I was not particularly prepossessed in her favor.

Mr. Borough, she began, after she had accepted a chair.

I had better begin at the beginning and tell you the whole story.

"'If you please, mademoiselle, I am an orphan. My father was one of two brothers, sons of a

small yeoman farmer in Devonshire. The farm was a poor one, and the eldest brother, Andrew,

emigrated to Australia, where he did very well indeed, and by means of successful

speculation in land, became a very rich man. The younger brother, Roger, my father, had no

leanings toward the agricultural life. He managed to educate himself a little, and obtained

a post as a clerk in a small firm. He married slightly above him.

My mother was the daughter of a poor artist.

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