It's not thoroughly explained. It's possible that the letter was real (but written by someone we didn't meet), and that it was being kept in a safe place with the gems for blackmail purposes. Milly Merton knew that an unrelated person was to be blackmailed, and pretended the letter was written by her in order to get Poirot to help her find the box. Or Lavington/Reed might have dummied up the letter in case the box was found, so if anybody found and opened the box, they'd assume it was holding only a blackmail letter, and not think to search the box for gems.
Ah, thanks for that because I honestly thought I was missing something.
I quite liked the story, I was expecting it to be a rip off of Conan Doyle's Charles Augustus Milverton but it ended up being something else. I do understand why Christie short novels are seen as inferior to the novel. Plot strands are never fully resolved and explained, you just get the twist and that's it.
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I quite liked the story, I was expecting it to be a rip off of Conan Doyle's Charles Augustus Milverton but it ended up being something else. I do understand why Christie short novels are seen as inferior to the novel. Plot strands are never fully resolved and explained, you just get the twist and that's it.