The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Agatha Christie’s first ever murder mystery.With impeccable timing Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective, makes his dramatic entrance on to the English crime stage.Recently, there had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn, constant companion to old Mrs Inglethorp, had stormed out of the house muttering something about ‘a lot of sharks’. And with her, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security; now the air seemed rife with suspicion and impending evil.A shattered coffee cup, a splash of candle grease, a bed of begonias… all Poirot required to display his now legendary powers of detection.
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First published in Great Britain by John Lane Company, The Bodley Head Ltd 1921
Copyright © 1921 Agatha Christie Ltd.
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Source ISBN: 9780007119271
Ebook edition © 2010 ISBN: 9780007422586 Version: 2017-04-13
To my mother
Contents
1 I Go to Styles
2 The 16th and 17th of July
3 The Night of the Tragedy
4 Poirot Investigates
5 âIt isnât Strychnine, is it?â
6 The Inquest
7 Poirot Pays his Debts
8 Fresh Suspicions
9 Dr Bauerstein
10 The Arrest
11 The Case for the Prosecution
12 The Last Link
13 Poirot Explains
Extract from Closed Casket, the new Hercule Poirot novel by Sophie Hannah
About the Author
The Agatha Christie Collection
The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as âThe Styles Caseâ has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.
I will therefore briefly set down the circumstances which led to my being connected with the affair.
I had been invalided home from the Front; and, after spending some months in a rather depressing Convalescent Home, was given a monthâs sick leave. Having no near relations or friends, I was trying to make up my mind what to do, when I ran across John Cavendish. I had seen very little of him for some years. Indeed, I had never known him particularly well. He was a good fifteen years my senior, for one thing, though he hardly looked his forty-five years. As a boy, though, I had often stayed at Styles, his motherâs place in Essex.
We had a good yarn about old times, and it ended in his inviting me down to Styles to spend my leave there.
âThe mater will be delighted to see you againâafter all those years,â he added.
âYour mother keeps well?â I asked.
âOh, yes. I suppose you know that she has married again?â
I am afraid I showed my surprise rather plainly. Mrs Cavendish, who had married Johnâs father when he was a widower with two sons, had been a handsome woman of middle-age as I remembered her. She certainly could not be a day less than seventy now. I recalled her as an energetic, autocratic personality, somewhat inclined to charitable and social notoriety, with a fondness for opening bazaars and playing the Lady Bountiful. She was a most generous woman, and possessed a considerable fortune of her own.
Their country-place, Styles Court, had been purchased by Mr Cavendish early in their married life. He had been completely under his wifeâs ascendancy, so much so that, on dying, he left the place to her for her lifetime, as well as the larger part of his income; an arrangement that was distinctly unfair to his two sons. Their stepmother, however, had always been most generous to them; indeed, they were so young at the time of their fatherâs remarriage that they always thought of her as their own mother.
Lawrence, the younger, had been a delicate youth. He had qualified as a doctor but early relinquished the profession of medicine, and lived at home while pursuing literary ambitions; though his verses never had any marked success.
John practised for some time as a barrister, but had finally settled down to the more congenial life of a country squire. He had married two years ago, and had taken his wife to live at Styles, though I entertained a shrewd suspicion that he would have preferred his mother to increase his allowance, which would have enabled him to have a home of his own. Mrs Cavendish, however, was a lady who liked to make her own plans, and expected other people to fall in with them, and in this case she certainly had the whip hand, namely: the purse strings.
John noticed my surprise at the news of his motherâs remarriage and smiled rather ruefully.
