Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Logic and Deduction
Love and Passion
Suspense, Intrigue, and Secrecy
Wealth, Inheritance, and Power
Summary
Analysis
The trial is to resume on Monday, but Poirot still hasn’t returned by Sunday morning. He finally reappears that afternoon and summons everyone in the London household, announcing that he has something important to say. He even invites Alfred Inglethorp, who has been staying nearby. When they’re all gathered, he reminds them of three things he found when he first investigated Mrs. Inglethorp’s bedroom: (1) a scrap of green fabric, (2) a stain on the carpet, and (3) an empty box of bromide powder. He explains that the green fabric was torn from a small green bracelet owned by Mary Cavendish, indicating that she entered Mrs. Inglethorp’s room through the door leading to Cynthia’s bedroom.
After a long investigation in which he largely kept important details and revelations to himself, Poirot finally sits everyone down to explain his findings. The first major thing he reveals is that the scrap of green fabric came from one of Mary’s bracelets, suggesting that she unbolted the door between Cynthia and Emily’s bedrooms—a door that otherwise always remained bolted. Because of this piece of information, the beginning of Poirot’s explanation casts suspicion on Mary.
Themes
Everyone stirs with excitement and confusion as Poirot presses on, reminding them that Mary Cavendish claimed at the inquest to have heard the bedside table fall over. However, Poirot conducted an experiment by placing Hastings near Mary’s room and then knocking over the bedside table—and Hastings heard nothing at all. Mary, then, was actually inside Mrs. Inglethorp’s bedroom when the table fell. Poirot suggests that Mary was looking for something in Emily’s room when Emily surprised her by starting to convulse. Mary dropped some candlewax in surprise and quickly ran into Cynthia’s room, bolting the door behind her. Because she could already hear people coming, she woke Cynthia up, acting as if she’d come to do so from the hall.
According to Poirot’s account, Mary’s behavior on the night of Emily’s death was certainly suspicious, but not because she intended to murder her mother-in-law. Rather, she was simply looking for something in Emily’s room when Emily started showing the effects of poisoning. What remains unclear, though, is what Mary needed to find so badly—or, for that matter, why she had to sneak into Emily’s room in the middle of the night to get it.
Themes
Mary Cavendish says that Poirot is correct. She didn’t reveal any of this in court because she didn’t think it would help prove John’s innocence. Poirot agrees, but he also clarifies to everyone else that Mary isn’t the one who destroyed the will—the only person who could have done that, Mary chimes in, is Mrs. Inglethorp herself. Hastings can’t believe his ears. He is once again flabbergasted and voices his utter surprise, but Poirot confirms what Mary has said. After all, he adds, why would Emily Inglethorp have had a fire going on one of the hottest nights of the entire year? The answer, of course, is that she needed to destroy the will.
Very early in the investigation, Poirot told Hastings to bear two things in mind: Alfred Inglethorp’s distinctive looks, and the weather on the day of Emily’s death. The importance of the second detail is now made clear, as Poirot points out that Emily died on one of the hottest nights of the year, meaning that she certainly didn’t need a fire in her bedroom to keep warm. Rather, she needed the fire because she wanted to destroy a will. The fact that so many of the characters overlooked this detail underscores the nature of Poirot’s genius, which lies in paying attention to the simple but crucial aspects of a case.
Themes
Literary Devices
Poirot says that Emily Inglethorp had two conversations on Tuesday the 17th in which she used very similar language, as she spoke about a “scandal between husband and wife.” The first conversation was with John Cavendish; the second one was with Dorcas. However, she was actually talking about two different scandals. Poirot explains that Mrs. Inglethorp spoke to John at 4:00 and threatened to reveal something to his wife (who, incidentally, overheard the conversation). At 4:30, Emily made a will leaving the Styles estate to Alfred. At 5:00, Dorcas found her holding a piece of paper. Emily was very upset and asked for a fire to be made. Poirot reasons that something must have happened between 4:30 and 5:00 to make Emily want to destroy the new will.
Even with Poirot’s explanation, the case gets a bit complicated here. From the information he has provided, it seems that Emily found out something about John Cavendish that made her want to ensure that her fortune wouldn’t revert to him after her death—she didn’t know, it seems, that marrying Alfred had already nullified her most recent will, which named John as her inheritor. She therefore made a new will in Alfred’s favor, but by the time Dorcas saw her at 5:00 that evening, something had happened to make her change her mind about Alfred inheriting her fortune.
Themes
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The strange thing, Poirot says, is that Emily was alone between 4:30 and 5:00. Knowing that she had no stamps in her desk, Poirot believes she broke into Alfred’s locked desk to borrow some, at which point she found the piece of paper that Dorcas later saw her holding—a piece of paper that she wasn’t meant to see. Mary Cavendish thought the piece of paper was a letter proving that John was having an affair, so she wanted to see it. But Emily wouldn’t give it to her. Mary then found the key to Emily’s dispatch case (which had been lost that morning). She unbolted the door between Cynthia and Emily’s room with the plan of returning later that night, and she drugged Cynthia so she wouldn’t wake up as she passed through her room.
Poirot has yet to reveal what the piece of paper that upset Emily Inglethorp so much actually said. Suffice it to say, whatever the paper had on it made her rethink her entire relationship with Alfred, pushing her to destroy the will she made in his favor. Mary, for her part, assumed the piece of paper had something to do with what she and Emily had argued about earlier—something, it seems, about John having an affair. Her suspicious behavior was therefore linked to her burning need to get ahold of the mysterious piece of paper in order to know one way or another if John cheated on her.
Themes
Suspecting that Mary Cavendish had drugged Cynthia’s coffee to make her fall fast asleep, Poirot had the coffee in all of the cups analyzed—but none of them contained anything out of the ordinary. When he learned that Dr. Bauerstein had joined everyone for coffee, though, he realized that there should have been yet another cup (including the broken one in Mrs. Inglethorp’s room). There was, in other words, a missing coffee cup. Furthermore, all of the coffee Poirot had analyzed contained sugar, suggesting that Cynthia’s cup was the missing one, since she doesn’t take sugar in her coffee.
Poirot’s impressive powers of deduction led him to the discovery that Cynthia’s coffee cup was missing, and though this might seem somewhat trivial, it’s exactly the kind of small discrepancy that Poirot looks for when investigating a case. Finding the missing coffee cup, he knew, would help him build a clearer picture of what happened on the evening of Emily’s death—and since there are so many suspects and possible ways that Emily might have been poisoned, it was important for him to follow up on every potential lead.
Themes
At this point, Poirot shifts his attention to the cup of cocoa that Annie thought someone had spilled salt into. He had a sample of the cocoa analyzed, even though Dr. Bauerstein had already taken it to the lab—Bauerstein, after all, was only testing for strychnine. Poirot discovered that there was, indeed, a drowsy narcotic present in the cocoa. It was also present in Cynthia’s coffee cup, which Lawrence later found in a brass vase. Mary Cavendish, Poirot explains, drugged both Emily Inglethorp and Cynthia so that she could sneak into their rooms at night.
Since things can get a bit confusing in this investigation, it might help to reiterate what Poirot has just explained. Acting on the belief that Emily possessed a piece of paper proving John’s infidelity, Mary put a sleeping drug into Cynthia’s coffee so that she could sneak through her room and into Emily’s room in the middle of the night. She also put the same sleeping drug into Emily’s cocoa, which was sitting in the hall. Although it certainly seems quite sinister that she drugged Emily, then, the fact is that she did so for fairly innocent reasons.
Themes
As soon as she realized that Mrs. Inglethorp had been poisoned, Mary thought she herself accidentally killed the old woman. She therefore hid Cynthia’s coffee cup in the vase, but she couldn’t get rid of the cocoa without attracting suspicion. Thankfully for her, she soon realized that Emily Inglethorp died from strychnine and not the drug Mary herself slipped into her drink. But, Poirot says, this is why the strychnine took so long to kick in: the sleeping drug delayed its effects.
One of the case’s major discrepancies has now been solved. Strychnine is a drug that acts very quickly, so it didn’t make sense that Emily only started showing effects of poisoning in the early hours of the morning. Now, though, Poirot has managed to account for this confusing detail by discovering that the sleeping aid Mary Cavendish put in Emily’s cocoa held off the effects of the strychnine.
Themes
Lawrence interjects to say that it all makes sense now: the sleeping drug held off the effects of the drugged coffee. But Poirot stops him. The coffee, he says, was not drugged. After all, Emily Inglethorp didn’t even drink the coffee, since it spilled all over the carpet when she set it down on the unsteady bedside table. The strychnine, then, wasn’t in the coffee. It was in Emily’s medicine. Hastings blurts out that the murderer must have added strychnine to Emily’s tonic, but Poirot reminds him that the murderer didn’t need to add it—her tonic already contained strychnine.
Hastings once again gets so excited that he jumps to conclusions. Poirot, however, maintains his levelheaded approach and calmly informs everyone of an important detail: Emily’s tonic already contained strychnine. Of course, this detail actually isn’t a major revelation, since Lawrence already pointed it out at the initial inquest. However, Dr. Wilkins insisted at the inquest that there wasn’t enough strychnine in Emily’s tonic to kill her. Poirot will therefore have to account for how, exactly, the strychnine in Emily’s medicine was strong enough to be fatal.
Themes
Instead of adding strychnine, the murderer only needed to add Emily’s bromide powder to the tonic. Poirot learned from a pharmaceutical book that bromide can cause strychnine to crystallize, leading it to build up at the bottom of a bottle. Poirot then suggests that the person who poured Emily’s tonic for her each night was careful to only serve her the liquid on top, meaning that all of the strychnine built up in the bottom of the bottle. The last dose, then, was sure to kill her, since it contained a huge amount of strychnine.
The inherent genius of this murder case is its relative simplicity: the murderer didn’t need to do anything except make sure that a lethal ingredient that was already present in Emily’s medicine built up at the bottom of the bottle. Then, the only thing the murderer had to do was wait for Emily to take the final dose, which would contain nothing but a highly concentrated amount of strychnine. Because this tactic is so simple, though, it doesn’t account for all of the other clues (and red herrings) that have cropped up throughout the novel—details Poirot will have to account for in his explanation of what happened.
Themes
Poirot believes that the murder was clearly supposed to happen on Monday, not Tuesday. That’s why Emily’s bell was tampered with on Monday, for instance. But Emily forgot to take her last dose of medicine that night. She therefore took the fatal dose the next day, and it’s because of this delay that Poirot was able to crack the case. He now whips out a letter and declares that it was written by the murderer. The letter itself is addressed to Evelyn Howard and tells her not to worry—there has been a delay, but everything will surely happen the following day. “There’s a good time coming once the old woman is dead and out of the way,” the murderer writes, adding that Evelyn was a genius to think of using the bromide powders. The letter ends abruptly and without a signature.
Poirot hasn’t yet said who wrote this letter to Evelyn, but the letter itself reveals that Evelyn Howard was an accomplice to the murderer. It was, the letter clarifies, Evelyn’s idea to use bromide powder to crystallize the strychnine in Emily’s tonic, thus ensuring that she would take a lethal dose at the bottom of the bottle. Of course, it’s not yet clear why Evelyn would want to kill Emily, especially since she’s (supposedly) her best friend, but the fact that she’s guilty of helping kill the old woman does make sense of her behavior earlier in the novel—Poirot, for his part, noted early on that her vehemence toward Alfred Inglethorp seemed suspicious.
Themes
As Poirot reads aloud, Alfred Inglethorp stands. “You devil! How did you get it?” he yells before lunging at Poirot, who gracefully steps aside. Poirot takes this opportunity to officially reveal the murderer himself, gesturing to Alfred Inglethorp as he careens to the floor.
Poirot doesn’t need to explain his careful detective work in order to reveal Alfred as the murderer; rather, Alfred reveals himself by losing his temper and hurling himself at Poirot. In doing so, he effectively helps Poirot solve the mystery, though there are still many loose ends that need to be tied up.
Themes
