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Chapter 3: The Night of the Tragedy
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
On his way to get Poirot, Hastings encounters Alfred Inglethorp in town. Inglethorp acts devastated about his wife’s death, saying that he just heard the news. Suspicious, Hastings asks where he has been, and he claims that the accountant he visited the night before kept him late, and then he realized he’d forgotten to bring the key, so he stayed with the banker in town. He laments the loss of his wife, talking about how “noble” she was, and his words disgust Hastings, who thinks he’s a hypocrite to say such nice things about a woman he clearly murdered.
Alfred Inglethorp’s story about staying in town is somewhat fishy, especially since everyone suspected him of wanting to steal Emily’s money before Emily even died. Now that she has seemingly been murdered, Alfred’s behavior seems even more suspect. No matter what he says in this moment, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to dispel Hastings’s feeling that he was the one who killed Emily Inglethorp.
Themes
Hastings leaves Alfred Inglethorp and goes to Poirot’s and explains everything that has happened. Poirot urges him to take a moment to collect his thoughts—that way, they will be able to put the events together and arrange the details. They will then discard the facts that are unimportant. But Hastings has trouble identifying which facts are important and which ones aren’t, so Poirot explains that each detail has to make sense with everything else. They have to put the facts in sequential order, and if each one leads logically to the next, then they can continue on with their thought process. But if a fact doesn’t lead logically to the next, they must find the missing link in the chain of events. No detail, he says, is too small to investigate.
Right away, Poirot emphasizes the importance of maintaining an organized, disciplined approach to the investigation. In order to discern which details are worthy of deeper consideration, he and Hastings need to look for gaps in the story, or places where something doesn’t make sense. What’s clear is that Poirot believes in thinking about things rationally instead of emotionally. Because Hastings is overcome by excitement and confusion, Poirot urges him to take a moment to regain his composure.
Themes
Literary Devices
Poirot points out that Hastings has left out an important detail—namely, whether or not Mrs. Inglethorp ate well on the night of her death. Hastings is dumbfounded by this question and doesn’t understand why it’s important. Poirot is surprised by his friend’s ignorance, but he doesn’t say why the detail is so crucial. Slightly annoyed, Hastings says he doesn’t think Mrs. Inglethorp ate very much, since she was too upset to have a big appetite. Satisfied with this answer, Poirot says he’s ready to go to Styles.
Poirot doesn’t clarify why he wants to know about Emily Inglethorp’s diet on the night of her death, though it seems likely that he’s trying to figure something out about how she metabolized the poison. Still, his unwillingness to loop Hastings in establishes a pattern that will run throughout the novel—a pattern of Poirot having a hunch but refusing to tell Hastings what it is, thus adding to the novel’s overall suspense.
Themes
When they reach Styles, Poirot and Hastings pause outside the house. Poirot remarks how beautiful it is but notes that the family’s grief has surely tempered this beauty. His comment prompts Hastings to think about how nobody really seems to care much about Mrs. Inglethorp’s death. Poirot senses what he’s thinking and revises what he has said, acknowledging that Mrs. Inglethorp wasn’t related by blood to anybody currently living at Styles, so it makes sense that nobody is prostrate with grief.
The fact that nobody at Styles Court seems particularly sad about Emily Inglethorp’s death effectively throws suspicion on everyone, making it seem as if anybody living at Styles could be the murderer. And yet, there’s also another possible explanation as to why nobody is too broken up about her death: indeed, it’s possible that she simply wasn’t all that likable.
Themes
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Hastings still wants to know why Poirot cares about what Mrs. Inglethorp ate the night before. Poirot, for his part, reminds Hastings that he doesn’t usually like to explain his thought process until he has figured everything out, but he acquiesces: the reason Mrs. Inglethorp’s dinner is important is because strychnine usually takes effect very quickly. But Mrs. Inglethorp didn’t show any effects of poisoning until 5 in the morning, roughly nine hours after she most likely drank the coffee. If she had eaten a very heavy meal, it’s possible that the large amount of food would have slowed the process, but the fact that she didn’t eat much doesn’t account for this discrepancy.
Poirot’s point about the time it takes for strychnine to take effect demonstrates his highly logical thought process. If someone were to have poisoned Emily’s coffee with strychnine, it should have taken effect much faster than it did—unless, of course, she ate a big meal, which Hastings confirms she did not. Poirot has thus already found a detail that doesn’t make sense, giving him something to focus on as they go into the investigation.
Themes
After obtaining the key from John, Poirot and Hastings go through Emily’s room. Poirot pays meticulous attention to every small detail. He inspects the bolt on the door between Mrs. Inglethorp and Cynthia’s rooms, eventually taking out some forceps and extracting something delicate from the bolt itself. He also finds a cup and saucer on a chest of drawers. There’s liquid on the saucer, so he dips his finger into it and tastes it, discovering that it’s cocoa with a little bit of rum. There’s also a bedside table that has been knocked over. Beside it there’s a coffee cup that has been crushed. What’s strange, though, is that a lamp lying next to it is broken very neatly. In contrast, the coffee cup has been ground into a fine powder, suggesting that somebody stepped on it.
Once again, the novel presents a scene that is packed with details, all of which are currently unintelligible but will soon become important. For now, though, it’s immediately clear that the broken coffee cup is especially suspicious, since it seems as if somebody has intentionally destroyed it—perhaps to cover up the fact that it contained strychnine.
Themes
Poirot finds a ring of keys on the floor. He discovers that one of them opens Mrs. Inglethorp’s purple dispatch case, but he doesn’t read the papers contained inside—he doesn’t have the “authority” to do that, though he says somebody should review the papers as soon as possible. He then examines a brown stain on the carpet before declaring that the room has yielded a handful of “points of interest.” They are: (1) the coffee cup that has been ground into a powder; (2) Mrs. Inglethorp’s dispatch case and the key that opens it; (3) the stain on the carpet, which is damp and smells like coffee; (4) a small strand of green fabric taken from the bolt on the door leading to Cynthia’s room; and (5) some spots of candlewax on the rug.
Poirot’s examination of the room yields quite a few clues, but it’s not yet clear to Hastings—or, for that matter, to most readers—why these clues are important or what they mean. As Poirot goes through everything he found, the novel highlights his extraordinary skill for detective work, framing his thought process as a marvel of logical deduction, though it remains to be seen what, exactly, he has deduced from these findings.
Themes
Hastings thinks the candlewax on the rug was from Lawrence’s candle the previous night, but Poirot disagrees—Lawrence’s candle, after all, is still sitting nearby and is made of pink wax, whereas the wax on the carpet is white. Poirot believes that Mrs. Inglethorp didn’t have a candle in the room with her, but he won’t tell Hastings what this implies, instead urging his friend to use his own powers of deduction. To that end, he withholds his final “point[] of interest,” saying that he’d like to keep the sixth thing he’s found to himself for a while.
Poirot’s tendency to keep certain theories or findings to himself suggests that he prefers to mull things over before he speaks them aloud. It also suggests that he sees value in keeping certain things quiet, as if detective work involves a similar kind of secrecy as committing a crime.
Themes
Before leaving Mrs. Inglethorp’s bedroom, Poirot checks the fireplace for any clues. Sure enough, he finds a small scrap of unburnt paper. The only legible letters on it are: “ll and.” However, the paper itself seems thick and official, suggesting that it was once a will. Although Hastings is quite surprised, Poirot is not—he expected to find the remnants of a will in the fire.
The existence of a burned-up will adds a new layer of complexity to the case, since the question of who will inherit Emily Inglethorp’s wealth is something that has clearly been weighing on everyone’s mind. In fact, her fortune is most likely the reason somebody murdered her in the first place, though that person might have had to somehow change her will—or, perhaps, destroy it.
Themes
Poirot goes to ask Dorcas some questions in the boudoir. On his way, he stops to admire some beautiful flowerbeds outside Mrs. Inglethorp’s bedroom. Hastings hurries him along by saying they have more important things to do, but Poirot suggests that the begonias before them might be just as important as anything else. Finally, though, he moves on and begins his interview with Dorcas, who tells him that she overheard Mrs. Inglethorp’s argument with her husband the previous day. Apparently, Emily Inglethorp accused Alfred of lying to and tricking her, and she said that he had brought disgrace to her household. She also said that she had already decided what to do and that the prospect of a “scandal” wouldn’t stop her from doing what she must.
Poirot’s enigmatic comments about the flowerbeds underscore his belief that no detail is too small to overlook—everything, he thinks, could potentially play into the case. His conversation with Dorcas sheds a bit of light onto Emily’s state of mind on her last day alive, as she seems to have been disturbed by the prospect of some sort of scandal. The snippet that Dorcas overheard aligns with Evelyn Howard’s suggestion that Alfred is having an affair, though there’s not enough information yet to confirm this.
Themes
Poirot asks Dorcas if she’s sure that Mrs. Inglethorp was arguing with her husband. Dorcas is confident in this regard, asking who else it would have been, if not Alfred Inglethorp. She continues by saying that Mrs. Inglethorp summoned her a little later. She was holding a piece of paper with writing on it, and she seemed very troubled. She said, “These few words—and everything’s changed.” She also told Dorcas to never trust a man. Before Dorcas left, Mrs. Inglethorp also muttered something about marital scandals, saying she would certainly “hush” everything up if she could.
While Dorcas is sure that Emily was arguing with Alfred, Poirot isn’t so sure—after all, doing good detective work means getting to the bottom of every last detail, not making assumptions simply because they’re convenient. As far as Poirot is concerned, then, Emily could have been arguing with almost anyone, since nobody has fully confirmed that she was talking to Alfred. Dorcas’s information about the piece of paper in Emily’s hands later that day only adds to the confusion, though it does align with the idea that she was doing something to her will, since she said that everything would be “changed” with just a “few words.”
Themes
Dorcas notes that Mrs. Inglethorp probably put the piece of paper she’d been holding into her purple dispatch case. Moving on, Poirot asks Dorcas if Mrs. Inglethorp took a sleeping powder last night. She normally does, Dorcas informs him, but she didn’t last night, since she took her last dose two days ago. After Dorcas leaves, Hastings asks how Poirot knew that Mrs. Inglethorp uses sleeping powders. Poirot takes out a small box that pharmacists use to store bromide powder, and though it looks normal to Hastings, Poirot points out that the box doesn’t have the name of the pharmacist on it.
The box of bromide powders is the final clue that Poirot found in Emily’s room but decided not to mention. The fact that Hastings doesn’t notice anything strange about the box underscores his tendency to overlook small details, especially when Poirot notes the absence of a pharmacist’s name—a sign that the box itself might have been obtained in an unusual, potentially suspicious way.
Themes
Next, Poirot interviews Annie, a younger servant at Styles. Annie knows about the letters Mrs. Inglethorp wrote the previous night—specifically, who they were addressed to, since she was the one who sent them out. One was to Evelyn Howard, the other was to her lawyer (Mr. Wells), one was to a caterer’s establishment, and the fourth letter Annie can’t recall. Before letting Annie go, Poirot asks about the saucepan of cocoa in Mrs. Inglethorp’s room. Annie explains that she herself brought Mrs. Inglethorp this cocoa every night. It consisted of cocoa, milk, sugar, and a little bit of rum. She would bring it to Mrs. Inglethorp just before bed, though not before letting the cocoa sit on a side table in the hall for a while first.
Given that strychnine usually takes effect quite quickly, it’s possible that it was in Emily’s cocoa—not in her coffee. After all, she tended to drink the cocoa later at night, potentially accounting for why she didn’t start convulsing until the early hours of the next morning. By interviewing Annie, then, Poirot has uncovered yet another detail to further investigate.
Themes
Annie becomes increasingly agitated as she talks about the cocoa. She finally admits that there was salt on the tray and that it might have gotten into the cocoa, though she served it to Mrs. Inglethorp anyway. Hastings becomes incredibly excited, thinking that he and Poirot have found the cause of Mrs. Inglethorp’s death. Poirot, however, stays calm and moves on. He asks if Annie saw candle wax on the carpet when she brought the cocoa to Mrs. Inglethorp, and Annie says that she didn’t—Mrs. Inglethorp never had a candle, just a reading lamp.
Hastings lets his excitement get the better of him. Of course, it does seem quite important that some sort of substance might have made its way into Emily Inglethorp’s cocoa, but Poirot doesn’t seem to latch onto this detail like Hastings does—perhaps because he recognizes the importance of verifying such ideas before jumping to conclusions. Instead of getting hung up on the cocoa, then, he continues to ask questions, ultimately confirming that somebody must have entered Mrs. Inglethorp’s bedroom, since the candlewax on the carpet couldn’t have been from her light source, considering that she never used candles in her bedroom.
Themes
Literary Devices
After Annie leaves, Hastings giddily congratulates Poirot, thinking he’s made a great discovery. But Poirot doesn’t know what he’s talking about, so Hastings explains that the “salt” in the cocoa must have been the strychnine—what else could it have been? “It might have been salt,” Poirot says. His comment annoys Hastings, who secretly thinks his friend might have lost his touch for detective work. Poirot senses his annoyance and asks if he disagrees with him, but Hastings standoffishly remarks that they’re both entitled to their own opinions.
For Poirot, being a good detective means never getting carried away with an idea. Everything has to fit into a narrative that makes sense, but that doesn’t necessarily mean something that seems obvious is true. To that end, Poirot recognizes that the substance that looked like salt in the cocoa might have been strychnine, but it also might have been salt. Hastings, on the other hand, lets his excitement overwhelm him, and though it’s unclear whether or not the cocoa contained poison, it seems likely that Hastings’s unfounded confidence in this moment could potentially cause him to overlook other important pieces of evidence.
Themes
Before they leave the boudoir, Poirot goes over to Alfred Inglethorp’s writing desk. It’s locked, but he manages to open it with one of the keys from Mrs. Inglethorp’s keyring, which he has in his possession—the key itself isn’t a perfect fit, but it still opens the desk. Inside, Poirot sees that Alfred is incredibly organized, which he admires. To Hastings’s surprise, he doesn’t look at any of the documents, though he makes a remark that Hastings finds inscrutable: that there aren’t any stamps in the desk but that there could have been. He then closes the door and turns to leave.
Poirot’s process as a detective isn’t all that easy to track. At this stage in the investigation, he’s simply collecting as much information as he can, and though most of the things he finds don’t make sense yet, his mysterious remarks add to the novel’s suspense and put readers in the same confused but fascinated state of mind as Hastings himself.
Themes
The boudoir didn’t give them much information, Poirot says. It did, however, produce something of interest. He pulls out a wrinkled envelope, upon which somebody has written the following in a nonlinear fashion: “posessed I am posessed He is possessed I am possessed possessed.”
The piece of paper Poirot finds in the boudoir is rather bewildering, ultimately adding to Hastings’s—and, in turn, the reader’s—sense of confusion and intrigue. Indeed, as Poirot continues to investigate, the case seems to become increasingly complex and layered.
Themes
