The Mysterious Affair at Styles characters

Also known as Captain Hastings

Appears from the start

An English army officer invalided home from the Western Front, recovering on sick leave when an old friend invites him to convalesce at Styles Court. Amiable, conventional, and rather too ready to be impressed by whoever he has spoken to last, he has a private ambition to try his hand at detection. He narrates the case, recording what he sees and what he is told, and he is often several steps behind the man he brings into it.

First appears in chapter 2

A retired Belgian police detective, small, precise, and elaborately moustached, living in the nearby village among a party of war refugees whose settlement Mrs Inglethorp has paid for. He limps a little and dresses with fastidious care, insists on order in small things, and prefers to sit and reason from the arrangement of a room rather than crawl about measuring footprints. Hastings knew him years earlier in Belgium and holds his abilities in high regard.

Appears from the start

The elderly mistress of Styles Court in Essex, an energetic and autocratic woman who controls the money that keeps the household and much of the district going. She sits on committees, organises war charities, and expects gratitude. The estate came to her from her first husband, and her stepsons live on her allowance rather than on any inheritance of their own. She has recently married a much younger man, to the dismay of her family.

Appears from the start

Mrs Inglethorp's new husband, some twenty years her junior, with a long black beard, thick spectacles, and a stiff, ceremonious manner. He is a distant relation of her companion, appeared in the district only recently, and is universally assumed by the household and the village to have married for money. He takes charge of his wife's affairs and is disliked by every member of the family.

Appears from the start

Mrs Inglethorp's elder stepson and Hastings's friend, who invites him to Styles. A country magistrate of middle age, he farms a little, keeps up appearances on an allowance from his stepmother, and resents both his dependence and her new marriage. His own marriage is visibly cool, and there is village talk of his attentions to a farmer's young wife.

Appears from the start

John Cavendish's wife, striking and reserved, with a stillness that Hastings finds difficult to read. She keeps her own counsel, moves about the grounds alone, and is on distant terms with her husband. She is on friendlier terms with a London specialist staying in the village, which the household notices.

Appears from the start

The younger Cavendish brother, a qualified doctor who never practised and now writes indifferent verse. Diffident, moody, and easily flustered, he lives at Styles on the same allowance as his brother. He is fond of the young dispenser who lodges with the family and worries about her more than he admits.

Appears from the start

Mrs Inglethorp's companion and factotum for some years, a large, weather-beaten, plain-spoken woman who runs errands, gardens, and manages the household's practical business. She is devoted to her employer and states her opinions without softening them, chief among them that the new husband is a fortune hunter. Her insistence on saying so provokes a quarrel that drives her from the house.

Appears from the start

A young woman without means whom Mrs Inglethorp has taken in as a protegee. Cheerful and lively, she works at the dispensary of the local Red Cross hospital, where she makes up prescriptions and has ready access to the poisons cupboard. Hastings admires her considerably.

First appears in chapter 2

A distinguished London specialist in toxicology, staying in the village ostensibly to rest after a breakdown in health. Dark, saturnine, and formal, he is a frequent visitor at Styles, where he is on notably good terms with Mary Cavendish. He is given to long solitary walks at night, which the neighbourhood finds odd in a convalescent.

First appears in chapter 3

The elderly parlourmaid at Styles, long in Mrs Inglethorp's service and loyal to her. She carries the household's coffee and cocoa, knows the routine of the bedrooms, and overhears a quarrel in the boudoir on the afternoon before the tragedy. Her account of times and small domestic details becomes important evidence.

First appears in chapter 10

A Scotland Yard detective inspector, brisk and cheerful, who has worked with Poirot on Continental cases and treats him with amused respect. He is sent down to Styles once the death becomes a police matter and is prepared to act on the evidence in front of him.