Chapter1-1——I Go to Styles
The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as 'The
Styles Case' 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 rumors 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 month's 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 have 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 mother’s place in
Ess-ex.
We had a good yarn about old times, and it ended in his inviting me down to Styles to
spend my leave there.
'The mater will be delighted to see you again--after all those years,’ he added.
'Your mother keeps well?’ I asked.
'Oh, yes. I suppose you know that she has married again?’
I am afraid I showed my surprise rather plainly. Mrs Cavendish, who had married
John’s 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, some what 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 wife’s 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 father’s 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 she certainly had the whip hand,
namely: the purse strings.