# The Mysterious Affair at Styles — Character guide

> Key figures in The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie.

- [Hercule Poirot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/hercule_poirot.md): A retired Belgian detective with egg-shaped head and impeccable moustaches, quietly untangling the poisoner's knot at Styles while everyone else chases the obvious suspect.
- [John Cavendish](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/john_cavendish.md): The elder son of Styles Court, a genial country squire whose easy charm masks mounting debts and a marriage straining under his mother's purse strings.
- [Emily Inglethorp](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/emily_inglethorp.md): The autocratic mistress of Styles Court, whose late remarriage to a man half her age has scandalized her stepchildren and unsettled every expectation of inheritance.
- [Alfred Inglethorp](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/alfred_inglethorp.md): Emily's much younger husband, a bearded, spectacle-wearing outsider whose evasions and mysterious absences make him the household's favorite suspect.
- [Mary Cavendish](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/mary_cavendish.md): John's beautiful, self-possessed wife, whose cool composure and unexplained movements on the night of the death keep drawing Hastings's suspicious eye.
- [Evelyn Howard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/evelyn_howard.md): Mrs. Inglethorp's blunt, devoted companion, whose abrupt departure from Styles just before the murder leaves behind more questions than anyone expected.
- [Cynthia Murdoch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/cynthia_murdoch.md): Cynthia Murdoch is the orphaned daughter of an old friend of Mrs. Inglethorp's, kept at Styles as a kind of cheerful dependent and put to work in the village hospital dispensary. She is bright, unguarded, and perpetually
- [Lawrence Cavendish](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/lawrence_cavendish.md): Lawrence Cavendish gave up medicine for verse and lives at Styles on his stepmother's charity, overshadowed by his more robust brother John. He is sensitive, moody, and visibly strained by the household's new arrangement
- [Dorcas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/dorcas.md): Dorcas has served the Cavendish household for years and knows its rhythms, feuds, and secrets better than anyone alive. She is loyal to her mistress but not blind, and her careful recollections of locked doors, overheard
- [Dr. Bauerstein](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/dr_bauerstein.md): Dr. Bauerstein is a foreign specialist staying in the neighborhood, consulted by the family and whispered about by the village for his eccentric hours and his apparent closeness to Mrs. Cavendish. His professional knowle
- [Inspector Japp](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/inspector_japp.md): Inspector Japp arrives at Styles with a warrant in his pocket and a tidy theory that Alfred Inglethorp did it, and he is not pleased to be told the case is anything but clear. He is a working policeman under pressure fro
- [Arthur Hastings](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/arthur_hastings.md): Hastings narrates the affair from the inside, invited to Styles by John Cavendish just in time to witness the household's tensions and the poisoning that follows. He is warm, impulsive, and romantically inclined — especi
- [Sir Ernest Heavywether](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mysterious_affair_at_styles_se/characters/sir_ernest_heavywether.md): Sir Ernest Heavywether belongs to the rarefied London legal world that the Styles case suddenly draws into a quiet Essex village, and his reputation precedes him into the courtroom. His cross-examinations are legendary f

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