20. The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Air date: 16/09/1990
Published: 1920

With a symmetry that would doubtless have pleased Poirot himself, the second TV series ended as it had begun - with a feature-length adaptation of a novel.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles has a special place in the canon of crime fiction, being Agatha Christie's first published novel. As such, it introduces Hercule Poirot to the world. Hastings' famous and oft-quoted description refers to him as a man barely five feet four inches tall, with a head that was "exactly the shape of an egg" and always perched on one side, a moustache that was "very stiff and military", and an incredible neatness of attire.

The book is set towards the end of World War One, with Hastings convalescing from a war wound. The TV producers chose (wisely, in my opinion) to retain the setting. Thus - flashbacks aside - this is the only Poirot episode to be set earlier than the swish art-deco 1930s setting that had been established from the start. Hastings is frequently in military uniform, and appears to have darker hair, while Poirot has a plainer suit, a different style of neck-tie, a black bowler hat, and slightly more hair!

As with Peril at End House at the beginning of series two, the TV production is remarkably faithful to the original. The Mysterious Affair at Styles is, I think, a cracking good story (and no doubt helped to quickly establish Christie's reputation) - and the TV version does real justice to it.

It concerns a family known to Hastings, and with whom he stays as part of his convalescence. The step-mother of his friend John Cavandish - herself now a widow - has recently re-married. When the step-mother is poisoned, the finger of suspicion falls initially on the new husband, Alfred Inglethorp. Mrs Inglethorp's companion, Evie Howard, is particularly vehement in her denunciation of him.

Poirot is keen, however, that the police do not arrest and charge him, and establishes an alibi for him. Later John is arrested and his trial for murder begins.

Eventually Poirot uncovers that it was Inglethorp - in cahoots with Miss Howard - who planned and executed the whole thing. Poirot's earlier behaviour was because he believed part of Inglethorp's plan was to be charged, but then acquitted - on the basis that, under English law, a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime.

The clues come thick and fast, and the script writers did an excellent job in managing to shoe-horn most of the detail in. On the whole the sequence of events is followed very faithfully although, inevitably, there are a few omissions and condensed elements. The complication that Mrs Inglethorp died a night later than planned is ignored, while one character Dr Bauerstein (who gets arrested on charges of espionage!) is left out. In the book Cavendish's wife Mary is showing an unhealthy interest in him, possibly in response to Cavendish having a fling with a local village women, Mrs Raikes. For the TV version Cavandish's indiscretion is less apparent - in the end all that is clear is that he has given Mrs Raikes some money by way of a loan. The detail that Mrs Inglethorp was the step-mother of John (and his brother Lawrence) is omitted for TV.

The original novel also introduces Inspector Japp to the world. Hastings' description, of  "a little, sharp, dark, ferret-faced man" hardly accords with the excellent TV portrayal by Philip Jackson!