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 Agatha Christie posted:There are moments when I have felt: Why-Why-Why did I ever invent this detestable, bombastic, tiresome little creature? ...Eternally straightening things, eternally boasting, eternally twirling his moustaches and tilting his egg-shaped head... I point out that by a few strokes of the pen... I could destroy him utterly. He replies, grandiloquently: "Impossible to get rid of Poirot like that! He is much too clever." I first picked up an Agatha Christie novel about a decade ago. Fortunately for me, I chose a very good one. Not from the Poirot series, nor any of her other recurring characters, instead, it was the several times renamed And Then There Were None. Apparently there was a poll some years ago that concluded this was the most popular Christie book. I’m not prepared to call it my favorite, but it’s a good solid read, I highly recommend it. The movie version from 1945 is also excellent, I haven’t seen any of the other versions. I was hooked on Agatha Christie after I finished the book, and from there moved on to every other Christie book my local library had to offer. I’m not near to talk about that book. I’m here to talk about Christie’s first published novel, and the series it spawned. A series of mystery novels that began as a cheap ripoff of Sherlock Holmes, but with a talented writer at the helm, one who realized she didn’t need to pretend to be Arthur Conan Doyle to be successful. A series that spawned dozens of novels and even more short stories (note that there’s some overlap, some shorter stories were later expanded into longer stories or entire novels). Many of which adapted into films, nearly all of them adapted for TV. Having been reminded about the series from Death on the Nile being on shelves again because of the movie (I still need to see both Branagh movies, though I've heard they're pretty good), and having recently obtained an ebook collection of the entire series (including several I haven’t had a chance to read before because my library doesn’t have them) and I’m going to (not-so) briefly comment on each chapter as I reread this series (and read for the first time the ones I haven't gotten to). Yes, I did just decide to tackle commenting on 50+ years of stories about an old guy with a funny accent solving crimes. Yes, I am an idiot. His name is Hercule Poirot (Air-kyul Pwah-roh). (I am not a French speaker, please don’t take my word for it on the pronunciation) These are his stories. Read along if you like, no spoilers. The first two novels and first short story collection are in the public domain (in the US, your country may vary), and so are available on Project Gutenberg. Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Aug 18, 2022 |
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Aug 15, 2022 06:45
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 The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) The blurb posted:This novel was originally written as the result of a bet, that the author, who had previously never written a book, could not compose a detective novel in which the reader would not be able to "spot" the murderer, although having access to the same clues as the detective. The author has certainly won her bet, and in addition to a most ingenious plot of the best detective type she has introduced a new type of detective in the shape of a Belgian. This novel has had the unique distinction for a first book of being accepted by the Times as a serial for its weekly edition. Chapter 1: I Go to Styles The ‘I’ in this chapter title is not Hercule Poirot. None of the books written in first-person perspective are ever written from Poirot’s perspective, a necessity of the genre. If the reader is allowed to be inside the detective’s head from beginning to end, how can the author expect to hide important clues from the reader, so that they can be revealed at the end in the classic parlor room scene in front of all the involved parties just before unmasking the dastardly murderer? Christie loving loves that parlor room scene. I don’t believe she invented the trope, but she almost certianly is the author everybody else was copying when they started doing it. Instead, the first-person narrator of this book is Captain Arthur Hastings, and he’s absolutely nothing like Dr. John Watson. He’s just a soldier recently returned from war after being injured who happens to be friends with the detective main character and is in-universe the writer of the stories. He’s not stupid, but not as clever or observant as his detective friend, who he lives with for a while in London. Nope, absolutely no similarities at all. Certianly not an inexperienced author borrowing something from an established master of the craft to use as a crutch. She gets past her need for him fairly quickly, and although I quite like the character, her writing is much better off without relying on unneeded tropes. The time is 1916, two years into the first world war. The place is Britain, more specifically, a quaint country village, Styles St. Mary, Essex, where Hastings has been invited to stay with an old friend, John Cavendish, who lives with his wife, his brother, their stepmother, and her recent new husband. I’ve never been a member of the English gentry in the early 20th century, I’m not sure how common it was for grown-rear end married men to still live with their mothers. Or stepmother, as the case may be, although the text makes it clear that John’s father remarried young and he and his brother have a perfect mother-child relationship with Emily, even after their father died and left everything to her. No, the major issue with this family is the new stepfather, Alfred Inglethorp. John dislikes him, thinks he’s weird and a gold digger for marrying a woman 20 years older than him. Being set in Britain during the war, Christie sets the stage with a reminder for her readers of what life was like just a few years earlier. John Cavendish posted:"Got a drop or two of petrol still, you see," he remarked. "Mainly owing to the mater's activities." It's never explained why John refers to his stepmother as "the mater", he seems to be the only one in the family who does. Becuase Emily Inglethorpe provides a useful service for the war effort with the non-defined ”thousands of societies” she runs, or because she’s wealthy and well-connected, rationing is something that happens to other people. Although she does appear to make an actual effort toward conservation, even reusing and recycling every scrap of paper. Hastings soon meets Emily again for the first time since he was a boy, along with John’s wife, Mary, his brother, Lawrence, Emily’s companion, Evie Howard, and the new husband, Alfred Inglethorpe, who Hastings dislikes on sight, perhaps swayed by his friend’s opinions of the man before meeting him. Agatha Christie posted:I looked with some curiosity at "Alfred darling". He certainly struck a rather alien note. I did not wonder at John objecting to his beard. It was one of the longest and blackest I have ever seen. He wore gold-rimmed pince-nez, and had a curious impassivity of feature. It struck me that he might look natural on a stage, but was strangely out of place in real life. His voice was rather deep and unctuous. This is not the last time Hastings will form a strong first impression of somebody. Also present is Cynthia Murdoch, the daughter of a friend of Emily’s who moved in with the family after her parents’ deaths. Unlike everybody else here, she actually has a job, working for the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment, operating field hospitals, not military, but military-adjacent), specifically in the dispensary of the nearby Red Cross hospital. Speaking of gainful employment, the lunch conversation turns to Hastings and his own job, since he’s not a professional military man. Before the war, he worked for Lloyd’s of London (which I’m not British enough to understand properly, but they’re apparently somehow involved in the insurance industry but aren’t an insurance company), but he doesn’t want to go back to that. No, Captain Hastings wants to be a detective when the war is over, a private detective just like Sherlock Holmes. He was apparently inspired by a famous detective he befriended while in Belgium. Arthur Hastings posted:But really, seriously, I am awfully drawn to it. I came across a man in Belgium once, a very famous detective, and he quite inflamed me. He was a marvellous little fellow. He used to say that all good detective work was a mere matter of method. My system is based on his--though of course I have progressed rather further. He was a funny little man, a great dandy, but wonderfully clever." He hasn’t been named yet, but this is indeed the entire operating procedure of our titular protagonist. Hastings also briefly describes his Belgian friend: “He was a funny little man, a great dandy, but wonderfully clever.” He’s the first person in the series to call Poirot a dandy. He won’t be the last, and several less polite terms will get used as well. Hercule Poirot is not what anybody expects a great detective to be like. But we’ll get to him when the narrative does. The story doesn’t need a detective yet. It amuses me that Hastings thinks that switching careers from insurance to detectiving will be easy because he has a system that will work much better than the one developed by world famous super-detective. The next day, things come to a head. Evie has it out with Emily off-page, calling her an old fool and Alfred a gold digger, and that Alfred’s totally cheating on her with the pretty farmer’s wife across town. Emily takes the accusations about as well as you’d expect and gives her the boot. But before leaving, she takes a moment to corner Hastings along, asking him to watch out for Emily while he’s there Evie Howard posted:"Look after her, Mr. Hastings. My poor Emily. They're a lot of sharks--all of them. Oh, I know what I'm talking about. There isn't one of them that's not hard up and trying to get money out of her. I've protected her as much as I could. Now I'm out of the way, they'll impose upon her." I think Evie’s confused. People who need money get it from sharks, not the other way around. Still more characters get introduced. After everybody (except Emily and Alfred) say their goodbyes to Emily, Mary Cavendish leaves the group to greet her “great friend” Dr. Bauerstein. Dr. Bauerstein’s entire characterization consists of being “one of the greatest living experts on poisons” and being Jewish. Guess which trait is more important. Then John asks Hastings to take a walk with him while he tries to figure things out, where they see the aforementioned farmer’s wife: “a pretty young woman of gipsy type”. I’m not entirely clear what Christie is trying to say with that description. The chapter ends with John admitting to Hastings that Evie was right, he’s in a bad financial situation, he and his brother are broke, and although Emily has always been good to them, the purse strings have gotten tighter since her marriage… which reminds Hastings of Evie’s warning to watch out for Emily. Despite the warning and the admission John just made, his sense of foreboding isn’t about any of them. Arthur Hastings posted:For the first time I felt that, with Evelyn Howard, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security. Now that security was removed--and the air seemed rife with suspicion. The sinister face of Dr. Bauerstein recurred to me unpleasantly. A vague suspicion of every one and everything filled my mind. Just for a moment I had a premonition of approaching evil. Hastings, you literally only saw the guy for a few moments and didn’t even meet him! You have less to go on with this than your assumption that Alfred’s obviously a bad guy! Clearly it’s because they both have beards. Hastings is a beardist. *Strokes beard angrily* Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Aug 15, 2022 07:02
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Lloyd's is more like an insurance bourse than an insurance company. The people or corporations who underwrite the insurance policies don't work for Lloyd's, they're members of Lloyds. People who work for Lloyd's are brokers and whateverthefucks who knows it's all very English. tl;dr: Lloyd's isn't an insurance company because they won't insure anyone, but they will broker insurance for anyone.
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Aug 16, 2022 10:45
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Today, I learned the word 'bourse' which apparently means 'stock market', except French
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Aug 16, 2022 18:59
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quote:It's never explained why John refers to his stepmother as "the mater", he seems to be the only one in the family who does. As we probably all know, in England it is vitally important to know where one stands in the class system; far more so in 1918 than today, as Hastings will eventually show us. Many words in England are used as subtle (or less subtle) class shibboleths which aid in spotting people who are moving between classes. "Pardon" and "toilet" are two of the better-known ones; when it was claimed that Kate Middleton's mother had dared to say both those words in front of the Queen, they were reported as "allegations", a word usually reserved for criminal cases and political scandals. To the gutter press, it was yet more evidence that she was really far too middle-class to be socialising with royalty. (For more on this, see Nancy Mitford.) Calling one's parents "mater" and "pater" is one of these shibboleths; they're based on Latin words, and are so only used by the upper classes and the aristocracy who have all learned Latin at public school for several generations. (The alternatives are "mummy" and "daddy", or "ma" and "pa"). If Christie is doing this deliberately, the word "mater" appearing alongside "mother" could be taken as an indication that John's father appears to have married down a little (never mind that she appears to have had plenty of her own money; the correct implication may be that she's a nouveau-riche), and she's then taught her step-children to say "mother" and "father". Alternatively, it could just be that Christie, from an upper-middle Army family, didn't fully appreciate the significance of "mummy" and "daddy" for those slightly above her; or possibly she did, but intentionally didn't use them to make her characters a touch more relatable for a middle-class audience.
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Aug 17, 2022 01:03
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Good luck! Very excited for you to get to my faves (Roger Ackroyd, ABC Murders, Peril at End House) and the occasional deranged misfire (The Big Four). And for Christie to get fed up enough to insert a fictionalised version of herself who wanders around the stories, taking the mickey out of her own plot holes and complaining about adaptations always trying to give Poirot a female love interest.
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Aug 17, 2022 07:48
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Trin Tragula posted:If Christie is doing this deliberately, the word "mater" appearing alongside "mother" could be taken as an indication that John's father appears to have married down a little (never mind that she appears to have had plenty of her own money; the correct implication may be that she's a nouveau-riche), and she's then taught her step-children to say "mother" and "father". A point I bounced around a bit while reading the second chapter (comments on that coming shortly after revising), though I don't have anywhere near your level of understanding of British class conscientiousness to be able to make determinations like this. My guess is that, as you suggested, Mr. Cavendish married down and Emily, even though it's been decades (John is stated to be 15 years older than Hastings, who's old enough to have been established in a career before getting sent off to war), is still trying way too hard to fit in with the upper class twits. She frequently namedrops rich and powerful people she knows as if they're credentials she has to have everybody around her verify. I can't imagine grown adults calling their parents "mummy" and "daddy" without remembering that scene from Clue where Colonel Mustard lies about how he made his fortune, leading to everybody staring at him after he claims "I lost my mommy and daddy!" grobbo posted:Good luck! Very excited for you to get to my faves (Roger Ackroyd, ABC Murders, Peril at End House) and the occasional deranged misfire (The Big Four). It's good that she was able to take her mistakes in good humor, and we got a damned amusing character out of it. As for The Big Four... oh boy. We'll get to it when we get to it. I am determined to find something nice to say about that book. At least there's a few decent ones before I have to worry about it, and then a long stretch before having to deal with the oddball poo poo like The Clocks or Third Girl. I just noticed that my ebook collection doesn't have the short story anthologies, I'll have to find a copy of Poirot Investigates at some point, or just pick it up from the library and type any quotes I want, like some kind of savage caveman. Or use the weird, very probably unofficial, included compilation book that does have all the short stories and all the books with everything shoved into chronological order, with added screenshots from the TV series. My tablet hates it though, so probably not.
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Aug 17, 2022 08:30
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Chapter 2: The 16th and 17th of July Hasting helpfully starts this chapter telling the reader that he arrived at Styles on the 5th, so we’ve skipped ahead nearly two weeks. Apparently Hastings got a letter from Evie informing him of her new hospital job in a town some 15 miles down the road, with a request to inform her if Emily wanted to bury the hatchet. Hastings, meanwhile, has completely forgotten the foreboding feeling he had last chapter, and instead his only complaint about the past 11 days is that Mary keeps being friendly with Bauerstein, talking and going on walks with him. Doesn’t she know that he has a beard, and is therefore not to be trusted? I mean, the only other possible explanation is that he objects to Bauerstein being Jewish, and whoever heard of anti-Semitic people in the early 20th century? Completely unthinkable! I note that Hastings, despite being injured enough that he can’t do wars anymore, is apparently perfectly capable of playing tennis. I don’t know enough about World War I or the British army to have any kind of idea how badly you’d have to be injured to be sent home. Christie avoids Doyle’s error in mixing up where Watson’s injury was by simply never actually saying what happened to Hastings. The Poirot TV series had him walking with a cane for the early part of the episode adapting this book, until he decided he didn’t need it and gave it away at the first opportunity. They also implied that he’d developed some fairly serious PTSD, Despite this chapter being titled “the 16th and 17th”, it actually starts with a brief summation of the events of Saturday the 14th, in which Emily Inglethorp puts on several of the war effort-related events she runs (a charity bazaar and a undefined “entertainment” at which she reads a poem about the war), and The next day should logically be Sunday the 15th, but instead is somehow Monday the 16th, with the intervening Sunday just… not being there, somehow. A quick check indicates that the 16th of July, 1916 was a Sunday… oh dear, I’ve gone crosseyed. Numbers are not my strong suit. In any case, on the Monday that came a day after Saturday, Emily drags Hastings and Lawrence to a “luncheon party” she was invited to. Emily Inglethorp posted:"Such a charming invitation from Mrs. Rolleston. Lady Tadminster's sister, you know. The Rollestons came over with the Conqueror--one of our oldest families." Emily sure does loves to talk about how well connected she is. Oftentimes in stories featuring upper class twits, they talk up their own family history a great deal; Emily never does this, either for her own family, her first husband’s family, or Alfred’s. I suspect that Emily’s desperately trying to fit in with the class she married into and overdoing everything in the process. After the off-page fancy lunch, Lawrence takes Hastings with him to visit Cynthia at the dispensary, where they follow up on the previous chapters jokes about poisoning people with more jokes about poisoning people. Dame Agatha hasn’t yet got a strong handle on foreshadowing, she’ll get better later There’s a lot of talk about nurses at the hospital being overseen by a terrifying and tyrannical “Sister”. Was the Red Cross staffed by nuns in this time period? On the way back to Styles (the house), Hastings suddenly remembers that he wanted stamps, and ducks into the post office in Styles (the village) to pick some up, only to run into an unexpected figure from his past! Agatha Christie posted:As I came out again, I cannoned into a little man who was just entering. I drew aside and apologised, when suddenly, with a loud exclamation, he clasped me in his arms and kissed me warmly. Poirot, did you kiss a random stranger before determining that it was Hastings? Do you often greet people this way before figuring out if you know them? It only took a chapter and a half for the titular character to show up! This takes much longer in some other books, often not until there’s a body. Poirot, as it turns out, is a refugee in England, one of several Belgians living in a house in the village owned by Emily Inglethorp while Belgium is full of Germans. He is, needless to say, incredibly indebted toward Emily and her family. Before continuing on their trip back to Styles (the house), Hastings kindly describes his old friend for the reader. Arthur Hastings posted:Poirot was an extraordinary looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet, four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible. I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandyfied little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police. As a detective, his flair had been extraordinary, and he had achieved triumphs by unravelling some of the most baffling cases of the day. Most of these traits will go on to define Poirot for the rest of the series (I think this is the only book where he has the limp). Christie never properly describes the mustache behind it being impressively large, stiff (due to being waxed), and black. I always assumed a large handlebar mustache, similar to the one Branagh wears in his portrayal, but black and waxed. None of the actors who have portrayed Poirot on screen ever seem to have it exactly as I imagined. Poirot’s desire for impeccable tidiness, which includes not only his own cleanliness and appearance but that of everyone and everything around him, is often used to readers to claim he has OCD, because the average idiot has no idea what OCD is. In Poirot’s case, it’s less OCD (in which the sufferer is distressed or discomforted by their triggers); instead, it’s an attempt to control the world around him, that everything is easier to understand if it is neat and orderly (and only by his own standards and definitions of neat and orderly). I have an easier time seeing Poirot as autistic, rather than OCD, but I think Christie’s intent is that he’s just quirky. This is one of my gripes with Sophie Hannah's continuation of the series, she seems to have gone all-in on OCD Poirot. I’ll be bringing up my theory about Poirot’s control issues throughout this readthrough, we’ll see by the end if it makes more sense than the OCD explanation. To be fair, I suppose both is also a possibility. Christie tells us that Hastings spends the rest of the trip back regaling Lawrence and Cynthia with stories about Poirot’s mighty deeds as a Belgian police detective, but doesn’t actually commit any of them to the page. Only one of the many Poirot stories is set during this time period, we’ll get to it when I cover the short story collections. Thy finally get back to the house (Styles), to find Emily clearly distraught about something, but pretending not to be. She orders her maid to bring her stamps and make sure a fire is lit in her room. I knew Britain was a cheerless and sunless place where the only weather that exists is rain or gloomy cloud cover, but I had no idea it was so cold in July that you needed a roaring fire! Mary returns to the house not long after, also distressed about something; when Hastings snipes at her about going for a walk with Bauerstein, she only mentions that she didn’t go today before storming in to confront Emily about something. Because this is a mystery story and we the readers need to be given clues so we can pretend we’re solving the mystery and not just waiting for Poirot to give us the answer, Hastings overhears part of their conversation as he walks past the window to the tennis court. Mary Cavendish and Emily Inglethorp posted:Mary Cavendish was saying in the voice of a woman desperately controlling herself: Clearly nothing amiss at all here. When Hastings reaches the tennis court, Cynthia is waiting for him with the latest gossip. Emily’s bad mood is because she got into a fight with Alfred, or so Dorcas the maid told her she’d overheard. This genre would be terribly boring if people didn’t keep stopping to eavesdrop on conversations. Dorcas and Cynthia don’t know what the fight was about, but Hastings remembers what Evie said about Alfred and “Farmer Raikes’ pretty young wife” (this is the second time he describes her as “gipsy faced”, still no idea what the hell that description is supposed to mean, were certain facial features considered unique to Romani at this point?). Cynthia happily hopes that Alfred will be sent away for whatever terrible sin he’s committed. Because that’s the way marriage works, right? One fight and you’re out on the street waiting for divorce papers? Hastings wants to talk to John about the news, but apparently “something very momentous had occurred that afternoon”, and he was away. When Hastings goes down for dinner, he takes note of Alfred being present, and notes the “strange unreality” of him. Beardist prick. What did people with proper facial hair ever do to you? Emily is still upset through the meal, and Alfred is “unusually quiet”, but still doting on her as he was in the first chapter. As soon as the meal is over, she returns to her room, instructing Mary to have somebody bring her after-dinner coffee there, but she just had to finish something in time to make the evening post. Mary delegates the task to Cynthia, but Alfred instead steps in to take care of pouring the coffee and bringing it to his wife. Lawrence goes with him, leaving Hastings alone with two beautiful women his narration has since told us he finds both incredibly attractive. Arthur Hastings posted:Alas, that these harmonious moments can never endure! My paradise was rudely shattered by the sound of a well known, and heartily disliked, voice in the hall. Yep, Bauerstein is here for Hastings to dislike again. He just stopped by, but Alfred insisted on him coming in for coffee, even though he had a minor accident while trying to get close to a rare plant he saw on one of his walks, leaving him covered in mud. Why exactly he decided to visit Styles while covered in mud isn’t made clear, but he stays long enough for coffee, spoiling Hastings evening (his words, not mine). Meanwhile, John returns from wherever his “something momentous” was just in time for a coffee of his own. Emily leaves her boudoir while they’re chatting, her own coffee still in hand, and asks Cynthia to grab her dispatch case and bring it up to her bedroom for her. Hastings makes very sure to specifically point out that three people, John, Cynthia, and himself, saw her holding her untouched cup of coffee and bringing it it upstairs, and he goes out of his way to describe them as “witnesses”. I swear Christie’s foreshadowing gets better later. When Bauerstein finally decides to save Hastings from the horrors of being in the same room as him by leaving, Alfred offers to accompany him back to town because he has urgent business to take care of, and tells them that he’ll take the latch key with him so no one will have to sit up and wait to unlock the door for him. And so the bearded men remove themselves from the house, much to the relief of the beardist Hastings and all the other people in the house who just dislike Alfred.
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Aug 17, 2022 09:13
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Did someone say mystery?
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Aug 17, 2022 19:49
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Rand Brittain posted:Did someone say mystery?
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Aug 17, 2022 20:43
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Foxfire_ posted:*grumbles Stop Press-ishly* That book is great; I don't care what anybody says.
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Aug 17, 2022 21:48
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Every so often when the world is horrible I spend an evening watching one of Poirot's beautiful art deco vacations get ruined and it is probably more pleasant than an actual physical vacation would have been for me
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Aug 17, 2022 23:20
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Where do you stream a Suchet these days, anyway?
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Aug 18, 2022 00:49
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Truthkeeper posted:I note that Hastings, despite being injured enough that he can’t do wars anymore, is apparently perfectly capable of playing tennis. I don’t know enough about World War I or the British army to have any kind of idea how badly you’d have to be injured to be sent home. Christie avoids Doyle’s error in mixing up where Watson’s injury was by simply never actually saying what happened to Hastings. The Poirot TV series had him walking with a cane for the early part of the episode adapting this book, until he decided he didn’t need it and gave it away at the first opportunity. They also implied that he’d developed some fairly serious PTSD, All Christie said is that he was "invalided", and there are other ways to get sent home than physical wounds. It could be what at the time was known as neurasthenia, but it's also just as likely to have been some 'orrible and lasting disease. The best-known of the various lurgies was trench fever, caused by the Bartonella quintana bacteria hosted by many of the louses who did very well out of the war. It was responsible for nearly a quarter of all medical casualties on all sides, and was also very well-read, claiming A.A. Milne, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis's case was relatively light, but for both Milne and Tolkien it put paid to their service as battalion signals officers. Milne took a year to recover to the point where he could aid the war effort by writing propaganda; Tolkien's case recurred several times as he was sent on a tour of various recuperative postings, and he was still sufficiently affected when demobilised in mid-1919, nearly three years after being invalided home, to be awarded a temporary disability pension. quote:Emily sure does loves to talk about how well connected she is. Oftentimes in stories featuring upper class twits, they talk up their own family history a great deal; Emily never does this, either for her own family, her first husband’s family, or Alfred’s. I suspect that Emily’s desperately trying to fit in with the class she married into and overdoing everything in the process. This is clearly an advanced case of Hyacinth Bucket-ism. The established upper class and aristocracy would never be so gauche as to mention this sort of thing out loud if at all possible; they don't need to, everyone knows who they are, and in any case modesty is one of the most important English values. (If anyone's interested in the intricacies of all this tremendous nonsense, Kate Fox's Watching the English is available on Kindle for just 99p; in which an expert anthropologist turns her analytical lens on the rules of her own culture.) quote:There’s a lot of talk about nurses at the hospital being overseen by a terrifying and tyrannical “Sister”. Was the Red Cross staffed by nuns in this time period? "Sister" is the traditional British title for the leading nurse on a shift or ward. In popular culture, they are generally either Miss Honey or Miss Trunchbull with very little in between. quote:this is the second time he describes her as “gipsy faced”, still no idea what the hell that description is supposed to mean, were certain facial features considered unique to Romani at this point The word "gypsy" is at this time used extremely loosely to cover anyone who lives a travelling life and spends enough time in the sun to get a decent tan on. English travelling carnival showmen, and Irish Travellers, and yer actual Romany, and anyone else who happens to be cutting about on wheels. The implication is usually that they're shifty, clever in a bad way, vaguely foreign, make a questionable living, and aren't to be trusted any further than one could kick them. Not entirely unlike the traditional anti-Semitic caricature, although your "gypsy" is typically at the bottom of the heap, whereas your "Jew" has generally managed to insinuate himself into society. The best way to get a fuller understanding of the attitude behind Christie's word choice here is to break out the lashings of ginger beer and read a Famous Five story; either Five Fall Into Adventure, Five Have Plenty of Fun, or Five Have A Wonderful Time; all of which guest star "Jo the gypsy girl". Somewhere under the weight of Enid Blyton's Edwardian racism there's a fine adventure story for children; in the same way that there's good detective novels under Christie's. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Aug 18, 2022 |
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Aug 18, 2022 01:10
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Rand Brittain posted:Where do you stream a Suchet these days, anyway? Unfortunately, because everybody needs their own streaming service these days, it's only available from BBC's service, Britbox. $7 extra addon to Amazon Prime, not sure how much it costs on its own. Trin Tragula posted:All Christie said is that he was "invalided", and there are other ways to get sent home than physical wounds. Fair. I was thinking of where John Cavendish calls him a "wounded hero" at one point, but John is clearly meant to be an idiot. The TV version of the episode had him walk with a cane early on, but also implied that he had some pretty serious PTSD.
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Aug 18, 2022 10:42
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Chapter 3: The Night of the Tragedy Christie knows the value of supporting her text with helpful visuals and thought to include a floorplan of the relevant part of the house in this book. Unfortunately, my ebook doesn’t include it. Thankfully, the Agatha Christie Wiki has us covered.  Hastings is woken up that night by Lawrence, who informs him that Emily sounds like she’s having a fit of some sort, but she locked herself in and nobody is able to check on her. Hastings, the injured war casualty, springs out of bed, throws on a shirt, and runs down the hall with Lawrence to the west wing, where the family’s rooms are, finding John and some unnamed servants already present. Lawrence is desperate for somebody to defer to in a crisis, and John has potato salad for a brain, so Hastings ends up taking charge; when Dorcas the maid suggests they try the connecting door between Alfred and Emily’s rooms, he leads the way, finding that door also locked, and also that Alfred is missing, his bed not slept in. Hastings actually does a good job taking the lead here. When no easy way into the room presents itself, he has John send one of the servants to fetch Emily’s doctor from the village, and then suggests trying the other connecting door from Cynthia’s room into Emily’s. That one also turns out to be locked. As Alfred's door is less sturdy than the hallway door, the three men put their backs into breaking down. And for once not by shoulder-checking the door one at a time like idiots, they put their combined weight into it, pushing until it gives. Inside the room, they find Emily having convulsions severe enough that she knocked over her nightstand. Hastings tries to gracefully get out of the family’s way now that he isn’t needed but stops when he sees Lawrence’s expression. Arthur Hastings posted:I turned to Lawrence, to suggest that I had better leave them now that there was no further need of my services, but the words were frozen on my lips. Never have I seen such a ghastly look on any man's face. He was white as chalk, the candle he held in his shaking hand was sputtering onto the carpet, and his eyes, petrified with terror, or some such kindred emotion, stared fixedly over my head at a point on the further wall. It was as though he had seen something that turned him to stone. I instinctively followed the direction of his eyes, but I could see nothing unusual. The still feebly flickering ashes in the grate, and the row of prim ornaments on the mantelpiece, were surely harmless enough. Meanwhile, Emily’s attack appears to be passing, and she manages a sentence, barely. Emily Inglethorp posted:"Better now--very sudden--stupid of me--to lock myself in." Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose. The way she words this suggests that it isn’t something she usually does. Mary arrives, emotionally and physically supporting Cynthia, who apparently hadn't woken up until there were three men breaking down a door nearby. Hastings notes that Mary's already dressed for work (previously established as being up at 5 every morning to help at a dairy farm, unlike her layabout husband and brother in law), realizes the sun is coming up and that the nearby clock reads nearly 5AM, but his notice of random facts ends when Emily has another series of violent convulsions just as Bauerstein, rather than Emily’s own doctor who was sent for, arrives, only managing to choke out one more thing before dying. Emily Inglethorp posted:At that moment, Dr. Bauerstein pushed his way authoritatively into the room. For one instant he stopped dead, staring at the figure on the bed, and, at the same instant, Mrs. Inglethorp cried out in a strangled voice, her eyes fixed on the doctor: Even Emily is a filthy beardist who can’t tell her beloved husband apart from any other guy with a beard. I suppose I can cut her some slack because she’s dying. This next part confuses me. Arthur Hastings posted:With a stride, the doctor reached the bed, and seizing her arms worked them energetically, applying what I knew to be artificial respiration. Is Christie… under the impression that people breathe through their arms? Or was this a real method of CPR at some point? Dr. Wilkins shows up just as he gives up resuscitation, and immediately gives his prognosis that the old lady worked too hard, against his medical advice. But Bauerstein (who it turns out was conveniently on one of his frequent walks and happened to be walking past the house when the car left to pick up Wilkins) has a different theory. Bauerstein posted:The convulsions were of a peculiar violence, Dr. Wilkins. I am sorry you were not here in time to witness them. They were quite--tetanic in character. I think he’s talking about tetanic contractions here, which Wikipedia tells me is when muscles spasm wildly, as happens with tetanus. However, the word can also refer to anything that causes similar spasms, such as certain poisons, which is what Bauerstein is alluding to as he pulls Wilkins aside for a private chat. Hastings is the only one to realize that the acknowledged expert on the subject of poisons thinks that Emily Inglethorp has been poisoned. When he asks John where Alfred is, he gets confirmation that the bearded gent isn’t anywhere in the house. When the two doctors return, Wilkins tells John that he won’t be able to sign off on a death certificate without performing an autopsy, and requests permission to do so, stating that an inquest into the cause of death is unavoidable. Maybe this is me being a dumb American again, but wouldn’t Emily’s husband be the most likely person who would need to sign off on that? Bauerstein hands John the keys to Emily’s and Alfred's rooms, suggesting both should be kept locked until after the inquest. Meanwhile, Hastings has an idea of his own, and suggests to John that calling in the help of a renowned detective who feels indebted to his family might be helpful. Lawrence unexpectedly blows up, saying that Bauerstein just wants it to be poison because that’s his thing, but John, after confirming with Hastings that Poirot can be discreet, gives him the go ahead to bring Poirot in to investigate the probable murder of his mother. The last thing Hastings does before going to see Poirot is to check the house’s library, which conveniently has a medical book where he can read up on the symptoms of strychnine poisoning. See, I told you one of Bauerstein’s only two character traits would be relevant to the story! You probably thought I was talking about him being Jewish. Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Aug 19, 2022 |
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Aug 18, 2022 10:50
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Hercule Poirowns Mysteries where the reader gets all the clues (which I'm pretty sure there's a word for but I don't remember it) are my favourite kind and I'm a sucker for a good accusing parlour so Poirot is extremely my poo poo. I've actually only seen the show though, never read any of the books. I should fix that  .
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Aug 18, 2022 15:20
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Obligatory https://youtu.be/i9iQ1yU5Ops
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Aug 18, 2022 16:35
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Truthkeeper posted:Is Christie… under the impression that people breathe through their arms? Or was this a real method of CPR at some point? Modern CPR as we know it today was developed in the mid-1920s in America, and didn't become established as the primary method until after the Second World War. What we're probably seeing here is the Silvester method, developed by Dr Henry Silvester in the 1850s. It's a far cry from walloping on someone's sternum until it cracks to the rhythm of the Bee Gees. quote:Maybe this is me being a dumb American again, but wouldn’t Emily’s husband be the most likely person who would need to sign off on that? English law does not define next of kin, and it's up to the doctor to decide who is most appropriate to make those decisions. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Aug 18, 2022 |
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Aug 18, 2022 19:36
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Taffy Torpedo posted:Mysteries where the reader gets all the clues (which I'm pretty sure there's a word for but I don't remember it) are my favourite kind and I'm a sucker for a good accusing parlour so Poirot is extremely my poo poo. I've actually only seen the show though, never read any of the books. I should fix that No time like the present. US copyright law is weird enough to allow the first two novels to be public domain, so they're on Project Gutenberg, as is the first short story collection. Trin Tragula posted:English law does not define next of kin, and it's up to the doctor to decide who is most appropriate to make those decisions. Your nuggets of information are appreciated. This is the kind of deep lore about the mythical fantasy land of England that I had hoped somebody would provide in this thread.
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Aug 18, 2022 23:14
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Chapter 4: Poirot Investigates Oh, well, clearly there’s been some mistake, we won’t get to that book for a little while yet. It sure is a good thing that when Hastings ran into Poirot, they were close enough to the house he and the other Belgian refugees are living it that he could point it out, because Hastings heads straight there after his brief stop to read about strychnine (a poisonous substance often used at this time as a pesticide, but also useful in certain medicinal capacities) Hastings even knows the fastest shortcut to get there, cutting through the park, only to run into Alfred coming the other way. Alfred, who’s in a very understandable state of despair after having heard about his wife’s death, explains to Hastings that his meeting with his agent, Denby, in town ran later than expected, and then, silly bugger that he is, he forgot to grab the key. He didn’t want to wake up the household just to be let in, so Denby put him up for the night. He only just found out about Emily’s death when Wilkins stopped to inform Denby, so now he’s rushing home. Because he’s a beardist price, Hastings immediately looks upon Alfred with disgust and thinks to himself that Alfred’s a hypocrite. Soon Hastings is seated in Poirot’s room at the refugees’ house, giving him the sordid details while Poirot gets dressed. He does his best to be clear and exact, but it’s hard to perfectly recount the story of a death you just witnessed an hour ago. Hercule Poirot posted:I was hardly as clear as I could wish. I repeated myself several times, and occasionally had to go back to some detail that I had forgotten. Poirot smiled kindly on me. Careful arrangement of the facts until what you have makes sense, this is Poirot’s method. In at least one book, he refers to the facts of a case as puzzle pieces, with the completed puzzle as the solution. Hastings thinks that figuring out which facts are important must be the hard part, but Poirot disagrees. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings posted:Poirot shook his head energetically. He was now arranging his moustache with exquisite care. Yes, Poirot does drop random French words into his day-to day speech pretty much all the time, a habit he’ll continue for the next 50 years. Sometimes he does it on purpose to lull people into thinking he’s just some idiot foreigner, but mostly I think he just enjoys it. One of the advantages of reading the series in ebook form is being able to Google translate anything I can’t puzzle out from context. It’s interesting to note that Poirot credits Hastings’ memory here. In other books this would usually be part of a backhanded compliment (and particularly in the BBC series, which inserted Hastings into several stories he wasn’t in and made an effort to make him dumber than usual when they did so he wouldn’t change anything by being there), or else use them to soften a follow-up insult. But that’s enough thoughts on future characterization of these two in their first appearance. Of more import to the mystery, Poirot notes that Hastings neglected to mention one critical detail! Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings posted:"What is that?" I asked. That’s not the first time somebody will assume Poirot’s a few crepes short of a Suzette, it’s going to be a running joke from here on out. Before they leave, Poirot takes a moment to straighten Hastings’ tie (he dressed in a hurry, what with the whole ‘a woman is loving dead and possibly murdered’ situation and all). As they walk back to Styles Court, Poirot comments on how sad it is that the poor family had such terrible grief fall on them, leading Hastings to realize that… no. None of the family seemed particularly grief-stricken. Shocked and distressed certainly, but Emily Inglethorp was not the sort of woman who inspired great love. Alfred certainly seemed distraught to me, but Hastings barely seems to think of him as a person. Poirot can apparently read minds, as he responds to Hastings’ thoughts. Hercule Poirot posted:"No, you are right," he said, "it is not as though there was a blood tie. She has been kind and generous to these Cavendishes, but she was not their own mother. Blood tells--always remember that--blood tells." I can’t agree with Poirot here. Having lost both a parent and a step-parent, I felt both equally. After that odd interlude, Hastings presses Poirot for an explanation about why Emily’s dinner was important. Poirot is annoyed at not being allowed to keep everything to himself until the end like he usually prefers to (“though, as you know, it is not my habit to explain until the end is reached”), and explains that if what Hastings believes is true and Emily’s coffee was poisoned with strychnine, and if she drank that coffee after going to her bedroom, approximately half past 8 PM, then a fast acting poison like strychnine would have killed her long before 5AM, especially on an empty stomach. Poirot doesn’t have an explanation for the discrepancy, but he knows there is one. They run into John when the reach the house, who first makes sure to remind Poirot that they only suspect foul play and certainly don’t want any publicity if at all possible, before complaining about Alfred being back. John Cavendish and Hercule Poirot posted:"It's jolly difficult to know how to treat him." Poirot clearly already has a working theory, and clearly has no intent to share it with the rest of us. John gives them the keys to the locked rooms and carte blanche to look through everything. As in the previous chapter, Christie gives us a visual, a floorplan of the room showing where the furniture is. As she gets more comfortable with her writing, she’ll rely less on these and more on her text to explain where things are located, and only use the visuals where really needed.  That’s a big loving bedroom. Once they’re inside, Poirot runs around, inspecting everything, while Hastings stays near the door, terrified that there might be footprints he’ll accidentally ruin, until Poirot reminds him that he and 6 other people already went traipsing through the room a couple hours ago, if there were footprints, they’re long gone. Not that I’m sure why they would be looking for footprints indoors anyway. Poirot investigates everything, taking note of Emily’s dispatch case on her writing table, key still in the lock, checking the door that they broke into earlier between Emily’s and Alfred’s rooms to be sure that it was actually locked and they weren’t just idiots, and also the opposite door from Cynthia’s room, testing how loud it is and examining the hinges, where he finds a piece of evidence so critically important he bags it up. Poirot will become far less concerned with physical evidence in later books, but Christie is still caught up in trying to be Doyle. Elsewhere in the room they find a small burner that had previously been used to warm up a cup of hot cocoa, spiked with rum, before making their way to the overturned nightstand, its contents scattered on the floor, including a smashed coffee cup. Hastings just assumes somebody accidentally stepped on it. Poirot also assumes somebody stepped on it, but not accidentally. Hercule Poirot posted:"Mon ami," he said, turning to me, "somebody stepped on that cup, grinding it to powder, and the reason they did so was either because it contained strychnine or--which is far more serious--because it did not contain strychnine!" Hastings doesn’t get it, but it’s Poirot, so he shrugs and assumes he must be right, which is usually the right attitude to have in these books. Poirot finds a bunch of keys on the ground, and goes through them until he finds the key to the dispatch case, opening it, finding it full of papers, but admitting he probably doesn’t have the authority to go through them himself. He pulls out a test tube to take a sample of the cocoa, investigates a stain on the ground, and then proclaims to have found six points of interest in the room, and prompts Hastings to ask him to explain, because Poirot is an ego the size of a planet first, a showman second, a detective third. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings posted:One, a coffee-cup that has been ground into powder; two, a despatch-case with a key in the lock; three, a stain on the floor." Poirot refuses to explain where he’s going with this though. Hastings assumes the cocoa must be point six, but nope! Poirot very specifically excluded it from his six points, and refuses to tell Hastings what the actual sixth is, because showman. Before they leave though, Poirot realizes he forgot to check the fireplace, notes that the ashes in it mean it must have been lit, and that people use fire to burn things! Europe’s greatest detective folks. His investigation does turn something up, a fragment of a will (which they can tell just from the paper, despite nothing being written on it, so I’m assuming there’s a very specific kind of paper used for wills in Britain at this time). They leave to go hunt down Dorcas the maid for questioning, stopping long enough for Poirot to search Alfred’s room in a single sentence, before Poirot goes to Emily’s boudoir and Hastings goes to find Dorcas. When he returns with her, Poirot is just outside the room admiring the freshly planted flowers, which he insists to Hastings are far more important to the case than anything he might find inside. Arthur Hastings posted:I shrugged my shoulders. There was really no arguing with him if he chose to take that line. Again, best attitude to take with Poirot. Poirot interrogates Dorcas about the nature of the argument she’d overheard the previous day and she manages to repeat most of it word for word. I’m not sure I could repeat a conversation I had five minutes ago that precisely, this woman is clearly wasted as a maid. Dorcas and Hercule Poirot posted:The door was shut, but the mistress was speaking very sharp and clear, and I heard what she said quite plainly. 'You have lied to me, and deceived me,' she said. I didn't hear what Mr. Inglethorp replied. He spoke a good bit lower than she did--but she answered: 'How dare you? I have kept you and clothed you and fed you! You owe everything to me! And this is how you repay me! By bringing disgrace upon our name!' Again I didn't hear what he said, but she went on: 'Nothing that you can say will make any difference. I see my duty clearly. My mind is made up. You need not think that any fear of publicity, or scandal between husband and wife will deter me.' Then I thought I heard them coming out, so I went off quickly." Dorcas is certain that the letter Emily was holding would be locked in her dispatch case, which Poirot somehow knows that she’d lost the key to the previous day, which turns out to be the key he picked up in Emily’s bedroom. Hercule Poirot posted:Ah, but you see it was not in the same place yesterday as it was to-day. Further questioning her, Poirot learns that nobody in the house has a dress, or any other clothes, of the same color as the thread he collected from the door between Emily and Cynthia’s rooms. He also asked if Emily had taken a dose of sleeping powder the previous night, only to learn that she had run out two days earlier. When Dorcas leaves, Hastings asks about the sleeping powder and Poirot produces the box he took from Emily’s washstand. This was number six, it really was not worth keeping close to his chest like this. At Poirot’s request, Dorcas sends in the junior maid, Annie, who doesn’t know that she’s supposed to be too stiffly British to pay attention to who her employer sends letters to, and tells Poirot that Emily’s mail the previous evening had included a letter to her lawyer, Mr. Wells, and another to Evie Howard. And one to a caterer. He also confirms that she was the one who brought Emily the cocoa, and that it was something she had every night, being prepared while dinner was cooking and then Emily would reheat it when she wanted it using the burner in her room. Annie seems to think somebody played a mean prank on Emily by dumping salt in her cocoa last night, because she saw some coarse grains on the tray. Hastings gets very excited about this. Arthur Hastings posted:I had the utmost difficulty in controlling my excitement. Unknown to herself, Annie had provided us with an important piece of evidence. How she would have gaped if she had realized that her "coarse kitchen salt" was strychnine, one of the most deadly poisons known to mankind. I marvelled at Poirot's calm. His self-control was astonishing. I awaited his next question with impatience, but it disappointed me. Indeed, Poirot just ignores the so-obvious clue in favor of asking Annie if she was certain the doors leading from Emily’s room into Alfred’s and Cynthia’s were locked last night when she went in to bring Emily her cocoa and close the curtains (yes), and if anybody owned any green clothes (no). Poirot doesn’t share Hasting’s enthusiasm for the obviously poisoned cocoa. Arthur Hastings and Hercule Poirot posted:"Poirot," I cried, "I congratulate you! This is a great discovery." Hastings gets downright snippy when Poirot is making an idiot out of him. Not that he needs any help. Poirot then goes on to examine Alfred’s writing desk, opening it with one of the keys he scooped up from Emily’s room, looking at the open desk, and proclaiming Alfred “a man of method”, the greatest compliment Hercule Poirot is capable of giving. Hastings again thinks that Poirot is losing at as he babbles on about how Alfred’s desk has no stamps, but it could have. He then pulls out a crumpled piece of paper and tosses it to Hastings, explaining it was the only useful clue the room had.  Agatha, you’re overdoing it with the visuals now. If you wanted to make illustrated books, you’re probably in the wrong genre. Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Dec 12, 2022 |
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Aug 19, 2022 10:11
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Truthkeeper posted:Chapter 4: Poirot Investigates I love that even the in-universe explanation for why Poirot keeps information to himself and reveals it at the end is "It's more entertaining"  . That's how I choose to read it at least.
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Aug 19, 2022 11:01
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Taffy Torpedo posted:. About 40% entertainment value, 60% ego stoking. If there's anything in Britain more important than Poirot's ego, he wants it caught and hanged.
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Aug 19, 2022 11:35
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The BBC Radio adaptations (27 stories), should not be dismissed. I think I prefer John Moffatt's* Poirot over Suchet's. *Moffatt starred in 25 of them, the last one coming when he was 84 years old!. The first two starred Maurice Denham, then Peter Sallis (yes, Wallace of Wallace & Gromit. Apparently he hated doing the accent.)
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Aug 19, 2022 22:47
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Chapter 5: “It Isn’t Strychnine, is It?” Hastings jumps to the natural assumption when seeing that Emily had repeatedly written the phrase “I am possessed” to mean that she thought she was possessed. But Poirot doesn’t let him dwell on that line of thought, because he wants to check the previous night’s coffee cups, which are still sitting in the parlor. Hastings still thinks the cocoa is the obvious murder weapon, so he doesn’t understand why they’re still investigating, and gets snippy again when Poirot brushes him off. Poirot both takes samples in his many test tubes and also tastes from each leftover coffee cup. Hercule Poirot posted:"Bien!" he said at last. "It is evident! I had an idea--but clearly I was mistaken. Yes, altogether I was mistaken. Yet it is strange. But no matter!" Their investigation is interrupted by breakfast, on the way to which they learn that John spent the morning while they investigated sending messages. Alerting Evie of Emily’s murder, writing a notice for the paper, and generally the other small but necessary things you have to do when somebody dies. He doesn’t want to believe that Emily was murdered, but is prepared to accept it if Poirot says so, whereas Lawrence refuses to give any credence to the idea, insisting her death had to have been natural. Over the meal, Hastings notes to himself again that everybody looks like their shocked, but not sad or distraught, except for Alfred, whose visible grief he immediately discounts, because he’s obviously guilty! He has a beard, what more evidence is needed, they should have just hung him when he first grew it! Arthur Hastings posted:I pass over Alfred Inglethorp, who acted the bereaved widower in a manner that I felt to be disgusting in its hypocrisy. Did he know that we suspected him, I wondered. Surely he could not be unaware of the fact, conceal it as we would. Did he feel some secret stirring of fear, or was he confident that his crime would go unpunished? Surely the suspicion in the atmosphere must warn him that he was already a marked man. Hastings’ tendency to jump to conclusions and hang onto them with the tenacity of a bulldog is one of his less endearing character quirks. Poirot, while offering to pour another cup of coffee for Cynthia, takes special note of the fact that she takes it without sugar, and when he does so, Hastings points out another detail about him. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings posted:"Sacre!" murmured Poirot to himself, as he brought back the replenished cup. Comparing Poirot’s eyes to those of a cat (usually, but not always specifically done by Hastings), is one of Christie’s shorthands for “He’s onto something!” Poirot stays on that line of thought about Cynthia’s coffee, too deep in thought to pay attention when Hastings tries to talk to him about the upcoming inquest. When Hastings asks, he only says that Cynthia’s taste in coffee proves the thought he had when he went to inspect the coffee cups. They’re interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Wells, Emily’s lawyer/the local coroner. He’s here in both official capacities, informing John of the date and time of the inquest, but also Emily had sent him a letter requesting his presence this morning, and he’s still needed as they go through Emily’s papers. Unfortunately, her letter didn’t mention what exactly she needed him for. Poirot asks him, after making sure that it’s not a violation of his professional ethics, where Emily’s money and property were to go, and Wells confirms that she had made a will the previous August, leaving everything to John. However, by law, her recent marriage leaves that will voided, so now Alfred inherits everything. He also mentions that Emily had frequently had him over because she wanted to rewrite her will, as often as once a year, and that he wouldn’t be surprised to see her fortune left to anybody around her, even non-family like Evie. When they want to look through Emily’s papers, Wells mentions the possibility that a newer will than the one left with him might be included with them. Poirot confirms that she did make a new will, but that it was destroyed; this was the will fragment he picked up from the fireplace. He confirms by calling in the gardeners, who confirm that Emily had asked them to sign something as witnesses because they were the nearest people available. John thinks it’s a funny coincidence that Emily made a new will just before she was killed, but nobody else thinks it’s a coincidence that she had a loud argument and then immediately wanted to change her will. John apparently hasn’t heard the gossip about Emily’s argument the previous day, and seems oddly distressed when he learns about it, but he changes the subject, asking Poirot how he’d figured out about the new will. Poirot gives a non-answer. Hercule Poirot posted:"A scribbled over old envelope, and a freshly planted bed of begonias." This is why he claimed the flowers just outside her boudoir were more important anything inside, they were freshly planted. He’ll later explain that the scrap paper where Emily kept writing “I am possessed” is because she couldn’t remember the spelling while writing out her new will and so tested a few spellings until she was satisfied she had the right one. I do this sometimes, even in the age of spellcheck. The investigation is once again interrupted by the arrival of Evie, who says she set off as soon as she got John’s telegram about Emily. Her arrival makes Hastings feel guilty; she begged him to protect Emily and keep an eye on Alfred, a task he’d dismissed, and now she’s dead. Evie’s confused why they’re bothering to investigate anything, just arrest Alfred Inglethorp! He’s obviously guilty, just look at his beard! Poirot notes that, in a house full of people mourning the death of a loved one, she’s the only person who cried about Emily’s death, and that means her help catching the murderer, whoever they may be, will be valuable. From there, Poirot and Hastings catch up with John and Wells in time to go through Emily’s papers, still locked in her dispatch case, which is still locked in her room, the keys to which are still in Poirot’s pocket. Except the case isn’t locked anymore. Somebody got into the locked room and forced the lock on the case. Everybody else in the room and Hercule Poirot posted:"But who forced it? Why should they? When? But the door was locked?" These exclamations burst from us disjointedly. Hercule Poirot posted:"Ah!" cried Poirot, with a gesture of anger. "That, I do not know! A document of some kind, without doubt, possibly the scrap of paper Dorcas saw in her hand yesterday afternoon. And I--" his anger burst forth freely--"miserable animal that I am! I guessed nothing! I have behaved like an imbecile! I should never have left that case here. I should have carried it away with me. Ah, triple pig! And now it is gone. It is destroyed--but is it destroyed? Is there not yet a chance--we must leave no stone unturned--" As they leave Styles to head back to the Belgians’ house, Poirot and Hastings run into Cynthia, where Poirot asks if she, in her professional capacity at the dispensary, was the one who prepared Emily’s medications, and after some hemming and hawing, she admits to having prepped her sleeping powder once, informing Poirot that she’d taken a bromide-based compound (likely lithium bromide or potassium bromide in this era), rather than common pharmaceuticals such as Sulphonal or Veronal. This information excites Poirot (Hastings notes his eyes again), and he tells Hastings he has a little idea that fits, except it’s probably impossible. I like that he doesn’t discount the idea just because it’s impossible, it’s very Dirk Gently. Poirot and Hastings bandy about the idea of Alfred’s guilt. Hastings thinks it’s an open and shut case, Poirot thinks there are several points indicating that he’s innocent. Not including the fact that he wasn’t in the house, because having an alibi at the time of death is Murder 101. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings posted:"Because if Mr. Inglethorp knew that his wife would be poisoned last night, he would certainly have arranged to be away from the house. His excuse was an obviously trumped up one. That leaves us two possibilities: either he knew what was going to happen or he had a reason of his own for his absence." Poirot also thinks the argument Emily had with Mary the other day must be significant, annoyed that Hastings thinks it unimportant and wants to discard it. Their discussion is interrupted again by Mace, who works at the local chemist. He asks them Poirot to confirm the rumor going around town that Emily was poisoned, and specifically asks about the poison. Mace and Hercule Poirot posted:He clutched Poirot by the arm, and sank his voice to a whisper: "Just tell me this, Mr. Poirot, it isn't--it isn't strychnine, is it?" Then Poirot sits silently for ten minutes before producing another list of important nonsensical facts. Hercule Poirot posted:"The first is the state of the weather yesterday. That is very important." Even Poirot is allowing his otherwise impeccable logic to be stymied by beardism! But at least he doesn't go so far as to proclaim the man a murdered just because of his beard. Poirot also states that Inglethorp can’t be found guilty by the jury, that no jury would be that stupid, and he won’t allow it. Hercule Poirot posted:"Oh, yes, mon ami, I would do what I say." He got up and laid his hand on my shoulder. His physiognomy underwent a complete change. Tears came into his eyes. "In all this, you see, I think of that poor Mrs. Inglethorp who is dead. She was not extravagantly loved--no. But she was very good to us Belgians--I owe her a debt." In later stories, Poirot does what he does best because he hates murder. Here, he's trying to do his best by a woman who helped him and his countrymen when they were in a tough spot. I'm not prepared to speculate yet on whether that's having any impact on the way he's handling this case.
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Aug 20, 2022 11:48
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Chapter 6: The Inquest For the rest of the week until the inquest, Poirot abandons Hastings in favor of investigating on his own. This leaves Hastings a little resentful, both at the lack of trust his friend is showing him and also because he wants to know what the hell is going on. Hastings tries to intercept him at the Raikes farm, but doesn’t see him outside, so he decides to give it up, only to run into an old man with an accent I can’t even begin to guess at. Old Guy posted:"You'm from the Hall, bain't you?" he asked. Hastings’ new friend, being very careful not to give anything away by actually naming anybody, tells him that one particular gentleman from Styles Court has been visiting Mrs. Raikes regularly, and throwing money around when he did. Despite the guy being very careful to not say who he’s talking about, Hastings assumes immediately. Arthur Hastings posted:I walked on sharply. Evelyn Howard had been right then, and I experienced a sharp twinge of disgust, as I thought of Alfred Inglethorp's liberality with another woman's money. Had that piquant gipsy face been at the bottom of the crime, or was it the baser mainspring of money? Probably a judicious mixture of both. Well gee, Hastings seems to have the entire mystery solved. I guess he really does have a better system than Poirot! The awkward guy with the beard is automatically guilty of anything and everything! The inquest goes about as expected. Bauerstein (confusingly not named until much later in this scene, I had to reread it a couple times to realize it’s him the whole time and not some nameless faceless expert who exists only for this one scene), renowned as an authority on poisons, confirms that Emily was poisoned with strychnine, but that it was unlikely to have been put in her coffee, or else she would have died earlier, and confirms that it wasn’t in the cocoa, which they were able to test, and explains that it was unlikely anyway since strychnine is so bitter you would be able to taste it in cocoa (the bitterness of coffee would have hidden it, if it had been there). Poirot can’t help but quietly laugh at Hastings being proven wrong. Wilkins follows him on the stand with Emily’s medical details. Weak heart, but otherwise healthy and happy, he immediately discounts the possibility that she could have committed suicide. Lawrence follows him, trying to push his theory that Emily was never poisoned by a specific person. Rather than his clearly debunked earlier theory that she died of natural causes, now he’s trying to suggest that her death was due to a buildup of strychnine from the tonic she took for her heart troubles. Obviously, such a brilliant theory could never possibly have occurred to her doctor, the man who prescribed the tonic. Wilkins immediately refutes him, pointing out that a long term buildup would have had visible symptoms that he would have noticed, and that an accidental overdose would have required that Emily chug the entire bottle of tonic. Dorcas follows him, stating that there couldn’t have been an issue with the chemist who provided the tonic mixing it wrong, because Emily had gone through the entire bottle, taking the last dose the evening of her death. Mary gives her statement next, coolly and easily relaying her own actions the morning Emily died, but being tripped up when asked to explain about the argument in Emily’s boudoir she’d overheard. Mary very suspiciously denies having heard anything at all, then denies having been able to make out what was being said, then eventually admits to having overheard the phrase “scandal between husband and wife”, but that she otherwise made an effort to ignore the argument. But not to move away from her seat near the open window where she could overhear it from. Next up are the gardeners, who explain that Emily sent one of them to buy a will form for her before writing it out and having them sign as witnesses, and Cynthia, who admits that she slept through all the commotion until Mary woke her up. After her, Evie produces a letter Emily had sent her the day of her death. Emily Inglethorp’s letter posted:July 17th My dear Evelyn This clearly proves absolutely nothing, but Evie claims it as proof that Emily had found out that her accusations against Alfred were true. Speaking of Alfred, the next witness is Mace the chemist’s assistant from the previous chapter. It turns out the reason for his odd questions then was that he had sold strychnine, a controlled substance, to an unauthorized person the day before Emily was killed, and was horrified that he might have accidentally contributed to murder. Wilkins and Mace posted:"Will you tell us to whom you sold it?" Well that’s pretty damning. Still, there are plenty of perfectly legal reasons somebody might illegally buy poison. Mace explains that Alfred told him that he wanted it to poison a dog, and since Alfred was from “the Hall” (Mace and the old guy from earlier both keep using that term to refer to Styles Court, I feel like I’m missing something here), that there couldn’t be any harm in it. Hastings immediately cottons to the fact that local village businesses would have a tendency to try to sway the rich folks to shop with them, insead of traveling to any of the larger towns nearby to do business. Mace also provides the court with the log that anybody purchasing poisons is required to sign. Next up, Alfred takes the stand, ready to speak up in his own defense by… saying everybody is mistaken and offering no alibi. No he didn’t buy strychnine, the only dog at Styles is perfectly healthy. No, of course that’s not his signature in the book. No, he has no strong alibi for where he was when the poison was bought, he was out walking by himself, but he doesn’t know where, nobody was with him, and nobody saw him. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings posted:Poirot was fidgeting nervously. Arthur continues his list of denials by denying that he had an argument with Emily on the 17th, despite the several people who overheard it, and that he wasn’t even in the house at the time! But he won’t say where he was and can’t produce any witnesses who can prove it. Obviously, the people claiming to have heard him there were mistaken. Oddly, despite having assumed everything else Alfred said were lies, this he believes. He also notices an excited look on Poirot’s face, and wonders if Pirot has come to agree with him about Alfred’s obvious guilt. Maybe he thinks having to see his beard is making Poirot hate the man as much as he does. Alfred finishes his testimony by explaining that Emily’s last words, calling his name several times, were not an accusation agianst him, but an attempt to get Bauerstein, who in her delirium she believed was him because they both have beards, to come to her. Poirot calls it “an ingenious supposition”, while clearly thinking it’s bullshit. Poirot takes the opportunty to get Hastings attention and point out a man standing near the door, who he identifies as another old friend, James Japp of Scotland Yard (another character Christie feels the need to include because Sherlock Holmes, Japp plays the Lestrade to Poirot’s Holmes), and that his presence means “things are moving quickly, my friend”. Hastings is surprised when the jury returns their verdict. The Jury posted:“Wilful Murder against some person or persons unknown."
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Aug 21, 2022 23:31
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quote:since Alfred was from “the Hall” (Mace and the old guy from earlier both keep using that term to refer to Styles Court, I feel like I’m missing something here) The implication is that they're locals who probably haven't travelled very far or had much to do with the outside world; to them Styles Court is the only building on that scale they ever need to mention, and so theirs just becomes "the Hall". "Hall" is commonly used as a suffix for that kind of house (e.g. Holkham Hall, in the same way as "Court" in "Styles Court". quote:“Wilful Murder against some person or persons unknown." Given Inglethorpe's apparently obvious guilt, this is a particularly shocking moment to a contemporary reader. At the time an English inquest was a quasi-criminal proceeding not unlike a grand jury, in which the jury had the right not only to say that someone had been murdered, but also to name the murderer. The coroner then had the power to commit that person to the courts for trial. This was commonplace in the 18th and first half of the 19th century, and then began slowly falling into disuse with the rise of the modern police, their spread throughout England, and their taking on investigative functions which were previously done by agents of a coroner or magistrate. In the 1930s it is unusual but still recognised as a Thing that can happen. The most famous of these cases was in 1975 when an inquest jury brought in a verdict of "murder by Lord Lucan"; two years later there were significant reforms that removed this function. Today, a coroner's investigation will be immediately adjourned until the police investigation has finished, juries are rare, and the burden of proof and system of verdicts is completely different.
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Aug 23, 2022 20:26
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Trin Tragula posted:The implication is that they're locals who probably haven't travelled very far or had much to do with the outside world; to them Styles Court is the only building on that scale they ever need to mention, and so theirs just becomes "the Hall". "Hall" is commonly used as a suffix for that kind of house (e.g. Holkham Hall, in the same way as "Court" in "Styles Court". Thank you for this context! One thing that Christie-style "cozy" mysteries frequently get attacked for is their lack of legal and procedural realism -- see, e.g., https://ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/chandler__the_simple_art_of_murder__en.htm, where he specifically talks about the lack of the coroner's inquest in one of Milne's novels. So it's nice to see that Christie is getting this right not just in broad strokes but also in detail and in in tone.
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Aug 24, 2022 01:31
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Trin Tragula posted:Given Inglethorpe's apparently obvious guilt, this is a particularly shocking moment to a contemporary reader. At the time an English inquest was a quasi-criminal proceeding not unlike a grand jury, in which the jury had the right not only to say that someone had been murdered, but also to name the murderer. The coroner then had the power to commit that person to the courts for trial. This was commonplace in the 18th and first half of the 19th century, and then began slowly falling into disuse with the rise of the modern police, their spread throughout England, and their taking on investigative functions which were previously done by agents of a coroner or magistrate. Interesting. I'll admit that I've just been substituting "grand jury" for "inquest" in my mind every time the term comes up in any of Christie's stories off of a vague idea that the two proceedings fulfill similar roles, so it's good to know I'm not completely off-base, even if the specifics aren't quite the same. Hieronymous Alloy posted:One thing that Christie-style "cozy" mysteries frequently get attacked for is their lack of legal and procedural realism -- see, e.g., https://ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/chandler__the_simple_art_of_murder__en.htm, where he specifically talks about the lack of the coroner's inquest in one of Milne's novels. This does make a degree of sense. Christie's father in law worked in law in... some capacity (nobody seems sure which, I've seen him described as a barrister and as a judge), so her husband would have been a useful well of information on the subject, at least until their separation in 1927.
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Aug 24, 2022 06:58
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I'm enjoying this, even though I haven't read any Agatha Christie in over 20 years.
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Aug 24, 2022 14:46
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Truthkeeper posted:
English judges all cine from practising lawyers, typically barristers so it wouldn't be surprising that he was a barrister turned judge.
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Aug 25, 2022 00:05
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Truthkeeper posted:Interesting. I'll admit that I've just been substituting "grand jury" for "inquest" in my mind every time the term comes up in any of Christie's stories off of a vague idea that the two proceedings fulfill similar roles, so it's good to know I'm not completely off-base, even if the specifics aren't quite the same. Interestingly, the grand jury itself is well on the way out at this point; in 1933 it will disappear except as a theoretical possibility before being finally abolished in 1948, one in a long list of things that persist in American criminal procedure despite long since having been got rid of in the place that invented them.
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Aug 25, 2022 00:26
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Chapter 7: Poirot Pays His Debts Poirot and Hastings hang back after the inquest so Poirot can talk to Inspector Japp. I like Japp’s characterization in the few books he appears in, he nicely straddles the line between “I know what the hell I’m doing and don’t suck at my job” and “Poirot is a loving genius and should not be discounted”. Most other police appearing in these books will be one or the other, depending on what role they serve in Christie’s plot. Poirot actually has very few characters that show up in more than a few books. There's a reason the TV series chose to make Japp a more frequent recurring character, replacing most of the police Poirot interacts with, in addition to adding Hastings and Poirot's secretary Miss Lemon to more stories; without them, Poirot seems more like a mysterious entity who just fades into existence when needed and away when his job is done. On the other hand, they cut his valet, George (or Georges, Christie waffled on this a bit) from several stories where he had minor but entertaining appearances. It’s been more than a few years, so Poirot has to reintroduce himself to Japp, who immediately remembers the cases they worked on together before Poirot’s retirement. Japp’s companion turns out to be his superior, Superintendent Summerhaye (who fits into the first of the two categories I just mentioned), and unsurprisingly, they’re here because, even though the inquest didn’t finger Alfred, he’s so obviously loving guilty and there’s no way any competent cops could ignore him as a suspect. Interestingly, Japp mentions that this is a situation where Scotland Yard was basically not allowed to touch the case until the inquest, I’m assuming because there officially hasn’t been a murder until the coroner says so, but it still comes off as odd to me. Japp refuses to confirm that they already have a warrant to arrest Alfred, but it’s pretty obvious, and Poirot, still trying to play his game, is insistent that they shouldn’t arrest Alfred, that it will only end badly, the case will just be dismissed if they try, and more importantly, Poirot doesn’t want them to arrest him, but as he refuses to explain any of his bullshit, they obviously can’t actually do what he says, because seriously Poirot. I sometimes wonder how many murderers have gotten away because of Poirot’s insistence on playing magician. After confirming that Japp and Summerhayes are going to talk to the coroner before moving on to Styles to arrest Alfred, Poirot arranges to meet them on the way, promising that either Alfred will provide the proof as to why he can’t be arrested or else Poirot will do it himself. Summerhayes doesn’t think much, but Japp is at least willing to accept that if Poirot is right, he’ll be saving them from making an embarrassing mistake. Once the Scotland Yard men leave, Poirot and Hastings return to the Belgians’ house, where they debate if Alfred is just too stupid to defend himself or if he’s so obviously guilty that there’s no way to defend himself except saying nothing. Poirot doesn’t think it’s possible because he can think of half a dozen fake stories Alfred could have told in his defense, forgetting for a moment that not everybody can be Hercule Poirot. Hastings is shocked that Poirot still claims the possibility of Alfred being innocent in the face of how obviously guilty he is, but Poirot points out how suspicious that is. The evidence is never that conclusive unless somebody has arranged for it to be. He makes the valid point that if Alfred was guilty, he’s clearly not stupid enough to have set up a murder that could have been assumed to be natural death, but go out and buy the poison from a local shop and sign his loving name, and then poison her the night after they had a terrible argument that the whole house heard, and then not even bother preparing an alibi or anything to say in his own defense. He’d have to be a suicidal moron! When Hastings asked why he would buy the poison if he wasn’t the murderer, Poirot explains his earlier comment about Alfred’s appearance. Arthur Hastings and Hercule Poirot posted:"The important fact that Alfred Inglethorp wears peculiar clothes, has a black beard, and uses glasses," I quoted. Dropping the subject of Alfred, Poirot asks Hastings if he noticed anything else odd about the evidence presented at the Inquest. Hasting’s mind immediately goes to Mary, but Poirot draws his attention to Lawrence’s stupidity in trying to claim his mother had been anything other than murdered. Hastings suggests that it’s a perfectly reasonably thing for somebody with no medical knowledge to suggest, but he forgot, and needs Poirot to remind him, that Lawrence isn’t a layman; before devoting himself to being a bum writer mooching off his mother, he went to medical school and is the member of the family who should be most capable of identifying the symptoms of strychnine poisoning. Poirot doesn’t know what his obvious lies mean, but he knows they mean something. Then he raises the subject of Mary. Her lying about the argument she overheard suggests to both men that she’s trying to protect Alfred, but who the hell would want to protect Alfred? He has a beard, he’s obviously subhuman! Poirot brings up his earlier wondering as to if Dorcas was wrong about the time that she said the argument was, saying that he now believes based on Mary’s story that Dorcas must have been right and the argument was around 4 o’clock. He goes on to say that only one or two of the people who presented evidence at the inquest told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, scoffing when Hastings claimed that obviously John and Evie were telling the truth. Arthur Hastings posted:Still, I had a great respect for Poirot's sagacity--except on the occasions when he was what I described to myself as "foolishly pig-headed." Hastings, you have called him a senile old man like five times already. Hastings doesn’t like Poirot suggesting that Evie or Cynthia could have been lying, but their discussion is cut off by the arrival of Japp and Summerhayes to pick them up on the way to Styles. At Poirot’s direction, Japp has the household brought together, with chairs for everybody. We’re only halfway through the book, it’s way too early for the parlor room scene, but Poirot has a performance to put on and demands an audience! Poirot starts by informing Alfred that the cops suspect him of murdering Emily, which he seems shocked about. Poirot demands that he speak in his own defense and admit where he was when the poison was bought, but Alfred refuses, claiming that nobody could seriously believe he was guilty. Maybe Poirot’s right and he just really is a loving moron. In any event, since Alfred won’t give his alibi, Poirot has no choice but to do it for him! Hercule Poirot and Alfred Inglethorp posted:“Soit!” he said. “Then I must speak for you.” Well then, that settles that nonsense! Naturally, nobody is going to feel bad about letting their beardist prejudices lead them to suspecting an innocent man.
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Aug 25, 2022 11:31
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Chapter 8: Fresh Suspicions Well now nobody knows what to think. Everybody was certain Alfred awas guilty as sin, and now Poirot just cruhed their suspicions with cold hard facts. After Japp confirms with Poirot that he can actually produce names and addresses for his claimed witnesses so the police can see them later, he thanks Poirot for saving them from an embarrassin gaff. Everybody agrees that Alfred is a moron for not speaking up that he had a perfectly good alibi with witnesses, but he and Poirot explain that he had been worried about giving new life to the rumor that he was cheating on his wife. Hercule Poirot, Alfred Inglethorp, and James Japp posted:"And Mr. Inglethorp was anxious to have no scandal revived just at present. Am I right?" Japp wants a look at the scene of the death, so he and Poirot return to Emily’s bedroom, but Poirot sends Hastings to the other wing of the house, telling him where to stand and not to move until told to. Hastings assumes he’s been given a very important task to keep an eye out for suspicious activity, and he waits twenty minutes for Poirot’s return. Poirot wonders if he heard anything, explaining that he’d been clumsy and knocked over the nightstand by the bed. Poirot is obviously pretending that it was an accident, and Hastings tries to make him feel better by talking up his great achievement in saving Alfred from the gallows, though he’s absolutely certain that Alfred is bonking Raikes. He has a beard, so he must be guilty of something! Speaking of those damned filthy beard-wearers, Hastings notices Bauerstein arriving, and tells Poirot how happy it made him to see Bauerstein covered in mud when he visited the house the night of the murder. Poirot ignores the story of the mud in favor of the more important fact that Bauerstein had visited that evening, something Hastings had neglected to tell him before! Hercule Poirot posted:"Importance? It is of the first importance! So Dr. Bauerstein was here on Tuesday night--the night of the murder. Hastings, do you not see? That alters everything--everything!" The fact that Bauerstein had been there means that Poirot and Hastings must be off to Tadminster (the nearby large town) at once! They borrow John’s car and set off discussing the case during the drive. Poirot once again describes Alfred’s obvious guilt and all the evidence pointing at it as manufactured evidence, set up to divert attention. But now they know there is one person who absolutely could not have bought the poison. He goes on to establish that anybody in the household could have been the purchaser, save for Mary, who has an airtight alibi, haing been playing tennis with Hastings at the time. They also learned from Alfred’s testimony that he wasn’t the one who brought Emily her coffee, instead putting it down in the hall, that whoever did bring it or passed by it could have been the poisoner. Only Mary and Cynthia are cleared of his suspicion here, based on the details Hastings gave him. Hercule Poirot posted:"In clearing Alfred Inglethorp," continued Poirot, "I have been obliged to show my hand sooner than I intended. As long as I might be thought to be pursuing him, the criminal would be off his guard. Now, he will be doubly careful. Yes--doubly careful." So doubly careful, he had to say it doubly. Poirot asks Hastings if he has any suspects in mind, and although he feels foolish, he accuses Evie of withholding information. They’d disregarded her as the poisoner, because she’d left the house my then and was 15 miles away, but that’s only a half hour car ride, so it’s not impossible. Except it is, because Poirot had already checked her alibi, Evie very graciously volunteered to pull a double shift at the hospital that evening. Hastings accepts that his suspicion must have been misplaced, but can’t help feeling something is unnatural about how strongly Evie hates Alfred. That’s rich coming from Hastings, who hated the man on sight and never let the reader forget it, but I suppose he means that her open hatred for the man isn’t properly British. She should be keeping a stiff upper lip or something. He goes so far as to wonder if she’s a little crazy where Alfred is concerned, but Poirot discounts the idea. Hercule Poirot posted:"No, no, you are on a wrong tack there. There is nothing weak-minded or degenerate about Miss Howard. She is an excellent specimen of well-balanced English beef and brawn. She is sanity itself." Hastings explains that his crazy theory he expected Poirot to laugh at was that Evie, in a fit of madness, tried to murder Alfred and got Emily instead. Poirot establishes that suspecting everybody until you are absolutely certain, both logically and emotionally, that they are innocent is the right attitude, but questions why Hastings doesn’t believe Evie would have tried to kill Emily. Sure, she seemed devoted to the old woman, but if you’re capable of murder, you must also be capable of faking being a devoted friend. Either Poirot or Christie is making a huge leap here that murderers are all gifted actors. I’m not sure who to blame, but I suspect it’s probably Christie. Poirot’s main reason to discount Evie as a suspect is the lack of motive, she gains nothing from Emily’s death. He’d earlier suggested the possibility to Wells that Emily could have made a new will in Evie’s favor, but never seriously considered the idea,; he’d been thinking of another suspect he didn’t want to name out loud at the time. He’s certain that the new will was not to leave everything to Evie, but refuses to elaborate. Hastings blames Poirot for his suspicion of Evie in the first place, reminding him that Poirot had told him during the inquest that Evie was lying about something. For some reason, that reminds Poirot of something completely unrelated. Hercule Poirot posted:"Next time you happen to be alone with Lawrence Cavendish, I want you to say this to him. 'I have a message for you, from Poirot. He says: "Find the extra coffee-cup, and you can rest in peace!" ' Nothing more. Nothing less." Like so many other things, he refuses to explain this either. I know it’s the nature of a detective story that the detective knows things the reader isn’t allowed to know until the end, and that it would be a damned boring book otherwise, but Poirot’s obsessive need to pretend he’s a magician is sometimes very frustrating, and I probably wouldn’t be able to put up with him in Hastings’ position. But Hastings is a better friend than I would be and agrees to do as he was told, even though he has no clue what Poirot is on about. When they arrive in Tadminister, Poirot has the driver take them to a chemist. Not a 1920s drug store, an actual literal chemistry laboratory for hire, where he drops off the cocoa sample he’s been carrying around for days. Hastings is confused; they already know the cocoa wasn’t poisoned, Poirot had said so from the start and Bauerstein’s tests confirmed it. But Poirot just says he wants it tested again, and refuses to explain. Notably, Hastings has stopped making any comments about Poirot’s age getting the better of him. Poirot has established his superiority with his old friend once again and Hastings will believe anything he says to the ends of the earth… or at least the end of this chapter. Arhtur Hastings posted:This proceeding of Poirot's, in respect of the coco, puzzled me intensely. I could see neither rhyme nor reason in it. However, my confidence in him, which at one time had rather waned, was fully restored since his belief in Alfred Inglethorp's innocence had been so triumphantly vindicated. From there, the book covers Emily Inglethorp’s funeral, in one line, before skipping to the next day. Hastings goes down to breakfast and meets John, who tells him that Alfred packed up and left, getting a room at the local hotel, and everybody’s relieved to see him go. It was so awkward having him around after they all believed he was a murderer! John Cavendish posted:"And really it's a great relief to think he's going, Hastings," continued my honest friend. "It was bad enough before, when we thought he'd done it, but I'm hanged if it isn't worse now, when we all feel guilty for having been so down on the fellow. The fact is, we've treated him abominably. Of course, things did look black against him. I don't see how anyone could blame us for jumping to the conclusions we did. Still, there it is, we were in the wrong, and now there's a beastly feeling that one ought to make amends; which is difficult, when one doesn't like the fellow a bit better than one did before. The whole thing's damned awkward! And I'm thankful he's had the tact to take himself off. It's a good thing Styles wasn't the mater's to leave to him. Couldn't bear to think of the fellow fording it here. He's welcome to her money." This leads to a discussion of finances. John got the houses, and he and Lawrence split what’s left of their father’s fortune. John’s still in his unspecified financial trouble, but can see the light at the end of the tunnel now that he’s inherited, even though he has to pay for the house now (I assume property taxes on old English manor houses are a bitch). And Lawrence will help, since he’s not moving out. Everybody except for Lawrence is happy and jovial over breakfast, getting rid of Alfred has done them a world of good. Thier good spirits are ruined though, because now that the inquest has happened and the police have been through, the press knows what happened, reporters and photographers stalking the village and the outskirts of the grounds, hungry for pictures and soundbites. Before Hastings leaves to see Poirot, Dorcas catches up with him. Although he’d previously asked if anybody in the household owned a green dress or other garment, matching the thread he’d found, and been told no, she’s remembered that there’s a large trunk of clothes in the attic that the ‘young gentlemen’ use for costumes sometimes, and that it’s possible such a dress might be in there. Although Dorcas still doesn’ necessarily like Poirot, because foreign, she’s gained a deal of respect for him, especially compared to the rude Scotland Yard police. Dorcas posted:"Thank you very much, sir. A very nice gentleman he is, sir. And quite a different class from them two detectives from London, what goes prying about, and asking questions. I don't hold with foreigners as a rule, but from what the newspapers say I make out as how these brave Belges isn't the ordinary run of foreigners, and certainly he's a most polite spoken gentleman." Hastings ends up meeting Poirot halfway coming up from the village, and they decide to investigate the trunk. There are some green items, but none the right shade according to Poirot, but they do find something interesting. A fake beard, black, brand new, hidden at the bottom of the chest. Poirot carefully hides it again, and they go to see Dorcas to ask about the costumes. Dorcas and Hercule Poirot posted:"Well, sir, not very often nowadays, though from time to time we do have what the young gentlemen call 'a dress-up night.' And very funny it is sometimes, sir. Mr. Lawrence, he's wonderful. Most comic! I shall never forget the night he came down as the Char of Persia, I think he called it--a sort of Eastern King it was. He had the big paper knife in his hand, and 'Mind, Dorcas,' he says, 'you'll have to be very respectful. This is my specially sharpened scimitar, and it's off with your head if I'm at all displeased with you!' Miss Cynthia, she was what they call an Apache, or some such name--a Frenchified sort of cut-throat, I take it to be. A real sight she looked. You'd never have believed a pretty young lady like that could have made herself into such a ruffian. Nobody would have known her." There is not enough yikes! in the world for this discussion. Having confirmed that the beard wasn’t just in the chest by happenstance, Poirot establishes that the beard was definitely trimmed to perfectly match Alfred’s, and that whoever hid it there was clever enough to choose a hiding place where it wouldn’t be noticed, because it’s with a bunch of other costume items. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings posted:Hastings, this affair is very deep." drat it Hastings, I keep trying to explain that you’re not stupid, but you’re not loving helping! Poirot is, of course, kind of a lovely friend. He goes on to say that Hastings isn’t enough, he needs another ally in the house, and they go off to talk to Evie. She’s not happy with Poirot since he got Alfred off, but she’ll at least talk to him. Poirot questions if she still believes Alfred is guilty, even after learning he didn’t buy the poison. She claims that he probably just soaked flypaper (that’s arsenic Evie, everybody knows that, even Pirot corrects her), but she refuses to acknowledge the possibility that he might be innocent. However, her wording (“If I'm convinced he did it, it doesn't matter a jot to me "how" he did it.") reminds Poirot of something Hastings had told him. It sure is a good thing that Hastings apparently has an eidetic memory and can recall whole conversations word for word weeks after the fact. Way back when Hastings first arrived at Styles, the household had a friendly discussion about murder over lunch. Evie discounted the idea of book-style mysteries where you don’t know whodunnit, claiming that in real crimes, everybody would instinctively know exactly who the killer is. Poirot asks Evie directly if she ever believes Alfred is guilty, Evelyn Howard posted:"Good heavens!" cried Miss Howard. "Haven't I always told you the man is a villain? Haven't I always told you he would murder her in her bed? Haven't I always hated him like poison?" Well that’s good enough for Poirot, insofar as it fits into one of his little ideas. Poirot explains that Evie hates Alfred, so she wants him to be guilty, but her instincts say otherwise. She’s loudly, vocally, and publicly demanding that everybody suspect Alfred because there’s somebody she thinks is guilty but doesn’t want to admit it. Poirot agrees with her, without naming any names, and informs her that she will act as his ally in this matter, whether she wants to or not. All she has to do is watch. Hastings waits until the conversation is over and Evie leaves before asking Poirot what the gently caress any of that was even about. But Poirot won’t tell him, which Hastings should really be used to by now. As far as Poirot is concerned, Hastings has all the same facts he does, it’s hardly Poirot’s fault he hasn’t put them together. Hastings decides NOW is the time to assert himself, by not telling Poirot when he inevitably solve the case all on his own, so he can be the one holding all the winning cards to his chest. drat it Hastings, I’m trying man, I’m really trying, but you don’t make it easy.
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Aug 28, 2022 13:05
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quote:John’s still in his unspecified financial trouble, but can see the light at the end of the tunnel now that he’s inherited, even though he has to pay for the house now (I assume property taxes on old English manor houses are a bitch). As he's inheriting, he will first have to pay the hated death duties, a horribly complicated series of individual taxes on inherited wealth that nevertheless enabled the rich to slide past them with careful planning and good legal advice. Happily, this has now all been reformed; the modern single Inheritance Tax is very simple, and so allows the rich to slide past it with careful planning and good legal advice. He will then be faced with a hefty domestic rates bill, charged on the assessed rental value of Styles Court. Local taxation has long been a political hot potato in Britain, so controversial that when Margaret Thatcher tried to take it on at the height of her power, she was out of office within a year of its replacement by the poll tax. The hastily-implemented replacement-for-the-replacement of Council Tax has survived for 30 years, despite being ridiculous in several important ways. (The post-Thatcher world is far too hostile to the obvious solution of a land value tax, and trying to do anything else would be more trouble than it's worth.)
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Aug 28, 2022 14:49
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Trin Tragula posted:As he's inheriting, he will first have to pay the hated death duties, a horribly complicated series of individual taxes on inherited wealth that nevertheless enabled the rich to slide past them with careful planning and good legal advice. Happily, this has now all been reformed; the modern single Inheritance Tax is very simple, and so allows the rich to slide past it with careful planning and good legal advice. I'd gathered from the context that death duties were something akin to an inheritance tax, so I'm glad that tracks. Every system of taxation ever devised tends to be stupid, but the ones you mention here seem especially so. The late Mr. Cavendish must have been a very wealthy man if John can inherit half of what's left of his fortune, pay off the government, and still have plenty leftover to handle his own debts and keep the houses paid for. Besides the domestic rates you mentioned, I'm assuming that upkeep of buildings and grounds and paying for what appears to be at least half a dozen servants (two maids, three gardeners, and a driver have been mentioned so far, and that's just at Styles) has to be pretty expensive, and the text mentions this was after they pared the staff down because of the war.
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Aug 29, 2022 01:34
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Chapter 9: Dr. Bauerstein This chapter starts, immediately after the previous, by pointing out that Hastings hasn’t had a chance to pass along Poirot’s needlessly cryptic message (“Find the extra coffee-cup, and you can rest in peace”) to Lawrence since he was told to do so, having not had a moment alone with him, but is now taking the first opportunity he’s had to do so. Lawrence is, naturally, baffled by the message, sadly not providing Hastings with any idea of what it means, but just before he can walk away, he asks Hastings to repeat it for him and clearly starts thinking about something. Still no explanation, despite Hastings’ certainty that he’d be able to figure it out based on Lawrence’s reaction. Over lunch, Poirot has another of his ‘little ideas’ and interrogates Mary about her statement during the inquest that the door from Cynthia’s room into Emily’s was bolted, asking if she was sure it was bolted or if it was just locked. She’s unsure, but Lawrence confirms that he saw it bolted. Hastings is annoyingly smug about one of Poirot’s ideas not panning out, because he’s a needlessly petty piece of poo poo in this book who hates that his friend the brilliant detective is a brilliant detective, whereas Hastings couldn’t find his rear end with a team of tour guides. Hastings is still being a prick after their conversation last chapter about Poirot needing another ally in the house. Arthur Hastings and Hercule Poirot posted:After lunch Poirot begged me to accompany him home. I consented rather stiffly. drat it Hastings, you’re a thirty-something year old man, stop acting like a teenage girl. I like that Poirot obviously knows he’s upset, but refuses to play stupid games. Hastings decides to enjoy nature a it on his way back to Styles, having a sit under a nice tree and enjoying the pleasant summer evening. The text certainly doesn’t say anything about him doing any drugs here, but my first impression of this scene is him being high as balls. Arthur Hastings posted:I strolled on a little way, and finally flung myself down at the foot of a grand old beech-tree. My thoughts of mankind were kindly and charitable. I even forgave Poirot for his absurd secrecy. In fact, I was at peace with the world. Then I yawned. But no, instead what happened is Hastings fell asleep under his tree. John shouting there actually is John shouting, having gotten into an argument with Mary in the woods not far away from where Hastings had his impromptu nap. John and Mary are arguing about her friendship with Bauerstein, and he all but accuses her of cheating on him. Shockingly, his chief complaint about Bauerstein isn’t his beard, but the facts that he’s Polish, Jewish, and worst of all, a Polish Jew, whereas Mary has… odd thoughts about Jews. Mary Cavendish posted:"A tinge of Jewish blood is not a bad thing. It leavens the"--she looked at him--"stolid stupidity of the ordinary Englishman." Mary, that’s not how that works. And anyway, as John just pointed out, Bauerstein isn’t English, he doesn’t have any stolid stupidity to lighten. He just has (INSERT OUTDATED ETHNIC JOKE HERE). Then she turns the argument around on him, asking if he has any friends she might disapprove of, clearly implying full well that he does and she should, and that she knows who that ‘friend’ is. As she wanders off, John tries to get one last word in. John and Mary Cavendish posted:"Mary"--his voice was very quiet now--"are you in love with this fellow Bauerstein?" Christie’s being a little heavy-handed with her metaphors here. After Mary leaves, Hastings pretends that he only just showed up, loudly breaking some branches underfoot to draw John’s attention. They talk about how terrible everything is, with the police and reporters around constantly, before John raises the big question: if Alfred didn’t murder Emily, that means somebody else did. Somebody he trusts. Somebody… without a beard! Hastings can’t abide that sort of talk, and instead throws suspicion onto Bauerstein. Despite the fact that it makes no sense, Hastings rolls with it, and even takes Poirot’s interest in the fact that Bauerstein had visited the house on the night of the murder as proof that he also suspects Bauerstein. And since all the evidence that the hot cocoa wasn’t poisoned came from Bauerstein himself, that’s how he did it! Hastings even suspects that he had an accomplice in Mary. All the pieces fit together perfectly, at least in Hastings’ mind. John, who’s supposed to be the dumb one, still doesn’t buy Bauerstein’s guilt. And Hastings doesn’t have any idea what Bauerstein’s motive could possibly be. After tea, Cynthia drags Hastings off to talk privately, because she has a serious problem. Although she’s not related to the Cavendish/Inglethorp household, her father was a friend of Emily’s, who took her in after her parents died. And now Emily’s not there anymore. Cynthia Murdoch and Arthur Hastings posted:"I want to ask your advice. What shall I do?" Hastings insists she should stay, since the family clearly all love her like their own. She acknowledges that John likes her well enough, but insists that Lawrence and Mary hate her. And then she starts crying, leading Hastings to do the only thing he can think of in this situation. Arthur Hastings and Cynthia Murdoch posted:I don't know what possessed me. Her beauty, perhaps, as she sat there, with the sunlight glinting down on her head; perhaps the sense of relief at encountering someone who so obviously could have no connection with the tragedy; perhaps honest pity for her youth and loneliness. Anyway, I leant forward, and taking her little hand, I said awkwardly: Hastings does have an established habit of falling in love at first sight with every attractive woman he meets and needs to be brought down to Earth sometimes, but this, on top of his recent spat with Poirot, really can’t be good for his poor ego. I'm not sure if Hastings is meant to be capable of supporting a wife at this point in his life. He's currently a captain, and may or may not go back to his poorly defined insurance job after the war (I can't recall if his immediate post-war career was mentioned in Poirot Investigates or Murder on the Links). He lives with Poirot later, but that may just be because they're both bachelors, rather than monetary issues. Still not cottoning on to the fact that Poirot was subtly insulting him last chapter, Hastings thinks that his friend was counting on his skill at diplomacy to help with the case, and decides to wander back to the village to have a chat with Dr. Bauerstein, to alleviate any belief he might have that he’s under suspicion. Except he can’t do that, because Bauerstein’s been arrested. Well, who knows? Maybe Hastings was actually right. I know, because I’ve read this one before. Hastings is never allowed to be right.
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Sep 1, 2022 12:41
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Truthkeeper posted:drat it Hastings, you’re a thirty-something year old man, stop acting like a teenage girl. I like that Poirot obviously knows he’s upset, but refuses to play stupid games.
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Sep 1, 2022 19:46
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Foxfire_ posted:Poirot refuses to play Hastings' stupid games. He will absolutely insist on playing his own stupid games Well clearly Poirot's games can't be stupid, he's far too clever for that!
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Sep 1, 2022 22:36
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Chapter 10: The Arrest Hastings would love to tell Poirot about this latest development, but he can’t! Poirot’s popped off to London for a bit. Hastings isn’t sure what to do without Poirot’s guidance, unsure if he should even do anything, thinking that maybe Poirot specifically arranged for Bauerstein’s arrest and left him in the dark about it. But mostly he’s trying hard not to suspect Mary of being in league with the dastardly beard. He assumes, and tells John so, that there’s no need to inform anybody else about Bauerstein’s arrest, as it will be in the morning papers, as the Styles murder is still major news. But it’s not in the paper, much to their confusion. As soon as Hastings decides to go down to the village to see Poirot, the man himself shows up. I’m suddenly curious about the idea of a detective novel where the detective doesn’t exist and is merely hallucinated by the Watson-type character. It would probably be hard to pull off in a believable way. Poirot has heard nothing about Bauerstein’s arrest, but isn’t surprised, as they’re only four miles from the coast. Against all odds, he actually explains this cryptic remark: Bauerstein hasn’t been arrested for anything to do with the murder, and Hastings was an idiot for believing he had anything to do with it. Poirot looked at this central European doctor, a famous specialist who chooses to live in a sleepy middle of nowhere village, who takes random walks at all hours of the night, during World War 1… OF COURSE HE’S A GERMAN SPY! It all makes perfect sense, apart from the part where it makes no sense at all. What the gently caress is he meant to be spying on, the price of cocoa powder in the village shop? Of course, one of Bauerstein’s traits identified him to Poirot far more than any other. Hercule Poirot posted:A very clever man--a Jew, of course. Ha! You thought earlier when I mentioned that Bauerstein only has two notable character traits and only one of them was relevant to the plot that I was talking about his knowledge of poisons, when I was actually referring to him being Jewish! Interestingly, while Hastings hates Bauerstein even more after finding out he’s a spy, Poirot identifies him as an admirable patriot, taking on great risk for the sake of his beloved fatherland. But more importantly to the soap opera plot that’s been running in the background of this book, Poirot aslo reveals that he believes Bauerstein had no romantic interest in Mary, nor did she have any for him. Hastings is far more interested in the latter. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings posted:"I am quite sure of it. And I will tell you why." drat it Hastings. Hastings’ ego stoking is interrupted by Evie showing up, handing Poirot a piece of brown paper with a cryptic remark (“On top of the wardrobe”), and leaving. It turns out to be the wrapping of a package from a well known costume manufacturer in London, addressed to a Mr. Cavendish (the initial unreadable, but Hastings and Poirot agree it’s more likely to be L. Cavendish than J.) It turns out Poirot assumed the paper’s existence and sent Evie to find it for him. With that, Poirot has solved the case! Well, no. He now knows exactly how it was done, but lacks proof. He gets excited, running off calling in French for Dorcas the maid, to ask her if something had been wrong with Emily’s bell the Monday before the murder, and she responds affirmatively, and that it was repaired the next day. This confirms whatever Poirot was thinking, and he comments… oddly… about it. Hercule Poirot posted:"See you, one should not ask for outside proof--no, reason should be enough. But the flesh is weak, it is consolation to find that one is on the right track. Ah, my friend, I am like a giant refreshed. I run! I leap!" This is not the last time Poirot will compare his profession to a religious experience in this series. He runs around outside for a time while Hastings talks to Mary about Cynthia (who’s in no danger of being kicked out), and she puts a question to him, asking if he thinks her marriage to John is a happy one. Hastings is too British to answer truthfully, and she admits outright that it is not. Then she dumps her life story on him. English father, Russian mother who died while she was a child, traveled the world with her father, who died while she was a young woman, went to live with her aunts in Yorkshire, went mad with boredom, met John, married him to get away from her aunts in Yorkshire not because she loved him, which she told him upfront. They grew apart quickly after marriage, and now she intends to leave him, because Styles is like a prison to her. This infodump could have been handled a lot better. Poirot was right though, she doesn’t give a flying gently caress about Bauerstein being arrested, or the fact that he was a spy. After lunch, Hastings goes to the village to pass on a minor new fact to Poirot (the fourth letter Emily sent the day she tied was to a music publisher in France, completely unrelated to the case), only to find him gone again, this time to Tadminster to visit the dispensary Cynthia works at. He’d stated his intent to visit her at work, but Hastings believes he’s forgotten which days she works, as she’s not there today. When he gets back to the house, Hastings runs into Lawrence, who has a message for him to give Poirot: he found the missing coffee cup. But he won’t tell Hastings what the deal is with the cups. So he goes back to the cottage Poirot stays at, and this time finds him at home, thinking deep thoughts and pondering grave ponderings. Arthur Hastings and Hercule Poirot posted:Poirot was sitting by the table, his head buried in his hands. He sprang up at my entrance. Poirot’s take on the matter: there’s too much drat Strychnine in this case. The tonic Emily took regularly, the stuff sold to not!Alfred, and now this. Their discussion is cut short by Mary arriving at the cottage looking for Hastings. The three of them walk back up to Styles, only to be met at the door by Dorcas with horrible news: Mr Cavendish has been arrested! No, not Lawrence, don’t be silly. Dorcas posted:I saw a strange look come into Dorcas's eyes.
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Sep 3, 2022 13:24
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