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A character in The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Captain Arthur Hastings

The wounded officer who tells the story, fancies himself a detective, and falls for two women in one house.

What they want

To be useful, to be admired, and to be told what Poirot is thinking.

The book

The Mysterious Affair at StylesAgatha Christie, 1920

Agatha Christie's first novel, written on a bet in a wartime dispensary, and the first appearance of Hercule Poirot.

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At a glance

In the book
The narrator; a guest at Styles Court
Age
Thirty
Where he appears
Every chapter

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Hastings has been invalided home from the Front and is finishing his sick leave at Styles. He is thirty, straightforward, and has a private conviction that he would be a good detective. He says so on the first evening, and the household teases him for it. He knew Poirot in Belgium before the war and re-introduces him with pride.

He narrates the whole book and suspects, in order, Alfred Inglethorp, Dr Bauerstein and Lawrence Cavendish, while admiring Mary Cavendish and half proposing to Cynthia Murdoch. Christie invented him for this book and used him as Poirot's companion for decades.

How Captain Arthur Hastings Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The woundInvalided home from the Front, with some months in a convalescent home behind him.
  • The ambitionHe tells the table on his first night that he has always fancied detective work.
  • The suspicionsAlfred, then Bauerstein, then Lawrence: each announced to Poirot with confidence.
  • The hurt feelingsHe resents Poirot's silence and says so; Poirot calls him his friend and explains nothing.
  • Mary CavendishHe admires her from the first afternoon and reads her silences as romance.
  • The proposalHe proposes to Cynthia Murdoch in Chapter 12 and is laughed at, kindly.
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Hastings gets everything wrong and records everything right. His account of the coffee cups, the bromide box and Evelyn Howard's deep voice is the evidence Poirot uses. He ends the book without either woman and with Poirot's affectionate pity.

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