John Cavendish
Hastings's friend, the elder stepson, kept short of money by his stepmother and tried at the Old Bailey for her murder.
His own money, his wife's attention, and to be treated as the master of the house.
The book
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Agatha Christie
At a glance
- Mrs Inglethorp's elder stepson; Hastings's friend
- Forty-five
- Throughout
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeJohn Cavendish invited Hastings to Styles and is the reason he is there. He is forty-five, a country gentleman without an income of his own, living on his stepmother's allowance and resenting it. His marriage to Mary is cold, and Hastings notices. He is the household's most obvious loser by the new marriage and one of its heirs.
He is arrested and tried in the last third of the book, and the trial chapters are told from the public gallery. The quarrel overheard in his stepmother's room turns out to have been his.
How John Cavendish Is Portrayed
- The allowanceKept by his stepmother, who pays generously and reminds him of it.
- The marriageCold; Mary and he are barely speaking, and the house knows.
- Mrs RaikesA farmer's wife with whom he is seen too often, the subject of the fatal quarrel.
- The inheritanceStyles is his under his father's will once his stepmother dies.
- The arrestCharged with the murder in Chapter 10, on the strength of a bottle of strychnine found in his room.
- The dockHe gives his evidence well at the Old Bailey, under a defence led by Sir Ernest Heavywether.
John was innocent. The strychnine in his room was planted by Alfred and Evelyn, and the quarrel with his stepmother was about Mrs Raikes and money. Poirot admits he let the trial run partly because it brought Mary back to him.
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