The poison was believed to have been administered through her bottle of sodium bicarbonate, possibly tampered with by someone close to her. Garnett-Orme’s autopsy revealed traces of prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) in her blood. Mountstephen had left for Lucknow that morning, but the facts of the case made her the prime suspect. The door of her room was locked from inside. One day Garnett-Orme was found dead upon her bed.

In later life, she became a practitioner of séances and crystal-gazing, and sought to communicate with the dead. Garnett-Orme was once engaged to a British officer from the United Provinces, who died before the wedding. The other, Eva Mountstephen, her friend from Lucknow. One of the two guests was a 49-year-old spinster, Frances Garnett-Orme. Anyone consuming the crystallised grains of strychnine without shaking the contents ran the risk of instant cyanosis and asphyxiation. The convulsions were of a violence terrible to behold … A final lifted her from the bed, until she appeared to rest upon her head and her heels, with her body arched in an extraordinary manner.ĭuring her nursing-tenure at the Torquay War Hospital, at the time of the Great War, Christie had learned a great deal about chemicals, and conceived fabled prescription that led to Inglethorp’s death.Īccordingly, a mixture of potassium bromide added to strychnine sulfate left a precipitate of the free alkali to crystallise at the bottom of the container. Inglethorp’s death was not so different from any of Cream’s victims. Allegedly, his last words were, “I am Jack the…” Cream was executed in 1892 for the serial-strychnine-murders of women in Canada and Britain. Strychnine acquired early celebrity in the hands of Dr Thomas Neill Cream. One of the best-loved classic mysteries of all time, The Mysterious Affair at Styles will continue to enchant old readers and introduce Agatha Christie’s unique storytelling genius to a host of new readers.Jack the Ripper suspect Dr Thomas Neill Cream. With impeccable timing, and making his unforgettable debut, the brilliant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is on the case.

Mary–from the heiress’s fawning new husband to her two stepsons, her volatile housekeeper, and a pretty nurse who works in a hospital dispensary. Who poisoned the wealthy Emily Inglethorp and how did the murderer penetrate and escape from her locked bedroom? Suspects abound in the quaint village of Styles St.

In this official and fully restored edition, Hercule Poirot solves his first case in the Agatha Christie novel that started it all, now featuring a “missing chapter” and exclusive content from the Queen of Mystery. Agatha Christie is something special.”–Lawrence Block, New York Times bestselling author “It’s tempting to say that Agatha Christie is a genius and let it go at that, but the world’s had plenty of geniuses.

The mysterious case at styles