The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Hastings, rendered invalid at the front, is sent back to England, where he spends a few months in a nursing home. His chance encounter with John Cavendish allows him to spend a month on leave at Styles' residence, where he had already been younger. In Styles Court live John and his wife Mary, Lawrence, John's younger brother, their stepmother, Emily, widow and heiress of Mr. Cavendish, now married to his secretary, Alfred Inglethorp, younger than her; Evelyn Howard, his cousin and friend of Mrs. Inglethorp; and Cynthia Murdoch, a young nurse, orphan of a friend of Emily's. The marriage between John Cavendish and his wife has become estranged, according to Hastings, who believes he has discovered an affair between John and Cynthia Murdoch and between Mary and Dr. Bauerstein, a toxicologist who is in town doing a rest cure after suffering a severe nervous imbalance.