Chap­ter X opens with a qui­et rip­ple of con­fu­sion as Hast­ings real­izes that Poirot is nowhere to be found, stir­ring both con­cern and curios­i­ty. His search leads to the dis­cov­ery that Poirot may have trav­eled to Lon­don, a deci­sion left unex­plained and there­fore unset­tling. Hast­ings, ever the observ­er yet not always the ana­lyst, choos­es to focus instead on inform­ing John Cavendish about Dr. Bauerstein’s sud­den arrest. John’s reac­tion is one of dis­be­lief but mea­sured restraint, agree­ing to with­hold the news to avoid scan­dal. The absence of any for­mal report in the news­pa­pers adds anoth­er lay­er of mys­tery to an already per­plex­ing sit­u­a­tion. It becomes clear that some­thing sig­nif­i­cant is unfold­ing beyond the mur­der itself. Sus­pi­cion begins to extend its reach into mat­ters far more com­plex than domes­tic rival­ry or finan­cial motives.

Poirot’s even­tu­al return brings with it more rid­dles than res­o­lu­tions. Rather than clar­i­fy­ing Dr. Bauerstein’s arrest, Poirot dances around the sub­ject, offer­ing only frag­ments of insight. He reveals that Bauer­stein was not arrest­ed for mur­der but for espionage—a shock­ing twist that recasts the nar­ra­tive. This rev­e­la­tion adds a geopo­lit­i­cal dimen­sion to a mur­der that already teemed with per­son­al ten­sion. The accu­sa­tion seems mis­placed until Poirot frames Bauer­stein as some­one loy­al not to Eng­land but to anoth­er home­land, act­ing out of duty rather than treach­ery. Poirot’s indi­rect expla­na­tion unset­tles Hast­ings, whose inter­pre­ta­tion of the arrest had been sim­plis­tic. Still, Poirot refrains from cast­ing final judg­ment, focus­ing instead on the nuances of human behav­ior. Through this detour, the mys­tery takes on inter­na­tion­al stakes, while Poirot remains focused on the murder’s core log­ic.

With­in their con­ver­sa­tion, Poirot shares that Miss Howard has deliv­ered an unex­pect­ed clue. It’s not stat­ed out­right, but Poirot val­ues it enough to treat it as a poten­tial turn­ing point. He sub­tly stress­es his reliance on his mind’s discipline—his “lit­tle grey cells”—and warns that pre­ma­ture con­clu­sions risk dam­ag­ing inno­cent lives. When he speaks of a woman’s hap­pi­ness rest­ing on his next move, the weight of that moral respon­si­bil­i­ty becomes more pro­nounced than any legal one. Poirot is not just solv­ing a case; he’s bal­anc­ing log­ic with com­pas­sion. Hast­ings, mean­while, strug­gles to keep pace with Poirot’s thought process, par­tic­u­lar­ly as per­son­al rela­tion­ships in the house­hold cloud every pos­si­bil­i­ty. Mary Cavendish remains a source of ambiguity—cool, proud, yet teth­ered to secrets.

Mary’s encounter with Hast­ings is marked by emo­tion­al restraint cloaked in civil­i­ty. Her demeanor reveals much—she’s dis­tant, not just from Hast­ings but from her hus­band and per­haps her­self. Her response to Bauerstein’s arrest lacks the shock or con­cern one might expect. Hast­ings won­ders if deep­er feel­ings for the doc­tor lie behind her reac­tion, or if she’s sim­ply too wea­ried by her domes­tic sit­u­a­tion to care. Mary’s spir­it feels caged by the con­ven­tions sur­round­ing her, hint­ing at a desire for auton­o­my over affec­tion. Poirot’s aware­ness of this emo­tion­al land­scape only strength­ens his resolve to tread care­ful­ly. In this house­hold, love and loy­al­ty are not sim­ple con­cepts; they are masked, redi­rect­ed, or sup­pressed under the weight of social expec­ta­tion.

As the inves­ti­ga­tion deep­ens, Poirot man­ages to retrieve a vital piece of phys­i­cal evi­dence with­out alert­ing hos­pi­tal staff. A bot­tle, once over­looked, now con­tains damn­ing fin­ger­prints belong­ing to Lawrence Cavendish. This new rev­e­la­tion alters the tra­jec­to­ry of sus­pi­cion, mov­ing atten­tion away from John and toward his broth­er. It com­pli­cates the case by show­ing how eas­i­ly guilt can shift based on a sin­gle over­looked detail. Poirot’s approach, both thor­ough and stealthy, ensures that the chain of log­ic stays intact. For the first time, the con­nec­tion between the poi­son and the house­hold mem­bers feels tan­gi­ble, no longer spec­u­la­tive. Yet the truth remains buried beneath lay­ers of mis­di­rec­tion.

The chap­ter clos­es with a grow­ing sense that Poirot is work­ing not only to reveal a crime but to shield the inno­cent from harm that a wrong con­clu­sion might bring. Hast­ings sens­es that Poirot’s inter­est is not pure­ly professional—there’s a deep­er empa­thy guid­ing his cau­tion. With every con­ver­sa­tion, Poirot is peel­ing back lay­ers of pre­tense and mis­un­der­stand­ing in pur­suit of the truth. The pres­ence of espi­onage only sharp­ens the stakes, forc­ing every char­ac­ter to con­front not only what they know but what they choose to reveal. At Styles, the answers are tak­ing shape, but they wait for the final arrange­ment of facts—one only Poirot can see clear­ly, hid­den among the chaos.