Those Mysterious Spills...and Puppies

I'm going to do something now that is particularly nasty, or at least terribly unkind: I am going to discuss a major plot point in Agatha Christie's novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. So if you haven't read it yet, if you don't want to read a major SPOILER, then now's the time to close this tab or browser window, and read about the latest Hollywood socialite to adopt a puppy. Or watch a funny amateur video about a puppy. Or, you know, anything puppy related.

Warning: This post has nothing to do with cute, cuddly puppies!

Notice the objects on the fireplace in the picture below. Can any of you identify the object on the left?

This is called a spill vase, and they were apparently used in homes until the early 20th Century. Today we take matches for granted. Actually, matches are starting to get outdated now, in this age of cheap lighters. But in 1916, when Agatha Christie wrote her first novel, matches wouldn't have been readily available to most people, let alone cheap lighters. So they would endeavor to keep fires going in their houses, and transfer a fire from one source to another via some kind of small, cheap object, such as a stick of wood or a twisted-up piece of paper. Thus, you needed to store these tapers somewhere so you could have them readily at hand.

I'll admit, this item passed over me when I read the novel. I guess I just couldn't visualize it. Nor does it readily make sense, as Mrs. Ingelthorp tells Hastings that they send every scrap of paper they don't use to the English troops fighting in WWI. (This is a point of pride for her). Yet Poirot discovers that Mrs. Ingelthorp burned some papers the day before her death. Why else would she order her staff to start a fire in the fireplace on a hot day? And the way the maid started the fire was apparently by transferring the fire from a candle, to one of those long twisted pieces of paper, then using that to light the kindle in the fireplace.

Even when I saw the TV adaptation for the first time, the notion of paper spills holding a clue to the identity of the murderer wasn't something that particularly resonated with me. It wasn't the method of Mrs. Ingelthorp's poisoning, after all. But the handwriting on those spills, as Poirot discovers, tells him the identity of her murderer. And this he demonstrates at the end of the novel, when he gathers all the suspects together, and slowly unrolls the paper spills he found in Mrs. Ingelthorp's spill vase.

Just try getting a definition of a paper spill on Google. It's impossible. Today, you'll learn about spilling liquids, or taking a fall, or perhaps even what happens when you get a cute, cuddly puppy overly excited. (Okay, my apologies: this post does have a little to do with puppies). But the meaning of a paper spill has been overwritten by the necessities of today's vocabulary. I finally found information on it by looking under spill vases, which led me to an article by Dan Pinnell, an early American lighting collector and researcher. If you're interested, you can read his article, "Spilling the Whole Story," by following the link below. You can even purchase a spill vase for your fireplace, if you're so inclined. 

But then, if you're so outdated that you're still using a fireplace for your heating...well, what can I say? Get with the times! Upgrade your home!! Buy yourself a central heating unit, and above all, adopt a puppy!!!

They're so cute and adorable, aren't they?

Related Internet Link
Spilling the Whole Story

A Desk, A Candle, & Poirot's Cocoa

In The Mysterious Affair At Styles, Emily Inglethorp dies in her bedroom. Yet her bedroom was locked, and she was killed with strychnine, a fast acting poison. So who could have murdered her, and how? With the aid of his friend Arthur Hastings, Hercule Poirot sets to work, investigating all the clues at hand. There's a locked box securing her legal papers, a container of sleeping powder, and a curious drop of wax on the floor. A small container holds rolled-up used papers, a tiny scrap of green fabric in a doorway, and ashes in the fireplace, one of which is large and unburned enough to suggest that she made a new will before she died. There's so many clues that Poirot's little gray cells have difficulty sorting them all out.

I like how Agatha Christie throws in so many potential clues: they kept me guessing as to the identity of the villain, and how he or she had perpetrated the murder. I guess other readers must have liked that too. The Mysterious Affair At Styles might have been her first novel, but it wowed readers and reviewers alike, and served as the cornerstone on which Agatha Christie would launch her astonishing career. People love a book with a premise that will carry them through a book. Emily Inglethorp's impossible murder, and the relevance of all those clues, kept me turning the pages. As I read, I kept guessing at the identity of the murderer, and how he or she had perpetrated the crime. Given so many clues, I couldn't have sorted out the crime. Nor could Arthur Hastings have inferred the meaning of one crucial piece of evidence. Thankfully, if anyone could discover the murderer of Emily Inglethorp, it's the diminutive Belgian detective Hercule Poirot!