tortoise

“A big bear hugged one and then there were Two.” Vera and Philip find Blore dead, his head crushed by Vera’s marble, bear-shaped clock.

James Landor

Lesson Summary We go from three down to two in Chapter 15 of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Vera, Lombard, and Blore spend a day trying to signal for rescue until Blore is killed by a dropped clock.

Vera admits Miss Brent told her the story of Beatrice drowning, and that she felt no remorse at all. The group goes into the drawing room to confront Miss Brent, and discovers she is dead. Dr. Armstrong says it wasn’t a bee sting but a syringe full of cyanide that killed Miss Brent.

When Armstrong sneaks out in the middle of the night to meet Wargrave, Armstrong is pushed over a cliff. Much later, Vera and Lombard find Armstrong’s body on the rocky shore. He had drowned and then been pulled in by the tide.

When he learned about people who got away with murder, he decided to lure them to the island and kill them one by one. He is terminally ill and kills himself (for real) by shooting himself.

Dr. Edward Armstrong is one of these guests. His crime was to cause the death of a patient by operating on her while he was drunk. Like all the other guests, Armstrong dies on the island.

After many years as a judge, he developed the desire to play executioner. He wanted to kill in an extraordinary, theatrical way, while adhering to his own sense of justice. Wargrave learned he was terminally ill and decided to kill himself after doing away with his victims.

Like the other characters, Vera has a dark secret. At her last job, she was governess to a spoiled little rich boy named Cyril Hamilton. She let Cyril drown so that his relative, Hugo, would inherit his money and then be rich enough to marry her.

Her motive is so that her lover Hugo Hamilton could inherit Cyril’s money so they could afford to get married. She killed Cyril so that her lover Hugo (cyrils cousin) could inherit money to marry her.

U. N. Owen is the alias used by the murderer on Soldier Island. Sometimes the name is written as Una Nancy Owen, and sometimes as Ulick Norman Owen. The name is a word play. U. N. Owen can be read as unknown.

ZUN

Vera Claythorne

In a standard detective story, Wargrave’s behavior would make him the detective figure, using his experience with the criminal mind to unmask the killer. But as we learn at the close of the novel, when a local fisherman recovers his confession, Wargrave himself is the killer.

Justice Wargrave is indefinitely insane. As mentioned before Wargrave created an entire game plan, where he bought an island, selected ten individuals and “placed a mysterious murder on the island (himself)….About Justice Wargrave.

The killer in the novel And Then There Were None is Judge Wargrave and he uses the poem to give clues to his identity, as well as to determine how each person on the island dies. Anthony Marston dies choking.

Justice Wargrave at the beginning of the novel, and why is he going to Indian Island? Wargrave is traveling by train, first class. They are both traveling third class, and they both have been hired to come to this island.

Tony was brought to the island by the murderer because of his callous attitude toward the two children he murdered when they ran in front of his speeding car. When he is first accused, he can’t even remember who John and Lucy Combes are.

Why does Lombard say he always carries a revolver? He feels he might need it if he gets caught in a tight place. After General Macarthur sent his wife’s lover off to die, what happened to his wife, Leslie? He is waiting for his own death.

murder

Wargrave chose the order of his victims very carefully. He believes that there were differing levels of guilt and he wanted the most guilty to suffer the longest. He believed that Marston had no conscience or moral responsibility and that Mrs. Rogers had been influenced by her husband.

What was William Blore’s suspicious behavior? He was sure he wouldn’t die and he faked his name in the beginning of the story.

Based on his motives and actions, the character Justice Wargrave from Agatha Christie’s book, And then there were none, was not justified in bringing judgement and ending the lives of the 9 other guests he found guilty.

Wargrave takes a letter from his pocket and glances over its contents. The letter invites him to spend some time on the island and is signed by an old friend of his, Constance Culmington, whom he has not seen for eight years.

How does miss Brent feel about Wargrave? She thinks he is a respectable gentleman. How does Lombard handle Vera’s questions about her new employer? What is learned from Lombard and Macarthurs conversation in the taxi?

And Then There Were None examines justice, but it bends the formula by making the victims of murder people who committed murder themselves. Thus, the killings on Indian Island are arguably acts of justice. Judge Wargrave does the work of detective and murderer by picking out those who are guilty and punishing them.

Cyril Ogilvie Hamilton

The poem: Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were Nine. Nine little Indian boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were Eight. Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were Six.

The main conflict in “And then there were none” is that a mysterious, anonymous man gathers 10 different strangers to the Indian Island for either work or leisure. Among the 10 diverse characters there is a serial killer which is killing them one by one to punish them for their past crimes.