Overcome by guilt, she hangs herself in accordance with the last line of the rhyme. She finds a noose and chair arranged in her room and a powerful smell of the sea.
Vera returns to the house in a shaken, post-traumatic state. When Lombard lunges for it, she shoots him dead. Vera suggests moving the body from the shore as a mark of respect, but this is a pretext to acquire Lombard's gun. Vera and Lombard find Armstrong's body washed up on the beach, and each concludes the other must be responsible. When Blore returns for food, he is killed by a marble clock shaped like a bear that is pushed from Vera's window sill. Vera, Blore, and Lombard decide to stick together and leave the house. That night, Lombard's gun is returned, and Blore sees someone leaving the house.
Most of the remaining guests rush upstairs when they return they find Wargrave still downstairs, crudely dressed in the attire of a judge with a gunshot wound to the forehead.
Vera Claythorne goes up to her room and screams when she finds seaweed hanging from the ceiling. The next morning, Mr Rogers is found dead at the woodpile, and Emily Brent is found dead in the drawing room, having been injected with potassium cyanide.Īfter Wargrave suggests searching all the rooms, Lombard's gun is found to be missing. Since no one else could have arrived or departed the island unassisted, they are forced to conclude that one of the seven remaining persons must be the killer. The guests suspect that U N Owen may be systematically murdering them and search the island, but find no hiding places. The guests realise that the nature of the deaths corresponds with the respective lines of the rhyme, and three of the figurines are found to be missing. The next morning, Mrs Rogers is found dead in her bed, and by lunchtime, General MacArthur has also died from a heavy blow to the head. Dr Armstrong confirms that there was no cyanide in the other drinks and suggests that Marston must have dosed himself. Marston finishes his drink and promptly dies of cyanide poisoning. The guests discover that none of them know the Owens, and Mr Justice Wargrave suggests that the name "U N Owen" is a play on "Unknown". After supper, a phonograph record is played the recording accuses each visitor and Mr and Mrs Rogers of having committed murder, then asks if any of the "prisoners at the bar" wishes to offer a defence. They are met by the butler and cook-housekeeper, Thomas and Ethel Rogers, who explain that their hosts, Ulick Norman Owen and Una Nancy Owen, have not yet arrived, though they have left instructions.Ī framed copy of an old rhyme hangs in every guest's room, and on the dining room table sit ten figurines. These details correspond to the text of the 1939 first edition.Įight people arrive on a small, isolated island off the Devon coast, each having received an unexpected personal invitation.
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