Upon arrival, a framed nursery rhyme hangs in each bedroom: “Ten little soldier boys went out to dine…” After dinner, a gramophone record accuses each guest of a specific murder that the law could not touch. Then, one by one, they begin to die exactly as the rhyme predicts – a choking, a sleeping pill, a bee sting, a red herring, etc.
| Guest | Crime Accused | Method of Death (from rhyme) | |-------|---------------|-------------------------------| | | Ran over two children, no remorse | “Choked” – cyanide in his drink | | Mrs. Ethel Rogers | Let her elderly employer die from neglect | “Slept” – fatal overdose of sleeping draught | | General John MacArthur | Sent a subordinate to his death because the man was his wife’s lover | “Stayed” – bludgeoned while sitting on the cliff | | Mr. Thomas Rogers | Let his employer die for inheritance | “Bee” – an axe to the head (bee sting in rhyme) | | Emily Brent | Turned out a pregnant servant who later drowned herself | “Crab” – injection of potassium cyanide (bee sting? no – wait, check: In the soldier rhyme, #5 is “a red herring” – but Christie plays with order. Actually, Brent dies from a bee sting? No – correction: Brent is injected. Let’s be accurate. In the soldier rhyme: 1 choked, 2 slept, 3 stayed, 4 bee, 5 crab, 6 stuck, 7 axe, 8 swallowed, 9 sat, 10 hanged. But Christie adapts. The actual deaths: Marston (cyanide), Mrs. Rogers (sleeping pill), MacArthur (blow to head), Rogers (axe blow), Brent (injection), Judge Wargrave (gunshot – faked), Dr. Armstrong (drowned), Blore (bear clock crushed head), Vera (hanged), Lombard (shot by Vera). So the rhyme is poetic license.) | | Judge Lawrence Wargrave | Sent an innocent man to gallows (as judge) | Faked death by gunshot; later actually shot | | Dr. Edward Armstrong | Operated drunk, killed patient | Swept out to sea (“stuck” a thorn) | | William Blore | Perjured himself, sent innocent man to prison (died there) | Crushed by a bear-shaped clock | | Philip Lombard | Left 21 East African men to die, stole supplies | Shot by Vera Claythorne | | Vera Claythorne | Let her young nephew drown to inherit his guardian’s money | Hangs herself (fulfilling the rhyme’s final line) | agatha christie 10 negritos
With no boat leaving the island and a storm cutting them off, the survivors realize the killer is among them. Paranoia, confession, and false accusations ensue. By the end, all ten are dead – yet no obvious murderer remains. The final chapters reveal, through a posthumous confession, how it was done. In the original title, “negritos” referred to the ten figures in the nursery rhyme. But the human characters are the heart of the novel. Listed in order of death (with the rhyme’s method): Upon arrival, a framed nursery rhyme hangs in
He is not the last to die – he fakes his own death (with Dr. Armstrong’s unwitting help) early on, then later kills Armstrong, Blore, Vera, and Lombard, before shooting himself in a carefully staged suicide designed to look like a final unsolved murder. Ethel Rogers | Let her elderly employer die
A lifelong obsession with justice and execution. As a judge, he hated seeing guilty people escape the law. He selected ten people whose crimes were legally unpunishable (murder by neglect, perjury, reckless driving, etc.) and designed the island trap as his “masterpiece” – a perfect, artistic execution of the unpunished.
Each death mirrors the “Ten Little Soldier Boys” rhyme – but the killer manipulates order and method to create confusion. 4. The Killer & The Twist (Major Spoilers) The murderer is Judge Lawrence Wargrave.