10 October 1928

The date 10 October 1928 marks the day on which William Henry Blore, then a serving police officer, brought about the death of James Stephen Landor through perjured testimony. This miscarriage of justice, which the law could not remedy, became one of the ten crimes that U.N. Owen set out to punish on Indian Island, and it was the specific accusation leveled against Blore during the gramophone record indictment.

The Crime and Its Cover-Up

On 10 October 1928, Landor was convicted of the London and Commercial Bank robbery on the strength of Blore's evidence. Blore, the police officer in charge of the case, had been squared by the Purcell gang and knowingly gave false testimony to secure a conviction. Landor, a delicate man, was sentenced to penal servitude for life and died in Dartmoor prison a year later. Blore received promotion for his handling of the case, though he later admitted that the gang had paid him and that Landor was innocent. The Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, Sir Thomas Legge, had always believed Blore committed black perjury in the Landor case but could not prove it.

The Accusation on Indian Island

During the gramophone record indictment on the evening of 8 August, the Voice accused Blore by name: "William Henry Blore, that you brought about the death of James Stephen Landor on October 10th, 1928." Blore initially tried to maintain his false identity as "Mr. Davis" from South Africa, but when exposed, he admitted his real name and claimed he was an ex-C.I.D. man running a detective agency who had been hired by U.N. Owen to watch the other guests. He defended his actions by saying Landor was a crook and that he was only doing his duty, but the judge, Mr. Justice Wargrave, reminded him that Landor had died in Dartmoor a year later.

Blore's Confession and Its Consequences

On the morning of 10 August, after Rogers had been killed, Blore privately admitted to Philip Lombard that Landor was innocent. He confessed that the Purcell gang had squared him and that between them they got Landor put away for a stretch. Blore acknowledged that he did not make as much money as he should have from the deal, though he did get his promotion. Lombard pointed out that Landor died in prison, and Blore replied that he could not have known Landor would die. This confession, made in the belief that they would both likely be dead before another day was out, confirmed that Blore's crime was one the law could not touch—a deliberate miscarriage of justice that sent an innocent man to his death.

Thematic Significance

The date 10 October 1928 represents the kind of crime that U.N. Owen's entire scheme was designed to punish: an offense committed by a servant of the law who abused his position of trust, for which no legal remedy was possible. Blore's perjury, like the other nine crimes on the island, was a case where the guilty party could not be brought to justice through normal legal channels. The fact that Blore was a police officer—someone whose word was perforce believed by virtue of his profession—made his crime particularly insidious in the eyes of the judge who would later become the executioner. Blore's death on the island, crushed by a marble bear clock dropped from Vera Claythorne's window, fulfilled the nursery rhyme's verse about the little Indian boy who "got in Chancery," a fitting end for a man who had perverted the course of justice.