Vera shoots Lombard

Vera Claythorne shoots Philip Lombard dead on the beach of Indian Island after tricking him into helping her move Dr. Armstrong's body and then picking his pocket for his revolver, an act that leaves her alone on the island and precipitates her own suicide.

Discovery of Armstrong's Body and the Shift in Power

After Blore's death, the two survivors, Vera Claythorne and Philip Lombard, had spent the afternoon on the cliffs, signaling with a mirror and avoiding the house. As the sun dropped toward the west, Lombard spotted a bundle of clothes wedged between rocks near the water's edge. Scrambling over the rocks, they discovered it was the body of Dr. Armstrong, his face purple and hideously disfigured by drowning. The tide had flung him there earlier in the day. Vera and Lombard lifted their heads and looked into each other's eyes, the full implication dawning on them: there was no one else on the island. Lombard laughed and said, "So that's it, is it, Vera?" Vera whispered, "There's no one on the island—no one at all—except us two." Lombard agreed: "Precisely. So we know where we are, don't we?" He shrugged off the trick with the marble bear as a conjuring trick. Their eyes met again, and Vera saw his face properly for the first time—a wolf's face, with horrible teeth. Lombard's voice became a snarl: "This is the end, you understand. We've come to the truth now. And it's the end." Vera quietly accepted the statement, but inwardly she rebelled; she looked down at the dead man and expressed pity, which Lombard sneered at as womanly pity. He declared he had no pity for her.

Vera's Deception and the Theft of the Revolver

Vera insisted they move Armstrong's body out of reach of the sea. Lombard reluctantly agreed, bending to tug at the corpse. Vera leaned against him, helping him pull and tug with all her might. They managed to draw the body clear of the high-water mark. As Lombard straightened up and asked if she was satisfied, Vera replied "Quite." Her tone warned him. He spun around and clapped his hand to his pocket, but he knew he would find it empty. Vera had moved a yard or two away and was facing him, revolver in hand. She had used the pretense of womanly solicitude to pick his pocket while they struggled with the body. Lombard, realizing death was very near, tried to talk her over, speaking slowly and argumentatively: "Now look here, my dear girl, you just listen—" Then he sprang, quick as a panther. Automatically, Vera pressed the trigger. Lombard's leaping body stayed poised in mid-spring, then crashed heavily to the ground. Vera came warily forward, the revolver ready, but there was no need of caution: Philip Lombard was dead, shot through the heart.

Aftermath and Vera's Psychological Collapse

Relief possessed Vera—enormous, exquisite relief. At last it was over. There was no more fear, no more steeling of her nerves. She was alone on the island, alone with nine dead bodies, but that did not matter: she was alive. She sat there, exquisitely happy and at peace. The sun was setting when she moved at last. She realized she was hungry and sleepy, principally sleepy. She wanted to throw herself on her bed and sleep. She began to walk up toward the house, thinking the whole thing might be a dream. She entered the front door, paused by the dining-room, and saw three little china figures still on the table. She laughed, picked up two and tossed them out the window, then held the third in her hand, saying, "You can come with me. We've won, my dear! We've won!" Clasping the little Indian, she began to mount the stairs. At the top, something fell from her hand—the revolver—but she did not notice. She was only conscious of the china figure. She felt Hugo was upstairs waiting for her. She opened her bedroom door and saw a rope with a noose hanging from the hook in the ceiling, with a chair to stand upon that could be kicked away. She realized this was what Hugo wanted, and that this was the last line of the rhyme: "He went and hanged himself and then there were none." The little china figure fell from her hand and broke against the fender. Like an automaton, she climbed onto the chair, adjusted the noose around her neck, and kicked the chair away.

Thematic Significance: The Final Act of Survival and Self-Destruction

Vera's shooting of Lombard is the climax of the island's spiral of mutual destruction. It is the moment when the last two survivors, having eliminated all other suspects, turn on each other. Vera's act is one of cold-blooded self-preservation, but it is also the culmination of her own guilt: she had drowned a child to win Hugo's love, and the psychological pressure of the island's events, combined with the hypnotic suggestion of the nursery rhyme, drives her to suicide immediately after. The revolver, which had been stolen from Lombard and then returned to his drawer by the judge, becomes the instrument of his death at Vera's hands. The judge, watching from the wardrobe, noted that Vera was a "daring and resourceful young woman" and that he had always thought she was a match for Lombard. Her shooting of Lombard is the penultimate death in the rhyme, leaving only "one little Indian boy left all alone"—herself. The act is both a triumph of survival and the prelude to her own destruction, as the guilt she has carried throughout the novel finally overwhelms her.