Wargrave's state as a hanging judge

Lawrence John Wargrave, a retired judge with a reputation as a 'hanging judge,' is the architect of the Indian Island massacre, a man whose lifelong conflict between a sadistic lust for death and a rigid sense of justice culminated in a fantastical, unsolvable crime. His state as a hanging judge was not merely a professional role but the expression of a deeply divided nature: a romantic imagination and a delight in causing death warred with an abhorrence of innocent suffering. The law provided the perfect outlet, allowing him to indulge his instincts while appearing to serve justice. His final, secret confession reveals that the entire plot was the work of an artist in crime, a man who, facing his own death, chose to create a masterpiece of murder that would baffle the world.

Identity and Background

Wargrave was born with what he himself describes as "a mass of contradictions." From his earliest youth, he possessed an "incurably romantic imagination" and a "definite sadistic delight in seeing or causing death," experimenting with wasps and garden pests. Yet alongside this ran a "strong sense of justice" that made it abhorrent for an innocent person to suffer by his hand. He adopted the law as a profession, which satisfied nearly all his instincts: crime and its punishment fascinated him, and he devised ingenious murder methods for his own private amusement. As a judge, he found exquisite pleasure in watching a guilty criminal squirm in the dock as doom approached, but he took no pleasure in seeing an innocent man there, on at least two occasions stopping cases where the accused was palpably innocent. His reputation as a "hanging judge" was, he claimed, unfair; he insisted he was always strictly just and scrupulous in his summing up, protecting juries from emotional appeals and drawing their attention to the actual evidence. This was the case with Edward Seton, whom Wargrave knew to be guilty of the brutal murder of an elderly woman, despite the man's misleading appearance and manner. The judge's summing up, which some thought vindictive, turned the jury and secured a conviction.

The Evolution of a Murderous Philosophy

For some years prior to the events on Indian Island, Wargrave became aware of a change within himself: a lessening of control and a desire to act instead of judge. He recognized this as "the desire of the artist to express himself" and admitted frankly that he wanted to commit a murder himself. This desire, sternly checked by his profession, waxed secretly to colossal force. He wanted a fantastical crime, something stupendous and out of the common, with an adolescent's imagination for the theatrical and impossible. The idea was sparked by a chance remark from a doctor, who mentioned how often murder must be committed that the law was unable to touch, instancing a case where a married couple had likely withheld a restorative drug from an old lady. Wargrave suddenly saw his way clear. He determined to commit not one murder, but murder on a grand scale, inspired by the childhood rhyme of the ten little Indian boys, with its inexorable diminishment and sense of inevitability. He began secretly to collect victims, using a routine conversational gambit to extract information from nearly everyone he met. He gathered the cases of Dr. Armstrong, General Macarthur, Philip Lombard, Emily Brent, Anthony Marston, ex-Inspector Blore, and Vera Claythorne, each a person he deemed guilty of a crime the law could not touch. His tenth victim was Isaac Morris, the shady agent who helped him acquire the island, a dope peddler responsible for a young woman's suicide.

The Execution of Justice

Wargrave's plan was executed with meticulous care. He ordered the deaths according to his own moral calculus, with those he considered least guilty dying first, spared prolonged mental strain. Anthony Marston and Mrs. Rogers died first, the one from cyanide slipped into his drink, the other from a lethal dose of chloral hydrate added to her brandy. General Macarthur was killed painlessly from behind. Wargrave then selected Dr. Armstrong as an unwitting ally, pretending to concur with the doctor's suspicions against Lombard and hinting at a scheme to trap the murderer. He killed Rogers while the butler was chopping sticks, then slipped a final dose of chloral into Emily Brent's coffee before injecting her with cyanide. After the subsequent search of the house and persons, Wargrave staged his own fake death, using red mud on his forehead, a red curtain, and grey wool to appear as a victim. This allowed him to move freely about the house. He lured Armstrong to the cliff edge with a story about a cave and pushed him into the sea, a "red herring" that swallowed the doctor. He then returned the revolver to Lombard's room, having hidden it in a tin of biscuits during the search. From his window, he watched Blore approach the house alone and killed him with the marble bear clock. He then witnessed Vera Claythorne shoot Philip Lombard. Setting the stage in her bedroom, he used the hypnotic suggestion of the surroundings and her own guilt to drive her to hang herself, a psychological experiment that succeeded.

The Final Act and the Confession

After Vera's death, Wargrave tidied the scene, placing the chair against the wall and preserving her fingerprints on the revolver. He then wrote his full confession, enclosing it in a bottle and casting it into the sea, driven by a "pitiful human wish that some one should know just how clever I have been." He recognized that no artist can be satisfied with art alone. He then returned to his room to commit suicide, using a carefully arranged elastic cord attached to his eyeglasses and the revolver to make his death appear to be the work of the unknown murderer. He left behind three clues for the police: that Edward Seton was guilty, meaning one of the ten was not a murderer and must logically be the murderer; that the "red herring" of Armstrong's death indicated hocus-pocus and that only Wargrave could have inspired his confidence; and the symbolic "brand of Cain" on his own forehead. His confession reveals that the entire mystery was the work of a man who saw himself as an artist in crime, a judge who finally became the executioner, and a dying man who chose to go out in a blaze of excitement, leaving behind an unsolved problem on Indian Island.