Anthony James Marston
Anthony James Marston is a wealthy, reckless young man who becomes the first guest to die on Indian Island, poisoned by potassium cyanide in his whiskey, and whose death initiates the pattern of the nursery rhyme murders.
Identity and Background
Anthony James Marston is a young man of striking physical presence: six feet of well-proportioned body, crisp hair, a tanned face, and intensely blue eyes. When he arrives at Sticklehaven in his powerful Dalmain car, he appears to the other guests not as a man but as a young god, a hero out of some Northern Saga. He is a creature of sensation and action rather than thought, and he moves through the world with an unthinking assumption of privilege. He is well off, and he expects to be well entertained. He has come to Indian Island because a friend, Badger Berkeley, sent him a wire telling him to roll up; he had no idea who the Owens were and assumed they were rich and stinking. He hoped there would be a few girls and that the drinks would be good.
Life and Plot Trajectory
Marston arrives at the island in the evening, driving his car down the steep track into the village with a roar that echoes from the rocks. He is the last of the guests to arrive, and his entrance is spectacular. Once at the house, he is pleased to find plenty of ice and a good supply of drinks. He takes a bath, luxuriating in the steaming water, and then goes down to dinner. During the meal, he is the one who notices the ten little china figures in the centre of the table and points them out to the others. After dinner, when the gramophone record plays and accuses him of the murder of John and Lucy Combes, he reacts with a slow, puzzled voice, saying he had just been thinking about them—a couple of kids he ran over near Cambridge. He calls it beastly bad luck, and when the judge asks acidly, "For them, or for you?" Marston replies that he was thinking for himself, but admits it was damned bad luck on them. He insists it was a pure accident, that they rushed out of some cottage, and that he had his licence endorsed for a year, which was a beastly nuisance. He shows no remorse, only irritation at the inconvenience. Later, when the judge suggests they all leave the island the next morning, Marston disagrees, calling it unsporting and saying they ought to ferret out the mystery before they go. He picks up his drink, drinks it off at a gulp, chokes, turns purple, and slides off his chair, dead.
Key Actions and Objectives
Marston's key action is his death. He is the first victim, and his death establishes the pattern that the murders will follow the nursery rhyme. He dies by choking, corresponding to the first verse: "One choked his little self and then there were nine." The poison is potassium cyanide, which acts instantaneously. The doctor, Armstrong, determines that the whiskey and soda were untampered with, meaning the poison must have been in Marston's glass. This leads to the conclusion that either he committed suicide or someone else slipped the poison into his glass during the confusion after the gramophone accusation. The latter is the truth: the judge, Wargrave, later confesses that he slipped the cyanide into Marston's almost empty glass during the tense period after the gramophone recital.
Relationships and Conflict
Marston has no meaningful relationships with the other guests. He is a lone figure, a young man of wealth and privilege who moves through the world without connecting to others. He is briefly allied with no one. His conflict is not with any individual but with the law: he has killed two children with his car and feels no responsibility for their deaths. The judge, Wargrave, views him with contempt, and the doctor, Armstrong, criticises his speeding. Marston's only response is to shrug and say speed has come to stay.
Change and Ending
Marston undergoes no change. He is the same arrogant, thoughtless young man from his first appearance to his last breath. His death is sudden, unexpected, and violent. He is struck down in the prime of his health and strength, and the other guests find it almost impossible to believe that a young Norse god could die so easily. His body is carried to his bedroom and covered with a sheet. The police later confirm that he died of cyanide poisoning.
Narrative Role and Evaluation
Marston serves as the first victim, the one who sets the murder plot in motion. His death is the first proof that the unknown host, U. N. Owen, is not merely a practical joker but a killer. It also establishes the pattern of the nursery rhyme, which becomes the blueprint for all subsequent murders. Marston is a flat character, built around a single idea: the callous, reckless rich young man who feels no responsibility for the lives he destroys. His function is to be killed, and his death is the catalyst for the terror that follows. The judge, Wargrave, later explains in his confession that he selected Marston from a large group of people who had committed similar offences, considering his complete callousness and inability to feel any responsibility for the lives he had taken made him a type dangerous to the community and unfit to live.
