Confession of Lawrence Wargrave

Lawrence Wargrave's manuscript confession, sealed in a bottle and thrown into the sea by the master of the trawler Emma Jane, is the final, revelatory document of the Indian Island affair. It provides the only complete explanation for the ten deaths that baffled Scotland Yard. In it, Wargrave, the retired judge who had presided over the case of Edward Seton, reveals himself as U. N. Owen, the architect of the entire scheme. The confession is a chilling testament to a mind that combined a romantic imagination, a sadistic delight in death, and an unyielding, personal sense of justice, all harnessed to create what he considered an unsolvable work of art.

Motives and Preparation

Wargrave confesses that from his earliest youth he was aware of a "mass of contradictions" within himself: a romantic fancy, a "definite sadistic delight in seeing or causing death," and a powerful "sense of justice" that abhorred the suffering of the innocent. The law, he explains, satisfied nearly all his instincts, allowing him to indulge his fascination with crime and punishment. As a judge, he took exquisite pleasure in watching a guilty criminal's doom approach, but he insists he was always strictly just and scrupulous in his summing up. Over the years, however, a change occurred: a desire to act instead of to judge, to commit a murder himself. This desire, he writes, was the "desire of the artist to express himself." The idea for his grand scheme came from a casual remark by a doctor about murders the law could not touch, such as the case of an old lady whose death was caused by the withholding of a restorative drug. Wargrave determined to commit not one murder, but murder on a grand scale, inspired by the childhood rhyme of the ten little Indian boys. He secretly collected his victims, using a routine conversational gambit to gather information. He selected Anthony Marston, Mrs. Rogers, General Macarthur, Emily Brent, Philip Lombard, Ex-Inspector Blore, Vera Claythorne, Dr. Armstrong, and finally Isaac Morris, a shady dope peddler he held responsible for a young girl's suicide. The plan was completed after an interview with a Harley Street doctor who told him another operation would be useless; Wargrave decided his death would not be slow and protracted but would take place "in a blaze of excitement."

The Execution of the Plan

Wargrave details the order of the killings, which he designed so that those with the lightest guilt would die first, spared prolonged mental strain. Anthony Marston and Mrs. Rogers died first, the former from potassium cyanide slipped into his glass during the tension after the gramophone accusation, the latter from a lethal dose of chloral hydrate added to her brandy. General Macarthur was killed painlessly from behind as he sat by the sea. After the search of the island confirmed there was no outsider, Wargrave selected the gullible Dr. Armstrong as an ally, pretending to concur with his suspicions of Lombard. He killed Rogers while the butler was chopping sticks, then used the confusion to steal Lombard's revolver. At breakfast, he slipped chloral into Emily Brent's coffee, then later injected her with a strong cyanide solution, adding the bumblebee as a touch of local color to match the nursery rhyme. The subsequent search of the guests' persons and effects went as planned, as Wargrave had safely hidden the revolver and drugs.

The Fake Death and Final Acts

Wargrave then staged his own death, using red mud on his forehead, the missing red curtain, and grey wool to create the illusion of a shot judge. The ruse worked perfectly, and he was carried to his bed, now free to move about the house. He kept a rendezvous with Armstrong on the cliff edge, where he pushed the unsuspecting doctor into the sea—a "red herring" that swallowed him. Returning to the house, he was glimpsed by Blore, which led to the search that confirmed Armstrong's disappearance. He then returned the revolver to Lombard's room, having hidden it in a tin of biscuits in the larder during the earlier search. From his window, he watched Blore approach the house alone and killed him by dropping the marble bear clock. He then witnessed Vera Claythorne shoot Philip Lombard. Setting the stage in Vera's bedroom, he arranged a rope with a noose, and the hypnotic suggestion of the surroundings, combined with her guilt, led her to hang herself. After her death, he picked up the chair and set it against the wall, and retrieved the revolver from the top of the stairs, careful to preserve her fingerprints.

The Final Suicide and the Clues

Wargrave's final act was his own suicide. He describes his method: he attached a length of fine black elastic cord to his eyeglasses, looped it around the door-handle, and attached it to the revolver. Lying on his bed, he pressed the trigger with a hand protected by a handkerchief. The recoil pulled the revolver to the door, where it detached from the elastic and fell. The elastic, released, hung innocently from the eyeglasses. He would be found shot through the forehead, in accordance with the record. He acknowledges a "pitiful human wish" for recognition, which is why he wrote the confession. He leaves three clues for the police: first, that Edward Seton was guilty, meaning one of the ten was not a murderer, and that person must logically be the murderer; second, that the "red herring" in the nursery rhyme indicates hocus-pocus at Armstrong's death, pointing to the only person who could inspire his confidence; and third, the symbolic "brand of Cain" on his own forehead, marking the manner of his death.