Death of Philip Lombard

The death of Philip Lombard is the last murder committed by one guest against another on Indian Island, and it marks the moment when Vera Claythorne, having survived the terror of the preceding days, becomes the sole living person on the island—only to be driven to hang herself moments later. The killing is a cold, calculated act of self-preservation that reverses the power dynamic between the two remaining suspects and completes the pattern of the nursery rhyme, leaving "one little Indian boy left all alone."

Discovery of Armstrong's Body and the Trap

After Blore is killed by the marble bear clock pushed from Vera's window, Vera and Lombard are the only two guests left alive. They find Dr. Armstrong's body wedged between rocks at the water's edge, his face purple and hideously disfigured by drowning. Lombard identifies the corpse and immediately grasps the implication: "So that's it, is it, Vera?" Vera whispers, "There's no one on the island—no one at all—except us two." Lombard agrees: "Precisely. So we know where we are, don't we?" He shrugs off the trick with the marble bear as "a conjuring trick, my dear—a very good one." Their eyes meet, and Vera sees his face properly for the first time: a wolf's face with horrible teeth. Lombard snarls that this is the end, and Vera quietly accepts the truth.

Vera's Deception and the Shooting

Vera looks down at the dead doctor and says they must move him, carry him up to the house. Lombard sneers at her "womanly pity" and refuses, but when she insists on at least getting the body out of reach of the sea, he agrees. As they bend together to tug and pull the corpse clear of high water mark, Vera leans against him, helping with all her might. When they straighten up, Lombard says, "Satisfied?" Vera replies, "Quite." Her tone warns him, and he spins around, clapping his hand to his pocket—but he finds it empty. She has moved a yard or two away and is facing him, revolver in hand. Lombard tries to talk her over, speaking slowly and argumentatively, then springs at her like a panther. Automatically, Vera presses the trigger. Lombard's leaping body stays poised in mid-spring, then crashes heavily to the ground, shot through the heart. Vera comes warily forward, the revolver ready, but there is no need: Philip Lombard is dead.

Aftermath and Psychological Collapse

Relief possesses Vera—enormous, exquisite relief. At last it is over. There is no more fear, no more steeling of her nerves. She is alone on the island with nine dead bodies, but she is alive. She sits there, exquisitely happy and at peace. The sun is setting when she finally moves, hungry and sleepy, wanting only to throw herself on her bed and sleep. She walks up to the house, feeling that the whole thing might be a dream. She pauses by the dining-room door, sees three little china figures still on the table, picks up two and tosses them out the window, then clasps the third in her hand and says, "You can come with me. We've won, my dear! We've won!" She begins to mount the stairs, the little Indian clasped in her hand, feeling that Hugo is upstairs waiting for her. At the top of the stairs she drops the revolver without noticing. She opens her bedroom door and sees a rope with a noose hanging from the hook in the ceiling, a chair placed beneath it. She realizes this is the last line of the rhyme: "He went and hanged himself and then there were none." The little china figure falls from her hand and breaks against the fender. Like an automaton, she climbs onto the chair, adjusts the noose around her neck, and kicks the chair away.

Narrative Role and Thematic Significance

Lombard's death is the pivotal moment that transforms Vera from a hunted victim into the sole survivor—and then, almost immediately, into the final victim of the island's psychological trap. The killing is a direct act of self-defense, yet it is also a calculated deception: Vera uses the pretense of pity for Armstrong to pick Lombard's pocket while he is off guard. The revolver, which Lombard had found mysteriously returned to his drawer the night before, becomes the instrument of his own death. The scene completes the pattern of the nursery rhyme—"four little Indian boys going out to sea; a red herring swallowed one and then there were three"—with Armstrong as the red herring whose body lures Lombard into trusting Vera. Lombard's death also fulfills the existential trajectory he himself had foreshadowed: earlier, he told Blore that "self-preservation's a man's first duty" and that he had abandoned twenty-one men to die in East Africa. Now, his own self-preservation fails against a woman who has learned to be as ruthless as he is. The killing is the last act of violence among the guests, and it leaves Vera alone—but the island's trap is not yet sprung.