Swan Song

Swan Song is the gramophone record that serves as the instrument of accusation on Indian Island. Played without warning after dinner on the first evening, it delivers a recorded voice that names each guest and charges them with a specific murder, shattering the party's composure and initiating the sequence of deaths that follows the nursery rhyme. The record's title, a piece of grim irony, marks the beginning of the end for all who hear it.

The Record and Its Revelation

The record was placed on a gramophone in a room adjoining the drawing-room, with the trumpet mouth pressed against the wall through which small holes had been unobtrusively bored. The butler, Rogers, had been instructed by Mr. Owen to put on the record after he brought in the coffee tray; his wife was to start the gramophone. Rogers believed it was a piece of music, as it bore the title "Swan Song." When the voice began to speak, Rogers dropped the coffee tray in shock, and Mrs. Rogers, who had started the machine, fainted in the hallway outside. The voice accused each person by full name: Edward George Armstrong of causing the death of Louisa Mary Clees; Emily Caroline Brent of responsibility for the death of Beatrice Taylor; William Henry Blore of bringing about the death of James Stephen Landor; Vera Elizabeth Claythorne of killing Cyril Ogilvie Hamilton; Philip Lombard of being guilty of the death of twenty-one men of an East African tribe; John Gordon Macarthur of deliberately sending his wife's lover, Arthur Richmond, to his death; Anthony James Marston of the murder of John and Lucy Combes; Thomas and Ethel Rogers of bringing about the death of Jennifer Brady; and Lawrence John Wargrave of the murder of Edward Seton. The voice concluded with the phrase, "Prisoners at the bar, have you anything to say in your defence?"

Immediate Aftermath and Discovery

The accusation caused immediate chaos. Rogers dropped the coffee tray, and Mrs. Rogers collapsed outside the room. Philip Lombard was the first to act, leaping to the door and finding her in a huddled mass. Dr. Armstrong attended to her, diagnosing a faint. The guests then discovered the gramophone in the adjoining room, with the trumpet against the wall and the record still on the turntable. When Lombard replaced the needle, the voice repeated the charges. Vera Claythorne cried out, "Turn it off! Turn it off! It's horrible!" The discovery of the gramophone and the bored holes confirmed that the voice had been a mechanical trick, but the damage was done: the accusations had been heard, and suspicion and fear took root.

Thematic Significance

The record's title, "Swan Song," is a piece of dark irony, as it heralds not a performance but a series of executions. The record functions as the first move in the killer's plan, establishing the pattern of accusation and death that will follow the nursery rhyme. It also serves as a narrative device, revealing to the reader the specific crimes of which each character is accused, crimes that the law could not touch. The record's impersonal, recorded voice—without a visible speaker—creates an atmosphere of paranoia and helplessness, as the guests realize they are trapped with an unseen judge and executioner. The record's content, a list of charges, becomes the blueprint for the murders that follow, each death mirroring a verse of the rhyme that hangs framed in every bedroom.