He is not the last to die – he fakes his own death (with Dr. Armstrong’s unwitting help) early on, then later kills Armstrong, Blore, Vera, and Lombard, before shooting himself in a carefully staged suicide designed to look like a final unsolved murder.
| Year | Medium | Title Used | Notes | |------|--------|------------|-------| | 1945 | Film | And Then There Were None | Directed by René Clair. Changes the ending: Vera and Lombard survive (Hollywood demands). | | 1965 | Film | Ten Little Indians | Sets it in an Austrian castle. Campy. | | 1974 | Film | Ten Little Indians | Sets it in an Iranian hotel. | | 1987 | Film | Ten Little Indians | Sets it in an African safari lodge. | | 2015 | TV mini-series (BBC) | And Then There Were None | Most faithful adaptation. Restores the downbeat ending (all die). Stars Charles Dance as Wargrave, Aidan Turner as Lombard. Critically acclaimed. | | 2020 | Audio drama | And Then There Were None | BBC Radio 4, uses the soldier rhyme. | agatha christie 10 negritos
Fans of locked-room mysteries, psychological thrillers, and anyone who wants to see the blueprint for every “strangers trapped in a house, killed one by one” story that followed – from Scream to The Traitors . “One of the most ingenious thrillers ever written.” – The New York Times End of guide. He is not the last to die –
Each death mirrors the “Ten Little Soldier Boys” rhyme – but the killer manipulates order and method to create confusion. 4. The Killer & The Twist (Major Spoilers) The murderer is Judge Lawrence Wargrave. Changes the ending: Vera and Lombard survive (Hollywood
A lifelong obsession with justice and execution. As a judge, he hated seeing guilty people escape the law. He selected ten people whose crimes were legally unpunishable (murder by neglect, perjury, reckless driving, etc.) and designed the island trap as his “masterpiece” – a perfect, artistic execution of the unpunished.
Upon arrival, a framed nursery rhyme hangs in each bedroom: “Ten little soldier boys went out to dine…” After dinner, a gramophone record accuses each guest of a specific murder that the law could not touch. Then, one by one, they begin to die exactly as the rhyme predicts – a choking, a sleeping pill, a bee sting, a red herring, etc.
With no boat leaving the island and a storm cutting them off, the survivors realize the killer is among them. Paranoia, confession, and false accusations ensue. By the end, all ten are dead – yet no obvious murderer remains. The final chapters reveal, through a posthumous confession, how it was done. In the original title, “negritos” referred to the ten figures in the nursery rhyme. But the human characters are the heart of the novel. Listed in order of death (with the rhyme’s method):