Who Is The Killer In 'And Then There Were None'?

Let’s dive into this really spooky and very strange mystery ‘And Then There Were None’ by the Queen of Mystery, Agatha Christie. And especially Justice Wargrave’s incredibly surprising, frightening and very impressive way of being the killer of all ten characters in the story. First of all, he brought together 10 people who were all different and all were hiding some big secrets they had never been caught for, and he brought them to an abandoned island off the coast of England called Soldier Island. He killed them one by one, each in a way that mirrored one of the lines from a children’s nursery rhyme, ‘Ten Little Soldiers’. He even managed to make them believe that he had been killed off halfway through the story, as well.

It is through Wargrave’s warped perspective that we see that his motive for murder was to act as judge, handing down sentences that the law had failed to. That his methods were bloody, were cold, calculated, did not matter to Wargrave, for he was in control. Each of his ten victims died in a manner described in the nursery rhyme ‘Ten Little Soldiers’, with each death being as methodically planned and orchestrated as the last. What is most shocking about Wargrave is his control of his own actions even to the point of planning his own suicide. He leaves behind a justification for his actions in the form of a confession. And Yet, Wargrave is not a monster in a monastery, he is a respected man, respected enough to be able to wear a long robe, to carry a gavel. And to hide behind them. That is the horror of Wargrave.

And then there is the ability that the novel has to make the reader feel the same emotions of guilt, paranoia and suspicion as the characters in the story. Wargrave uses each of the characters against each other and they are all suspect to some degree. But ultimately he uses physical means to eliminate each of them - poison, a gun shot, an axe. It is the psychological torture that he inflicts on the characters that is so cruel. And the setting of Soldier Island is so claustrophobic, no one leaving and no one coming in. The reader is left wondering who could possibly be the murderer, and the twist at the end of the novel is that it could have been anyone in the room with them. In the end it is revealed that Wargrave is the murderer and his confession to the perfect crime is read out to the remaining characters after his suicide. The novel shows that some of the worst evils in the world are carried out by normal human beings and that is why it is such a timeless and classic novel.

A subtle clue to Wargrave’s identity that I had not picked up on the first reading was his description in terms of reptile-like features – a turtle-like neck, lizard-like eyes. The old man is not as he seems. The other characters in the novel are described in quite some detail but none of them have been described in such terms as Wargrave. This is a classic literary device to describe someone who is cold-blooded, calculating and detached. He is a predator – and the description of him as an old man is how he wants to be seen. But once you have read the novel and know that he was the killer, these descriptions are even more terrifying as they highlight his true nature which he managed to conceal so well beneath his respectable exterior.

Justice Lawrence Wargrave was the killer. He had set up his own death to be shot by a blank cartridge and spent the rest of the novel as a supposed victim getting off one by one. He was setting up the perfect crime and got to satisfy his warped sense of justice in setting up and watching the others die. It was all an elaborate performance and in the end he couldn’t live with himself and killed himself after the others had been killed and a manuscript left in a bottle had been found. The reason that Wargrave was able to get away with it for so long was that he was the one character in the novel who seemed to have it all together and was in complete control. The reader is left guessing until the very end as to who the killer was. You can look back at the novel and see all of the little clues that were given to the reader as to why you should have suspected Wargrave. The old judge seemed to be the figure of authority in the novel, but he was the killer. It was a brilliant trick by Agatha Christie and is a great example of misdirection.