Ten little Indians - And then there were none - by Agatha Christie

Edit on 14 September 2023, when I reread it and noticed I hadn't written much about the book, about the plot itself.

First, let me tell you that there should be a movie made out of this book, but a good modern one, seriously thought through and seriously made, no silly escapes or romance. I found it's really difficult to make good movies about Christie's books, apparently nobody can do it without changing things here and there, but this book has been a masterpiece for more than 80 years, does it really need changing? 

No. Just good directing, good acting, a good setting with the right atmosphere... not easy but not impossible. The only 'change', if you can call it that, is that I would call it something like 'ten little penguins' and have little penguin statues of course, and possibly an island in the shape of a penguin. This way, they have no nationality, they have no gender, they're safe and cute, and in contrast with their fate. Perfect I'd say.

The movie should start with the old murders in order from the oldest to the most recent, probably starting with the doctor, or the general. The most recent should be Emily, Vera and then Marston.

There should be a little context to explain the murder, of course, as if they were very short movies, and all ten of them should be showed, no mention at all that one of them was not guilty. Morris can be left out of the movie, it would add time for no reason. 

After the murder, you should show the character now, travelling and arriving at the island, no words needed for that, saves time.

Once all ten have been shown, and the characters are all known to the audience, the thrill starts with the recorded voice and then one murder after the others, in a rising suspense, no long pause trying to create fear in the wrong way. The pace should be quick at this point.

With good lights and good scenography the atmosphere would be there already, good acting would keep you thrilled, and then at the end, while she hangs herself, with the room fading and the framing going out the house and up above the island, then showing a boat picking up a bottle, maybe a small bottle with a father and son fishing, and the curious child picking it up. Then an image of the police reading the letter, no words from them, only concentrated expressions. And since the moment of the hanging, the voice of the murderer explaining what he did and why he did it, a shorter version, of course, although a few silent images of how he found out about the murders would be great, like a crying, deeply unhappy Hugo.

Ok, if you think that maybe nowadays Miss Brent's story is not really believable, you could change it to a modern version: Beatrice had a girlfriend, bigot Emily fired her but also revealed it to everyone in the small bigot village, maybe even adding something of her own creation but that she actually believes, and Beatrice's family turned their backs on her. Amy wanted to go far away, Beatrice told her to stay to spite them all, but when bullies cause Amy's death (don't go too far, something like shoving her because she wouldn't stand for their verbal bullying of Beatrice, and Amy hitting her head the wrong way) and Beatrice feels guilty for staying and commits suicide. Tragic, and one more name on Emily's conscience, if she had one.

It would be great.

The book I read has Nigger Island as the name of the island where everything happens, because people back then thought its shape reminded of the physiognomy of black people, which was typically strong features, pronounced jaws and cheekbones, I think. I don't know why she called the book Ten Little Niggers, I don't know if that was an existing poem and that's where it came from, I have no idea and wasn't able to find out. Still, in Italy it's always been Ten Little Indians, so that's what it is to me. In America I think they chose the title And then there were none, which is a nice catchy phrase, but it gives too much away, I'm glad it was not the title here. 

So, the plot:

some people are going to Nigger Island, in Devon, bought by an American millionnaire then sold to a Mr Owen... nobody knows who that is, so gossip spreads.

-- Judge Lawrence Wargrave got an invitation from Lady Constance Culmington, a friend.

-- Vera Claythorne, a girl who found a job as a secretary and who got a letter from a Nancy Owen, had been in a trial and found innocent.

-- Captain Philip Lombard has done illegal things in lis life and gort away with it, and would certainly do it again.

-- Miss Emily Brent is 65 and a very old-fashioned person. She's been invited to a free holiday by someone she can't remember.

-- General MacArthur is avoided by many people for something that happened thirty years before.

-- Dottor Armstrong has been hired to go to the island for a generous amount of money, to discreetly look after Mrs Owen's health. He hot in trouble 15 years ago when he still used to drink, but got away with it.

-- Tony Marston is a young man with a fast car who likes drinking.

-- Mr Blore wrote in his little notebook the names of all the people above plus butler Rogers and his wife, planning on how to introduce himself to them. He goes for Mr Davis, from South Africa. 

They all reach the island by boat and meet the butler who tells them Mr Owen is late and will join them the next day. Vera finds in her room the little poem of the three little indians, as do the others. 

After a good dinner cooked by Mrs Rogers, a voice echoes in the room: they are all accused of causing someone's death: Armstrong of Louisa Mary Clees, Miss Brent of Beatrice Taylor, Mr Blore of James Stephen Landor, Vera of Cyril Ogilvie Hamilton, Lombard of 21 men belonging to an African tribe, MacArthur knowingly sent his wife's lover to death, Arthur Richmond. Marston of John and Lucy Combes, Tomas and Ethel Rogers of Jennifer Brady. Wargrave of Edward Seton.

Mrs Rogers faints. Lombard found a gramophone in the next room, but they don't know who played it. It turns out it were the Rogers, as per Mr Owen's orders. Mr Blore's identity is revealed, he's a private investigator, hired to spy on them. 

They all refuse the accusations, the judge too insists he sent a murderer to death. Vera recalls the cild she was in charge of, who went swimming and drowned. She tried to save him but failed, and not even his mother thought her guilty. The general says a man got killed in a mission, but it was war and those things happened. Lombard admits he abandoned those men, running away with all their food provisions. Marston ran over two kids, very unfortunate for him, he says, it was an accident. The Rogers worked for Miss Brady, her health was never good and the night she got worse the phone didn't work because of the bad weather. Blore got a man sentenced to life in prison for robbery and he died there in a year: he was the police detective on the case and testified against him, and got a promotion. Doctor Armstrong says he's never heard the name Clees, never had a patient with that name but he thinks back of the day he operated while drunk and with trembling hands. Miss Brent tells them nothing, only that she has nothing to feel guilty about, and she believes it.

They plan on leaving the next morning, when the boat will appear with Fred bringing bread and milk like every day. 

Marston drinks and falls down his chair, dead. There was something in his glass. Macarthur goes to sleep thinking back to the young wife he had so loved and the young man he had liked before discovering their affair and sending him off to die in his fury. Vera is also thinking back to the man that told her he loved her but couldn't marry her because he had no money. He could have been rich but then his nephew Cyril was born... still, Hugo loved the boy. 

Doctor Armstrong was having a nightmare when Rogers woke him. His wife wouldn't wake up, she died during the night. She's number 2. Emily Brent says it was probably her bad conscience while Blore thinks her husband killed her so she wouldn't confess. Emily Brent tells Vera her story: Beatrice was a nice girl working for her, but Emily discovered her true dissolute nature when the girl got pregnant. Emily didn't forgive such a thing, nor did her parents, and she fired Beatrice who later on committed suicide. Armstrong, Lombard and Blore explore the whole island, very small, and the house, but find no trace of anyone else. 

They all join for lunch, but the general was late, still sitting by the sea, so doctor Armstrong goes to him to call him in for lunch. Shortly, he's running back to tell them the general is dead. Number 3.

The fourth is Rogers, found the next morning. He was chopping wood for the morning fire, they saw another big axe had broken his skull.

The fifth is Emily Brent, someone injected her with something while there was a bee in the room. Only five are left, and they know one of them is the murderer, so they're all tense, suspicious.

The sixth is judge Wargrave, shot in the head with Lombard's gun, covered in a red 'vest' (the disappeared curtain) and a grey wig (made with grey wool that Emily said was missing). Only four now. They lock themselves in their rooms.

At night Blore hears noises, and after a thorough search neither he or Lombard can find Armstrong, and now the little statues on the dinner table are only three (meaning Armstrong should be dead too). Vera doesn't think so. She believes, according to the children's nursery rhyme, that it is a 'red herring' and Armstrong is still alive somewhere, and the murderer.

The eighth is Blore, dead under a window, his head having been smashed by a marble clock in the shape of a bear. Lombard and Vera were together, so neither of them could have done it, so now they're sure it was Armstrong, at least until they find his drowned body in the water.

Now that it's only the two of them, they are both sure the murderer is the other one, so Vera steals Lombard's gun from his pocket and when he makes a move to forcefully take it back, she shoots him. The ninth body is him.

She's alone but alive. The last one. She won. She goes back in the house, so so tired she only wants to sleep. She sees there are still three little statues so she throws two out the window and takes the third with her. She starts feeling strange, thinking of Cyril and Hugo, and when she enters her room she sees a rope hanging from the ceiling and a chair under it, and she hangs herself. She's the tenth.

Epilogue:

the police has found ten dead bodies on the island, and nobody alive. Mr Morris, the man who uesd to set up things for the island, is also dead. Detective Maine says Morris bought the island declaring he was doing it for a third party. The police speculates on how things could have gone, they have notes from the others up until Armstrong's 'disappearance', but no more. 

Until a fishing boat finds a bottle with a confession inside and sends it to Scotland Yard. It takes very little time to understand it was written by the judge.

Since his childhood, he had the desire to kill and at the same time was horrified by the idea, having a strong sense of justice. That's why he chose a career in the law. He liked sentencing people to death, but only guilty people, as was Seton. Not innocent ones. Getting old, the desire to kill got stronger. In time, a doctor told him of two servants who simply didn't promptly give the old woman the medicine she needed, and a nurse explained to him the dangers of alcohol by telling him of a drunk surgeon. Chatting with old military men made him aware of what Macarthur did. A man back from the Amazon told him about Lombard. A woman told him, indignantly, of Emily and her poor servant... and Hugo himself told him about Vera. By chance on a ship together, after a bit of alcohol, a deeply unhappy Hugo told him of a woman he was madly in love with, who caused a child to drown. Hugo loved that child.

For Wargrave, the tenth victim was Morris, who dealt in drugs and brought a young girl into it, who then killed herself when she was 21.

Wargrave was sick, not much to live, and he wanted to go out with a bang, not waiting passively for death. So: through Morris he bought the island, gave Morris a 'medicine' for his gastritis and decided to kill the others starting from the 'less guilty' onward. When it was time to fake his death, he had secretly agreed with Armstrong that by doing so he would have been able to better spy on the others. So Armstrong told the others that he was dead. Wargrave was carried to his own room, like all the dead ones, and was from that moment free to act. He lured Armstrong out on a red herring. Vera's death was a psychological experiment for him: the atmosphere inside the house, the guilty conscience regarding Cyril and the fact she had just shot a man, plus the way he had arranged her room, with the rope and the chair... she did it. 

He writes that the police could find out that he did what he did even without the confession, after all they must know Seton was guilty (it had been found out, yes), and so he was the only one innocent of the charges laid against all of them, and therefore he had to be the murderer - the police would not have guessed because they couldn't know all the others were really guilty, an example is that like everyone else except Hugo, they thought Vera was innocent.

After putting his confession in a bottle and entrusting it to the sea, he went to his room and shot himself, using a rubber band and other stuff to make the gun fall away from him.

By the time people will come looking, there will be ten dead bodies and an unsolved mystery.

The end.

(What I wrote in 2014:)

This is amazing, isn't it? Not a surprise because Agatha Christie's books are so often amazing! This story of the Ten Little Indians, which is the italian title (well, not like this, not in English- once translated it becomes the italian title Dieci piccoli indiani), 10 people of different social class, both male and females, young or old, who apparently have nothing in common, are brought to a little island by means of various, different pretexts, guests of a misterious host that never shows up, and that as soon as they are all reunited in the big house charges them all with causing someone's death, and declares them guilty. They can't escape from the island, and they have nobody to go to because they are the only people on the island. One by one they die in this order :
Ten little indians went out to dine,
one choke his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little indians sat up very late,
one overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little indians travelling in Devon,
one said he'd stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little indians chopping up sticks,
one chopped himself in halves and then there were six.
Six little indians playing with a hive,
a bumblebee stung one and then there were five.
Five little indians going in for law,
one got in Chancery and then there were four.
Four little indians going out to sea,
a red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little indians walking in the zoo,
a big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two little indians sitting in the sun,
one got frizzled up and then there was one.
One little indian left all lone,
he went and hanged himself and then there were none.

They try to understand who's killing them all, but it's not easy, and the killings continue.
SPOILERS in case there in someone on the planet that still doesn't know how this famous book ends, don't spoil yourself the finale by reading what comes next.
There is also the realization of everyone's story, that the accusations as we go along in the book appears to be all right and just. Sometimes it was firing a girl and leaving her alone with no house and no money, or convincing a weak little boy that he could swim far knowing he wouldn't be able to make it back, or hitting someone with the car, all cases that could not be punished by the law, but that actually happened, and they are guilty of them. But are they all  guilty of what they've been accused of??? All of them?
The trick of the story is that one accusation was wrong, but he had to raise an accusation to himself too, to look just like one of the other.
The finale is amazing, all of the ten people dying, as later on the police state clearly that there were ten bodies on that island, and can't figure out what possibly happened, until they get their hands on the executioner's confession. It's interesting to read it, because he admits he always wanted to kill, but had such a sense of justice that could never really do it. In his final days, he thought he wanted to commit murder, but still had a sense of justice on himself, so he resorted to murdering criminals, and set out to find people that had escaped from justice while being guilty.
It was amazing reading it when I was very young, thus knowing nothing at all about it, and being surprised when the tenth died still with no clue whatsoever to who did it, because I couldn't believe the girl had orchestrated everything by herself, and anyway I turned the page to discover there was more, it was the police trying to figure it out without results, but stating clearly that she could not be the murderer because she hanged herself kicking the chair underneath her, but then the chair was picked up by someone else and placed neatly against the floor. I remember being puzzled and fascinated, and almost thinking the book would end that way, leaving the mistery unsolved, but there was yet another page, the surprising confession and recollection of how he did it. It was amazing. It was not my first Christie's book, I already loved them, but it made me love her even more.

ITA dieci piccoli indiani (e poi non rimase nessuno)