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Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in And Then There Were None, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Justice
Guilt
Death
Class
Summary
Analysis
Lombard wakes early, goes back to bed, and by 9:30 am is sitting in his bed, fully dressed and wondering why no one has called to wake the guests up. He goes to find Blore and tells him that although it is almost 10, Rogers is not up yet.
Rogers' attempts to maintain the regular social operation of the house, and his efforts to avoid the murderer have been wildly unsuccessful. By ending one chapter with Rogers and then starting another with his death, Christie shows how precarious the guests' lives are.
Themes
They wake the rest of the guests except Miss Brent, who is not in her room. Rogers' room is also empty. Miss Brent comes back from a walk outside and Blore tells her that taking a walk was a foolish thing to do.
By going for a walk Miss Brent shows that she has no fear for her own life because she believes that she is innocent and hence invincible.
Themes
They check the dining room where Rogers has laid the table for breakfast. But Vera notices that there are only 6 china figures on the table.
Rogers was not able to protect the china figures even though he had the key. This again shows he must be dead.
Themes
After a search, they find Rogers dead in the woodshed where he had been cutting wood for the kitchen fire. Someone has hit him in the back of the bead with a wood chopper.
Rogers did not veer from his domestic responsibilities in spite of the danger and this led to his death. This shows the rigidity of social roles in this society. Despite there being a murderer around, Rogers still does his job as a servant.
Themes
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Afterwards they all discuss the murder and Vera starts laughing crazily. She asks if there are bees on the island and everyone stares at her. She says that the poem goes “Seven little soldier boys chopping up sticks” and the next verse is “six little soldier boys playing with a hive.” She keeps laughing until Armstrong slaps her, calming her. Vera and Miss Brent make breakfast.
Vera is the first to make the connection that the murders are following exactly along with the “Little Soldiers” nursery rhyme. This proves that the murders have been organized in advance.
Themes
Blore comments to Lombard that he finds it suspicious that Vera cracked up and then immediately calmed down, and that Miss Brent always seems utterly calm and was out for a walk in the morning when it is clearly so dangerous to walk out alone. Lombard responds that the real murderer would have made sure to be back in bed.
Whenever anyone makes an accusation it is always disproved in some clean easy way. There is no theory yet that seems to really work out.
Themes
Lombard adds that he's glad Blore no longer suspects him. Lombard then asks Blore for more details about what he was accused of by the recorded voice. Blore says that the man he put away, Landor, really was innocent, and that Blore knew he was innocent, but put him away anyway in order to get a promotion. Blore said he didn't know that Landor would die in penal servitude and Lombard says this was bad luck for Blore. If that hadn't happened he wouldn't be on Soldier Island now.
The murderer has brought all of the characters to the island to punish them for deaths they caused but for which they could not be convicted. But Lombard's point to Blore—that if Landor had just not died then Blore wouldn't be on the island—points out that the murderer, just like the law itself, isn't meting out perfect justice. Blore's crime would have been no different if Landor didn't die, but Blore wouldn't be on the island now if that had happened. These facts give the lie to any previous idea that the murderer was only out for justice. The murderer wants to kill these people, and just happens to want to kill people who have crimes in their pasts.
Themes
Blore says he's not going to die like the others, but Lombard responds that he will because he has no imagination. Lombard adds that he himself has been in many a tight situation and has a good imagination so he believes that he'll get out alive.
Both Blore and Lombard are self confident enough to believe that they will get out alive. They do not spend too much time feeling guilty or scared, they are only thinking about how to survive.
Themes
Vera is in the kitchen making breakfast and scolding herself for becoming hysterical earlier. She starts thinking about Hugo and wonders where he is now. Vera wonders how Miss Brent can be so amazingly calm and asks why she isn't afraid of dying. Miss Brent thinks that this is a ridiculous question: she is not guilty so she will not die. But Miss Brent then starts thinking about a dream she had of Beatrice Taylor last night. Taylor was asking to be let in and Brent wouldn't because she knew something terrible would happen to her if she did.
When the servant dies the women take over the kitchen work, further demonstrating the rigidity of the social order. Miss Brent is forced to remember Beatrice Taylor's death on the island and this has shown that maybe she does feel guilt. This may be the intent of the murderer – to torture the guests by making them feel real remorse for the crimes that they have gotten away with before actually killing them.
Themes
Everyone is outwardly very polite during breakfast, but on the inside they have “thoughts that ran round in a circle like squirrels in a cage.” They all wonder and guess who the murderer is and who will be killed next.
