And The There Were None, Christie - B

                            I have recently learned that Agatha Christie's 1939 novel is the best-selling murder mystery of all time. Ten people receive letters inviting them to Soldier Island, off the Devon coast. After dinner on the first night, a voice booms out from a victrola reciting the crime of murder that each person has committed at some point in the past. Most of the murders were passive in nature. None of the ten knew each other or had met previously. No one had met their unseen hosts. As each spoke about the death they were accused of causing, all expressed innocence, yet some clearly knew they were guilty of some act that led to another's death. As they discussed matters, one guest downed a glass of brandy laced with cyanide and dropped dead. Overnight, there was a second death. In the morning, the daily boat from the shore didn't show and of the ten little soldier pieces in the dining room, now there were only eight.                                                                                                                               The same morning, the men thoroughly investigated the island and the house and found no one other than the eight guests. The host/killer could not be found. At lunchtime, the old  general, who acknowledged responsibility for a death  of an underling whom he held in contempt and who said he welcomed the end, was found dead staring at the sea. He had been hit from behind. The seven concluded that there was no outsider and that it had all been orchestrated by one of them. Accusations and alibis flew.  The next morning, the cook was found with his head bashed in and  there were but 6 figurines left.   By noon, the party had dropped to 5. When the Judge was shot that evening, they confirmed that the rhyme about the ten soldiers paralleled  the murders.  Within a day, it was one man and one woman, Lombard and Vera.  She picked the gun out of his pocket and shot him before committing suicide. There were none.                                                                                              Scotland Yard was baffled. Years later, a note was found in a bottle. Justice Wargrave confessed to it all. He had collected the stories of misadventure by nine people. He manipulated the whole thing and faked his death on the island. After everyone was gone, he killed himself in such a way that appeared consistent with the diaries kept by a few of the victims.