James Baquet Over 45 years after her death, the British mystery writer Dame Agatha Christie remains the best-selling fiction author of all time, with more than 2 billion copies of her novels sold. And none has been more popular than the 1939 “And Then There Were None,” which is not only her, but the world’s best-selling mystery, selling over 100 million copies. The story is set in a manor house on an island, where eight people have been drawn together, along with two staff. All 10 die one by one in various ingenious ways. In each guest’s room is a copy of a children’s rhyme, “Ten Little Indians” (sometimes used as an alternate title of the book). Each “little Indian” also meets disaster until the last line, the most commonly used title for this book: “And then there were none.” Likewise, one of 10 figurines disappears from the dining table each time someone dies. On the first night, a phonograph plays a message after supper, accusing each guest and the staff of having committed murder themselves. As the story continues, each person’s death more-or-less corresponds to his or her crime, and/or reflects a line in the children’s rhyme. For example, the first, Anthony James Marston, had killed two children while driving recklessly. He chokes while drinking, and the rhyme says, “Ten little Indians went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine.” Thomas Rogers, the butler, is killed with an axe while chopping wood (“One chopped himself in halves...”). Emily Caroline Brent dies of injected poison, like the little Indian who was stung by a bumblebee. But we must look closely at Mr. Justice Lawrence John Wargrave, the sixth to die — or so it seems. He had sentenced to death an innocent man, after influencing jury to find him guilty. Spoiler alert: Near the end of the book, a bottle is pulled from the sea with a note in it. There we learn that the judge was the real host of this grim “party,” and was exacting justice on each person there. He had faked his death and continued to kill the others until, with them all gone, he repeats his murder for real, covering up the suicide to throw the investigating officers off the scent. A diabolical plot indeed! Vocabulary: Which word above means: 1. carelessly 2. main house of an estate 3. devilish, evil 4. small statues 5. sinister, stern 6. panel for deciding a court trial 7. given as a shot 8. old-fashioned record player 9. clever 10. 1,000,000,000 | 