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A manuscript document sent to Scotland Yard by the master of the Emma Jane fishing
trawler
From my earliest youth I realized that my nature was a mass of contradic-
tions. I have, to begin with, an incurably romantic imagination. The prac-
tice of throwing a bottle into the sea with an important document inside
was one that never failed to thrill me when reading adventure stories as a
child. It thrills me still—and for that reason I have adopted this course—
writing my confession, enclosing it in a bottle, sealing the latter, and cast-
ing it into the waves. There is, I suppose, a hundred to one chance that my
confession may be found—and then (or do I flatter myself?) a hitherto un-
solved murder mystery will be explained.
I was born with other traits besides my romantic fancy. I have a definite
sadistic delight in seeing or causing death. I remember experiments with
wasps — with various garden pests… From an early age I knew very
strongly the lust to kill.
But side by side with this went a contradictory trait—a strong sense of
justice. It is abhorrent to me that an innocent person or creature should
suffer or die by any act of mine. I have always felt strongly that right
should prevail.
It may be understood—I think a psychologist would understand—that
with my mental make-up being what it was, I adopted the law as a profes-
sion. The legal profession satisfied nearly all my instincts.
Crime and its punishment has always fascinated me. I enjoy reading
every kind of detective story and thriller. I have devised for my own
private amusement the most ingenious ways of carrying out a murder.
When in due course I came to preside over a court of law, that other
secret instinct of mine was encouraged to develop. To see a wretched
criminal squirming in the dock, suffering the tortures of the damned, as
his doom came slowly and slowly nearer, was to me an exquisite pleasure.
Mind you, I took no pleasure in seeing an innocent man there. On at least
two occasions I stopped cases where to my mind the accused was palpably
innocent, directing the jury that there was no case. Thanks, however, to
the fairness and efficiency of our police force, the majority of the accused
persons who have come before me to be tried for murder, have been
guilty.
I will say here that such was the case with the man Edward Seton. His
appearance and manner were misleading and he created a good impres-
sion on the jury. But not only the evidence, which was clear, though un-
spectacular, but my own knowledge of criminals told me without any
doubt that the man had actually committed the crime with which he was
charged, the brutal murder of an elderly woman who trusted him.
I have a reputation as a hanging judge, but that is unfair. I have always
been strictly just and scrupulous in my summing up of a case.
All I have done is to protect the jury against the emotional effect of emo-
tional appeals by some of our more emotional counsel. I have drawn their
attention to the actual evidence.
For some years past I have been aware of a change within myself, a
lessening of control—a desire to act instead of to judge.
I have wanted—let me admit it frankly—to commit a murder myself. I re-
cognized this as the desire of the artist to express himself! I was, or could
be, an artist in crime! My imagination, sternly checked by the exigencies
of my profession, waxed secretly to colossal force.
I must—I must—I must—commit a murder! And what is more, it must be
no ordinary murder! It must be a fantastical crime — something stu-
pendous—out of the common! In that one respect, I have still, I think, an
adolescent’s imagination.
I wanted something theatrical, impossible!
I wanted to kill…Yes, I wanted to kill…
But — incongruous as it may seem to some — I was restrained and
hampered by my innate sense of justice. The innocent must not suffer.
And then, quite suddenly, the idea came to me—started by a chance re-
mark uttered during casual conversation. It was a doctor to whom I was
talking—some ordinary undistinguished GP. He mentioned casually how
often murder must be committed which the law was unable to touch.
And he instanced a particular case—that of an old lady, a patient of his
who had recently died. He was, he said, himself convinced that her death
was due to the withholding of a restorative drug by a married couple who
attended on her and who stood to benefit very substantially by her death.
That sort of thing, he explained, was quite impossible to prove, but he was
nevertheless quite sure of it in his own mind. He added that there were
many cases of a similar nature going on all the time—cases of deliberate
murder—and all quite untouchable by the law.
That was the beginning of the whole thing. I suddenly saw my way
clear. And I determined to commit not one murder, but murder on a
grand scale.
A childish rhyme of my infancy came back into my mind—the rhyme of
the ten little soldier boys. It had fascinated me as a child of two—the inex-
orable diminishment—the sense of inevitability.
I began, secretly, to collect victims…
I will not take up space here by going into details of how this was ac-
complished. I had a certain routine line of conversation which I employed
with nearly every one I met—and the results I got were really surprising.
During the time I was in a nursing home I collected the case of Dr Arm-
strong—a violently teetotal Sister who attended on me being anxious to
prove to me the evils of drink by recounting to me a case many years ago
in hospital when a doctor under the influence of alcohol had killed a pa-
tient on whom he was operating. A careless question as to where the Sis-
ter in question had trained, etc., soon gave me the necessary data. I
tracked down the doctor and the patient mentioned without difficulty.
A conversation between two old military gossips in my Club put me on
the track of General Macarthur. A man who had recently returned from
the Amazon gave me a devastating résumé of the activities of one Philip
Lombard. An indignant memsahib in Majorca recounted the tale of the
Puritan Emily Brent and her wretched servant girl. Anthony Marston I se-
lected from a large group of people who had committed similar offences.
His complete callousness and his inability to feel any responsibility for the
lives he had taken made him, I considered, a type dangerous to the com-
munity and unfit to live. Ex-Inspector Blore came my way quite naturally,
some of my professional brethren discussing the Landor case with free-
dom and vigour. I took a serious view of his offence. The police, as ser-
vants of the law, must be of a high order of integrity. For their word is per-
force believed by virtue of their profession.
Finally there was the case of Vera Claythorne. It was when I was cross-
ing the Atlantic. At a late hour one night the sole occupants of the
smoking-room were myself and a good-looking young man called Hugo
Hamilton.
Hugo Hamilton was unhappy. To assuage that unhappiness he had
taken a considerable quantity of drink. He was in the maudlin confidential
stage. Without much hope of any result I automatically started my routine
conversational gambit. The response was startling. I can remember his
words now. He said:
‘You’re right. Murder isn’t what most people think—giving someone a
dollop of arsenic—pushing them over a cliff—that sort of stuff.’ He leaned
forward, thrusting his face into mine. He said, ‘I’ve known a murderess—
known her, I tell you. And what’s more I was crazy about her…God help
me, sometimes I think I still am…It’s hell, I tell you—hell. You see, she did
it more or less for me…Not that I ever dreamed…Women are fiends—abso-
lute fiends—you wouldn’t think a girl like that—a nice straight jolly girl—
you wouldn’t think she’d do that, would you? That she’d take a kid out to
sea and let it drown—you wouldn’t think a woman could do a thing like
that?’
I said to him:
‘Are you sure she did do it?’
He said and in saying it he seemed suddenly to sober up:
‘I’m quite sure. Nobody else ever thought of it. But I knew the moment I
looked at her—when I got back—after…And she knew I knew…What she
didn’t realize was that I loved that kid…’
He didn’t say any more, but it was easy enough for me to trace back the
story and reconstruct it.
I needed a tenth victim. I found him in a man named Morris. He was a
shady little creature. Amongst other things he was a dope pedlar and he
was responsible for inducing the daughter of friends of mine to take to
drugs. She committed suicide at the age of twenty-one.
During all this time of search my plan had been gradually maturing in
my mind. It was now complete and the coping stone to it was an interview
I had with a doctor in Harley Street. I have mentioned that I underwent an
operation. My interview in Harley Street told me that another operation
would be useless. My medical adviser wrapped up the information very
prettily, but I am accustomed to getting at the truth of a statement.
I did not tell the doctor of my decision—that my death should not be a
slow and protracted one as it would be in the course of nature. No, my
death should take place in a blaze of excitement. I would live before I died.
And now to the actual mechanics of the crime of Soldier Island. To ac-
quire the island, using the man Morris to cover my tracks, was easy
enough. He was an expert in that sort of thing. Tabulating the information
I had collected about my prospective victims, I was able to concoct a suit-
able bait for each. None of my plans miscarried. All my guests arrived at
Soldier Island on the 8th of August. The party included myself.
Morris was already accounted for. He suffered from indigestion. Before
leaving London I gave him a capsule to take last thing at night which had,
I said, done wonders for my own gastric juices. He accepted unhesitatingly
—the man was a slight hypochondriac. I had no fear that he would leave
any compromising documents or memoranda behind. He was not that
sort of man.
The order of death upon the island had been subjected by me to special
thought and care. There were, I considered, amongst my guests, varying
degrees of guilt. Those whose guilt was the lightest should, I decided, pass
out first, and not suffer the prolonged mental strain and fear that the
more cold-blooded offenders were to suffer.
Anthony Marston and Mrs Rogers died first, the one instantaneously the
other in a peaceful sleep. Marston, I recognized, was a type born without
that feeling of moral responsibility which most of us have. He was amoral
—pagan. Mrs Rogers, I had no doubt, had acted very largely under the in-
fluence of her husband.
I need not describe closely how those two met their deaths. The police
will have been able to work that out quite easily. Potassium cyanide is eas-
ily obtained by householders for putting down wasps. I had some in my
possession and it was easy to slip it into Marston’s almost empty glass dur-
ing the tense period after the gramophone recital.
I may say that I watched the faces of my guests closely during that in-
dictment and I had no doubt whatever, after my long court experience,
that one and all were guilty.
During recent bouts of pain, I had been ordered a sleeping draught—
Chloral Hydrate. It had been easy for me to suppress this until I had a
lethal amount in my possession. When Rogers brought up some brandy
for his wife, he set it down on a table and in passing that table I put the
stuff into the brandy. It was easy, for at that time suspicion had not begun
to set in.
General Macarthur met his death quite painlessly. He did not hear me
come up behind him. I had, of course, to choose my time for leaving the
terrace very carefully, but everything was successful.
As I had anticipated, a search was made of the island and it was dis-
covered that there was no one on it but our seven selves. That at once cre-
ated an atmosphere of suspicion. According to my plan I should shortly
need an ally. I selected Dr Armstrong for that part. He was a gullible sort
of man, he knew me by sight and reputation and it was inconceivable to
him that a man of my standing should actually be a murderer! All his sus-
picions were directed against Lombard and I pretended to concur in these.
I hinted to him that I had a scheme by which it might be possible to trap
the murderer into incriminating himself.
Though a search had been made of everyone’s room, no search had as
yet been made of the persons themselves. But that was bound to come
soon.
I killed Rogers on the morning of August 10th. He was chopping sticks
for lighting the fire and did not hear me approach. I found the key to the
dining-room door in his pocket. He had locked it the night before.
In the confusion attending the finding of Rogers’ body I slipped into
Lombard’s room and abstracted his revolver. I knew that he would have
one with him—in fact I had instructed Morris to suggest as much when he
interviewed him.
At breakfast I slipped my last dose of chloral into Miss Brent’s coffee
when I was refilling her cup. We left her in the dining-room. I slipped in
there a little while later—she was nearly unconscious and it was easy to
inject a strong solution of cyanide into her. The bumble bee business was
really rather childish—but somehow, you know, it pleased me. I liked ad-
hering as closely as possible to my nursery rhyme.
Immediately after this what I had already foreseen happened—indeed I
believe I suggested it myself. We all submitted to a rigorous search. I had
safely hidden away the revolver, and had no more cyanide or chloral in
my possession.
It was then that I intimated to Armstrong that we must carry our plan
into effect. It was simply this—I must appear to be the next victim. That
would perhaps rattle the murderer—at any rate once I was supposed to be
dead I could move about the house and spy upon the unknown murderer.
Armstrong was keen on the idea. We carried it out that evening. A little
plaster of red mud on the forehead—the red curtain and the wool and the
stage was set. The lights of the candles were very flickering and uncertain
and the only person who would examine me closely was Armstrong.
It worked perfectly. Miss Claythorne screamed the house down when
she found the seaweed which I had thoughtfully arranged in her room.
They all rushed up, and I took up my pose of a murdered man.
The effect on them when they found me was all that could be desired.
Armstrong acted his part in the most professional manner. They carried
me upstairs and laid me on my bed. Nobody worried about me, they were
all too deadly scared and terrified of each other.
I had a rendezvous with Armstrong outside the house at a quarter to
two. I took him up a little way behind the house on the edge of the cliff. I
said that here we could see if any one else approached us, and we should
not be seen from the house as the bedrooms faced the other way. He was
still quite unsuspicious—and yet he ought to have been warned—if he had
only remembered the words of the nursery rhyme. ‘A red herring swal-
lowed one…’ He took the red herring all right.
It was quite easy. I uttered an exclamation, leant over the cliff, told him
to look, wasn’t that the mouth of a cave? He leant right over. A quick vig-
orous push sent him off his balance and splash into the heaving sea below.
I returned to the house. It must have been my footfall that Blore heard. A
few minutes after I had returned to Armstrong’s room I left it, this time
making a certain amount of noise so that someone should hear me. I heard
a door open as I got to the bottom of the stairs. They must have just
glimpsed my figure as I went out of the front door.
It was a minute or two before they followed me. I had gone straight
round the house and in at the dining-room window which I had left open.
I shut the window and later I broke the glass. Then I went upstairs and
laid myself out again on my bed.
I calculated that they would search the house again, but I did not think
they would look closely at any of the corpses, a mere twitch aside of the
sheet to satisfy themselves that it was not Armstrong masquerading as a
body. This is exactly what occurred.
I forgot to say that I returned the revolver to Lombard’s room. It may be
of interest to someone to know where it was hidden during the search.
There was a big pile of tinned food in the larder. I opened the bottommost
of the tins—biscuits I think it contained, bedded in the revolver and re-
placed the strip of adhesive tape.
I calculated, and rightly, that no one would think of working their way
through a pile of apparently untouched foodstuffs, especially as all the top
tins were soldered.
The red curtain I had concealed by laying it flat on the seat of one of the
drawing-room chairs under the chintz cover and the wool in the seat cush-
ion, cutting a small hole.
And now came the moment that I had anticipated—three people who
were so frightened of each other that anything might happen—and one of
them had a revolver. I watched them from the windows of the house. When
Blore came up alone I had the big marble clock poised ready. Exit Blore…
From my window I saw Vera Claythorne shoot Lombard. A daring and
resourceful young woman. I always thought she was a match for him and
more. As soon as that had happened I set the stage in her bedroom.
It was an interesting psychological experiment. Would the conscious-
ness of her own guilt, the state of nervous tension consequent on having
just shot a man, be sufficient, together with the hypnotic suggestion of the
surroundings, to cause her to take her own life? I thought it would. I was
right. Vera Claythorne hanged herself before my eyes where I stood in the
shadow of the wardrobe.
And now for the last stage. I came forward, picked up the chair and set
it against the wall. I looked for the revolver and found it at the top of the
stairs where the girl had dropped it. I was careful to preserve her finger-
prints on it.
And now?
I shall finish writing this. I shall enclose it and seal it in a bottle and I
shall throw the bottle into the sea.
Why?
Yes, why?
It was my ambition to invent a murder mystery that no one could solve.
But no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a
natural craving for recognition which cannot be gainsaid.
I have, let me confess it in all humility, a pitiful human wish that
someone should know just how clever I have been…
In all this, I have assumed that the mystery of Soldier Island will remain
unsolved. It may be, of course, that the police will be cleverer than I think.
There are, after all, three clues. One: the police are perfectly aware that
Edward Seton was guilty. They know, therefore, that one of the ten people
on the island was not a murderer in any sense of the word, and it follows,
paradoxically, that that person must logically be the murderer. The second
clue lies in the seventh verse of the nursery rhyme. Armstrong’s death is
associated with a ‘red herring’ which he swallowed—or rather which res-
ulted in swallowing him! That is to say that at that stage of the affair some
hocus-pocus is clearly indicated—and that Armstrong was deceived by it
and sent to his death. That might start a promising line of inquiry. For at
that period there are only four persons and of those four I am clearly the
only one likely to inspire him with confidence.
The third is symbolical. The manner of my death marking me on the
forehead. The brand of Cain.
There is, I think, little more to say.
After entrusting my bottle and its message to the sea I shall go to my
room and lay myself down on the bed. To my eyeglasses is attached what
seems a length of fine black cord—but it is elastic cord. I shall lay the
weight of the body on the glasses. The cord I shall loop round the door-
handle and attach it, not too solidly, to the revolver. What I think will hap-
pen is this.
My hand, protected with a handkerchief, will press the trigger. My hand
will fall to my side, the revolver, pulled by the elastic, will recoil to the
door, jarred by the door-handle it will detach itself from the elastic and
fall. The elastic, released, will hang down innocently from the eyeglasses
on which my body is lying. A handkerchief lying on the floor will cause no
comment whatever.
I shall be found, laid neatly on my bed, shot through the forehead in ac-
cordance with the record kept by my fellow victims. Times of death can-
not be stated with any accuracy by the time our bodies are examined.
When the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and
men.
And they will find ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem on Soldier
Island.
Signed:
Lawrence Wargrave.
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