abigael answers “How did Wargreave know that Vera would...”

Nichola asked this question about And Then There Were None:

How did Wargreave know that Vera would kill Lombard and return to the house? Also why did Vera put her neck in the noose and how did Wargreave know she would do this?

abigael

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[1. I don't think Wargrave knew exactly who would kill who. However, at this point of the story (where there's only two persons left to face each other)... if you put into account all what we've seen/known about Vera & Lombard — their behaviour, their mental state — you'd see that it's more likely that Vera would end up killing Lombard, and not the other way around.

Remember that Lombard had been in tight places before. This is a person who knows how to remain calm and reasonable, no matter how tight the situation is. Another thing (although this is solely based on what I've seen of his character) is that Lombard seems to have a good amount of respect for Vera, as a woman. I might be wrong though, and it may only be a facade that he's been showing her. But if the revolver was still in his pocket, he probably wouldn't even use it against Vera — he'll try to be logical & work his way around without having to physically harm her, unless worse comes to worst & defending himself is the only option left.

Vera, on the other hand, is Lombard's opposite. Hence why Wargrave, on the manuscript document, had commented on how he had always thought that V & L were a good match for each other. Unlike Lombard, Vera's mental state had already gone haywire — anxiety and fear (of being killed) + guilt (over Cyril's death) — and so her intuition tells her that Lombard is the murderer and that she must kill him, if she wants to stay alive.

2. And so she kills him. But that's not where it ends, because the trauma of having just murdered another human being is now setting in, and her mind is now in the worst state possible. Wargrave can see this very clearly, and he knew that Vera definitely isn't mentally stable to do anything even remotely logical (e.g. staying out of the house/heliographing/calling for help — anything to get herself out of that terrifying place).

And so he sets up the stage, hanging a noose on the ceiling of Vera's bedroom & placing a chair below it. It was a psychological experiment, as he had said. Wargrave knew that Vera would hang herself because: 1. he knew that, of the 9 guests, Vera is the one with the heaviest guilt, and 2. he knew that the mental burden she's been carrying is already too much to handle, and that it would eventually lead her to take her own life.

If it doesn't turn out successfully, Wargrave will probably have to forcibly murder her (by strangling her, perhaps? — he'll definitely find a way), then hang her body on the noose to make it appear like she had committed suicide. . . you know, as long as he stays true to that nursery rhyme. (hide spoiler)]

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And Then There Were None

by Agatha Christie

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