The evening the guests arrived, they are accused of specific crimes that they all committed previously, that were not taken to the courts. They all discuss matters and realized none of them knows a person named Mr. Owen and take it to reconsideration that they all are here for somebody’s bizarre plan. At the time they were discussing what to do; Tony Marston chokes on poised whiskey and dies. Everyone was frightened and felt guilty for their crimes. They finally went to bed, and Vera Claythorne notices the similarity of the death of Tony Marston and the first stanza of nursery rhyme called “Ten Little Indians” that is hanged in each room.
The next morning, Mrs. Rogers is found dead in her sleep. The guests wanted to leave but the boat the delivers supplies to the island didn’t show up. General Macarthur believes he is going to die and goes out to look at the ocean. Right before lunch Dr. Armstrong finds the General dead. It looked like somebody gave him a blow on the head. The following morning, the guests find Mr. Rogers dead while chopping woods to prepare breakfast. At that point, the guests were sure of the fact that the murders are being committed just like the nursery rhyme shows. Also the dining room table has a mark of ten Indian figures and when a death occurs, one of the ten Indian figures vanishes.
After the guests had their breakfast, Emily Brent is found dead. It seemed like someone injected poison in her neck. A while later, the remaining guests find Judge Wargrave shot in the head. William Blore was checking out the hall and noticed Armstrong was not in his room. With the help of Lombard, Blore began his search for Armstrong but could not find him. When they returned from their search, they noticed one Indians was missing from the dinning room table. Blore, Vera and Lombard go outside to be safe, but Blore went inside the house to get some food. A loud crash was heard by Vera and Lombard and when they went back inside, they see a person had pushed a statue from the second floor at Blore, killing him before he got in the house. Vera and Lombard went back to the shore and found Armstrong’s dead body. He had drowned on the beach. Vera was certain Lombard is the killer, so she steals his gun and shoots him. She returns to the house to get some rest and finds a noose waiting for her in her room. She feels a strange energy to complete the last line of the nursery rhyme and hangs herself.
The police arrive, and the situation is still confusing until a manuscript that explained the mystery is found. The manuscript was written by Judge Wargrave admitting he killed the guests. He wanted to punish them for the crime that they committed that was uncovered. He admitted the fact that he liked seeing the guilty punished. He was told by a doctor that he was going to die soon, so he decided to die in blaze. Wargrave discussed how he convinced Dr. Armstrong in helping him fake his own death and how Wargrave promised to meet Dr. Armstrong by the cliffs to discuss the plan. When Armstrong got to the cliffs, Wargrave pushed him over the edge into the sea and then went back to the house and pretended to be dead. After Vera hanged herself with the noose he prepared for her, he would shoot himself in a way he would fall on the bed that would look like his corpses had laid there for a while. He hoped ten bodies will be found on an empty island.