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A character in And Then There Were None

Thomas Rogers

The butler engaged by post, who keeps serving dinner after the guests have started dying.

What they want

To keep the house going, because it is the only thing he knows how to do.

The book

And Then There Were NoneAgatha Christie, 1939

Ten strangers on an island off Devon, a nursery rhyme on the wall, and no detective coming to save anyone.

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At a glance

In the book
Butler, engaged by post with his wife
Charged with
The death of Jennifer Brady, his former employer
Where he appears
Chapters 1 to 11

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Rogers runs the house alone once his wife is dead, and he goes on running it: breakfast, lunch, the fire, the woodpile. The record charges him and his wife with letting their old employer Jennifer Brady die by withholding her medicine, and inheriting under her will. He plays the record because Mr Owen's written instructions told him to.

How Thomas Rogers Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The instructionsA letter from Mr Owen, signed with a name he cannot read properly, told him to put on the record after dinner.
  • The serviceHe serves every meal to the end, and the guests eat them.
  • The countHe is the one who first says a china figure is missing from the table.
  • The woodpileChopping sticks for the kitchen fire on the last morning of his life.
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Rogers is killed with an axe at the woodpile on the fourth morning, the fourth to die.

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