| abstract | - General John Gordon MacArthur is one of ten people summoned to Indian Island by Lawrence Wargrave in Agatha Christie's novel 'And Then There Were None,' who have committed murder in a way that the law cannot prove or punish them for. A retired World War I hero, MacArthur sent his wife's lover, Arthur Richmond, to his death, after finding a letter to Richmond by his wife which was put into an envelope addressed to him by mistake. MacArthur sent Richmond on a "mission" resulting in a dead Richmond. After the war, the general's wife died, presumably from grief, and MacArthur became a withdrawn and depressed man consumed with guilt over what he did. When he arrives on Indian Island and realizes the guests are all to be killed, he decides he wants to die, and goes down to the beach to wait. Vera Claythorne finds him, and he confesses his guilt to her. Later, he is found by the other guests by the sea, dead from a head wound. This corresponds with the 'Ten Little Indians' rhyme, 'One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.' Because he feels remorse for his crime, or possibly because part of the crime was left to chance, Wargrave decides MacArthur is less guilty than the others, and chooses him to be among the first to die. In the 2015 BBC adaptation, he was portrayed by Sam Neill. His character was unchanged from the original, only this version outright shot Arthur in the back, rather than simply sending him to his death.
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