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Ethel Rogers, wife of Thomas Rogers, is one of the servants hired to cater for the party on Soldier Island and is also one of the intended victims. At her introduction, Mrs. Rogers is used to build suspense in the story with her pallid, haunted expression. Her ghostly face adds to the strange circumstances of the party, creating a sense of mystery. However, Mrs. Rogers’s expression is also foreshadowing. Upon meeting Mrs. Rogers, Vera identifies her as someone who “walked in mortal fear,” living with constant anxiety. We later come to understand that this mortal fear is of being caught, of people learning of her secret complicity in the murder of Jennifer Brady. Many of the other guests soon become walking shadows of themselves as they begin to seriously consider what they have done.
Justice Wargrave believes that the murder of Jennifer Brady was largely Mr. Rogers’s idea and therefore chooses a more merciful death for Mrs. Rogers because her relative innocence makes her suffering unsatisfying to him. While we cannot know if this detail is exactly true, it’s clear that of the party, she is the only one who never represses her sense of guilt, but instead lives with it, day in and day out. Unlike the other guests, she puts up no front nor makes excuses during U. N. Owen’s announcement. She faints, instantly shocked and horrified because the secret she lives with has been revealed, while Mr. Rogers frantically urges her to pull herself together. Her consciousness and acceptance of her guilt means that she cannot be calm or composed, instead succumbing to her terror.
