Judgment Day
The story ends on a particularly corrosive bit of irony. The cop who has abrogated his responsibility to pursue justice on the rather spurious grounds that the killers are pleasant people and it’s what you are rather than what you do that matters apparently attempts to alleviate his conscience by leaving things in the hand of God. That kind of judgment, he muses, is a job he would not care to be charged with. Except that, of course, the irony is that he has been doing that job and playing God for twenty years precisely through his decision to allow a crime to remain unsolved and criminals to escape unpunished.
Police Chief Gaze
The cop in question is the chief of police and his name is Gaze. The irony is rather obvious since the police chief has several issues relate to the process of sight and vision. For one thing, he sees a pair of cold-blooded murderers as among the most pleasant people on the island. For another, it would see his gaze was so focused on the beauty of the female half of the murderous duo that he failed to see anything else that might raise suspicion. Anything at all.
"The Chinaman"
It would seem there is a dual layer of irony when it comes to the character known as the “Chinaman.” The victim is named. The killers are named. The investigating office is named. The only person whose name is never mentioned is the single most important character related to solving the case. Without “The Chinaman” the case would still remain a mystery. So, on one hand, it is ironic that in what is essentially a detective story, the identity of the most essential character relative to solving the crime remains a bigger mystery than the crime itself. On the other hand, since the case will forever remain un-prosecuted, he is really the least essential character in the story. Weird.
Olive
It takes the narrator all of five minutes to see that Olive Cartwright is notably lacking in any direct physical resemblance to her mother, but strikingly resembles the man she married. The man whom everyone else on the island apparently refers to only as her stepfather. Either the narrator is truly gifted with the savant-level powers of observing physical similarities in people or everyone else is merely an idiot. Or, like the police chief, willing themselves not to trust their gaze. The ironic part, of course, is not that the narrator notices the resemblance between Olive and her alleged step-father right away, but that apparently he—alone of all others on the planet—is the only one for whom this recognition has prompted the police chief to share what he knows. An entire island community forced to live among two murderers and the police chief is only moved to share what he believes to an almost total stranger merely visiting after twenty years.
Tone
The entire tone of the story is an example of irony. A man has been killed by his close friend and wife working in tandem to keep the world from finding out that she was carrying the friend’s baby inside her at the time. And, remarkably, they get away with it. And feel no remorse. Even though the chief of police is convinced of their guilt. The story is tragedy, pure and simple. And yet the reader is treated to an almost disconcertingly light tone that offers extended digressions on the physical appearance of Mrs. Cartwright, insight into her precocious card-shuffling abilities and scenes of the killers, the cop and the narrator enjoying a friendly game of bridge.
