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diff --git a/738-0.txt b/738-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6130050 --- /dev/null +++ b/738-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1971 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot, by Andrew +Lang + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot + + +Author: Andrew Lang + + + +Release Date: February 5, 2013 [eBook #738] +[This file was first posted on December 7, 1996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUZZLE OF DICKENS'S LAST +PLOT*** + + +Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman and Hall edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + THE PUZZLE OF + DICKENS’S LAST PLOT + + + * * * * * + + BY + ANDREW LANG + + * * * * * + + LONDON + CHAPMAN & HALL, LD. + 1905 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +FORSTER tells us that Dickens, in his later novels, from _Bleak House_ +onwards (1853), “assiduously cultivated” construction, “this essential of +his art.” Some critics may think, that since so many of the best novels +in the world “have no outline, or, if they have an outline, it is a +demned outline,” elaborate construction is not absolutely “essential.” +Really essential are character, “atmosphere,” humour. + +But as, in the natural changes of life, and under the strain of restless +and unsatisfied activity, his old buoyancy and unequalled high spirits +deserted Dickens, he certainly wrote no longer in what Scott, speaking of +himself, calls the manner of “hab nab at a venture.” He constructed +elaborate plots, rich in secrets and surprises. He emulated the manner +of Wilkie Collins, or even of Gaboriau, while he combined with some of +the elements of the detective novel, or _roman policier_, careful study +of character. Except _Great Expectations_, none of his later tales +rivals in merit his early picaresque stories of the road, such as +_Pickwick_ and _Nicholas Nickleby_. “Youth will be served;” no sedulous +care could compensate for the exuberance of “the first sprightly +runnings.” In the early books the melodrama of the plot, the secrets of +Ralph Nickleby, of Monk, of Jonas Chuzzlewit, were the least of the +innumerable attractions. But Dickens was more and more drawn towards the +secret that excites curiosity, and to the game of hide and seek with the +reader who tried to anticipate the solution of the secret. + +In April, 1869, Dickens, outworn by the strain of his American readings; +of that labour achieved under painful conditions of ominously bad +health—found himself, as Sir Thomas Watson reported, “on the brink of an +attack of paralysis of his left side, and possibly of apoplexy.” He +therefore abandoned a new series of Readings. We think of Scott’s +earlier seizures of a similar kind, after which _Peveril_, he said, +“smacked of the apoplexy.” But Dickens’s new story of _The Mystery of +Edwin Drood_, first contemplated in July, 1869, and altered in character +by the emergence of “a very curious and new idea,” early in August, does +not “smack of the apoplexy.” We may think that the mannerisms of Mr. +Honeythunder, the philanthropist, and of Miss Twinkleton, the +schoolmistress, are not in the author’s best vein of humour. “The +Billickin,” on the other hand, the lodging-house keeper, is “in very +gracious fooling:” her unlooked-for sallies in skirmishes with Miss +Twinkleton are rich in mirthful surprises. Mr. Grewgious may be +caricatured too much, but not out of reason; and Dickens, always good at +boys, presents a _gamin_, in Deputy, who is in not unpleasant contrast +with the pathetic Jo of _Bleak House_. Opinions may differ as to Edwin +and Rosa, but the more closely one studies Edwin, the better one thinks +of that character. As far as we are allowed to see Helena Landless, the +restraint which she puts on her “tigerish blood” is admirable: she is +very fresh and original. The villain is all that melodrama can desire, +but what we do miss, I think, is the “atmosphere” of a small cathedral +town. Here there is a lack of softness and delicacy of treatment: on the +other hand, the opium den is studied from the life. + +On the whole, Dickens himself was perhaps most interested in his plot, +his secret, his surprises, his game of hide and seek with the reader. He +threw himself into the sport with zest: he spoke to his sister-in-law, +Miss Hogarth, about his fear that he had not sufficiently concealed his +tracks in the latest numbers. Yet, when he died in June, 1870, leaving +three completed numbers still unpublished, he left his secret as a puzzle +to the curious. Many efforts have been made to decipher his purpose, +especially his intentions as to the hero. Was Edwin Drood killed, or did +he escape? + +By a coincidence, in September, 1869, Dickens was working over the late +Lord Lytton’s tale for _All The Year Round_, “The Disappearance of John +Ackland,” for the purpose of mystifying the reader as to whether Ackland +was alive or dead. But he was conspicuously defunct! (_All the Year +Round_, September-October, 1869.) + +The most careful of the attempts at a reply about Edwin, a study based on +deep knowledge of Dickens, is “Watched by the Dead,” by the late +ingenious Mr. R. A. Proctor (1887). This book, to which I owe much aid, +is now out of print. In 1905, Mr. Cuming Walters revived “the auld +mysterie,” in his “Clues to Dickens’s Edwin Drood” (Chapman & Hall and +Heywood, Manchester). From the solution of Mr. Walters I am obliged to +dissent. Of Mr. Proctor’s theory I offer some necessary corrections, and +I hope that I have unravelled some skeins which Mr. Proctor left in a +state of tangle. As one read and re-read the fragment, points very dark +seemed, at least, to become suddenly clear: especially one appeared to +understand the meaning half-revealed and half-concealed by Jasper’s +babblings under the influence of opium. He saw in his vision, “_that_, I +never saw _that_ before.” We may be sure that he was to see “_that_” in +real life. We must remember that, according to Forster, “such was +Dickens’s interest in things supernatural that, but for the strong +restraining power of his common sense, he might have fallen into the +follies of spiritualism.” His interest in such matters certainly peeps +out in this novel—there are two specimens of the supernormal—and he may +have gone to the limited extent which my hypothesis requires. If I am +right, Dickens went further, and fared worse, in the too material +premonitions of “The Signalman” in _Mugby Junction_. + +With this brief preface, I proceed to the analysis of Dickens’s last +plot. Mr. William Archer has kindly read the proof sheets and made +valuable suggestions, but is responsible for none of my theories. + + ANDREW LANG. + +ST. ANDREWS, + + _September_ 4, 1905. + + + + +THE STORY + + +DRAMATIS PERSONÆ + + +FOR the discovery of Dickens’s secret in _Edwin Drood_ it is necessary to +obtain a clear view of the characters in the tale, and of their relations +to each other. + +About the middle of the nineteenth century there lived in Cloisterham, a +cathedral city sketched from Rochester, a young University man, Mr. Bud, +who had a friend Mr. Drood, one of a firm of engineers—somewhere. They +were “fast friends and old college companions.” Both married young. Mr. +Bud wedded a lady unnamed, by whom he was the father of one child, a +daughter, Rosa Bud. Mr. Drood, whose wife’s maiden name was Jasper, had +one son, Edwin Drood. Mrs. Bud was drowned in a boating accident, when +her daughter, Rosa, was a child. Mr. Drood, already a widower, and the +bereaved Mr. Bud “betrothed” the two children, Rosa and Edwin, and then +expired, when the orphans were about seven and eleven years old. The +guardian of Rosa was a lawyer, Mr. Grewgious, who had been in love with +her mother. To Grewgious Mr. Bud entrusted his wife’s engagement ring, +rubies and diamonds, which Grewgious was to hand over to Edwin Drood, if, +when he attained his majority, he and Rosa decided to marry. + +Grewgious was apparently legal agent for Edwin, while Edwin’s maternal +uncle, John Jasper (aged about sixteen when the male parents died), was +Edwin’s “trustee,” as well as his uncle and devoted friend. Rosa’s +little fortune was an annuity producing £250 a-year: Edwin succeeded to +his father’s share in an engineering firm. + +When the story opens, Edwin is nearly twenty-one, and is about to proceed +to Egypt, as an engineer. Rosa, at school in Cloisterham, is about +seventeen; John Jasper is twenty-six. He is conductor of the Choir of +the Cathedral, a “lay precentor;” he is very dark, with thick black +whiskers, and, for a number of years, has been a victim to the habit of +opium smoking. He began very early. He takes this drug both in his +lodgings, over the gate of the Cathedral, and in a den in East London, +kept by a woman nicknamed “The Princess Puffer.” This hag, we learn, has +been a determined drunkard,—“I drank heaven’s-hard,”—for sixteen years +_before_ she took to opium. If she has been dealing in opium for ten +years (the exact period is not stated), she has been very disreputable +for twenty-six years, that is ever since John Jasper’s birth. Mr. Cuming +Walters suggests that she is the mother of John Jasper, and, therefore, +maternal grandmother of Edwin Drood. She detests her client, Jasper, and +plays the spy on his movements, for reasons unexplained. + +Jasper is secretly in love with Rosa, the _fiancée_ of his nephew, and +his own pupil in the musical art. He makes her aware of his passion, +silently, and she fears and detests him, but keeps these emotions +private. She is a saucy school-girl, and she and Edwin are on +uncomfortable terms: she does not love him, while he perhaps does love +her, but is annoyed by her manner, and by the gossip about their +betrothal. “The bloom is off the plum” of their prearranged loves, he +says to his friend, uncle, and confidant, Jasper, whose own concealed +passion for Rosa is of a ferocious and homicidal character. Rosa is +aware of this fact; “a glaze comes over his eyes,” sometimes, she says, +“and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream, in which he +threatens most . . . ” The man appears to have these frightful dreams +even when he is not under opium. + + + +OPENING OF THE TALE + + +The tale opens abruptly with an opium-bred vision of the tower of +Cloisterham Cathedral, beheld by Jasper as he awakens in the den of the +Princess Puffer, between a Chinaman, a Lascar, and the hag herself. This +Cathedral tower, thus early and emphatically introduced, is to play a +great but more or less mysterious part in the romance: that is certain. +Jasper, waking, makes experiments on the talk of the old woman, the +Lascar and Chinaman in their sleep. He pronounces it “unintelligible,” +which satisfies him that his own babble, when under opium, must be +unintelligible also. He is, presumably, acquainted with the languages of +the eastern coast of India, and with Chinese, otherwise, how could he +hope to understand the sleepers? He is being watched by the hag, who +hates him. + +Jasper returns to Cloisterham, where we are introduced to the Dean, a +nonentity, and to Minor Canon Crisparkle, a muscular Christian in the +pink of training, a classical scholar, and a good honest fellow. Jasper +gives Edwin a dinner, and gushes over “his bright boy,” a lively lad, +full of chaff, but also full of confiding affection and tenderness of +heart. Edwin admits that his betrothal is a bore: Jasper admits that he +loathes his life; and that the church singing “often sounds to me quite +devilish,”—and no wonder. After this dinner, Jasper has a “weird +seizure;” “a strange film comes over Jasper’s eyes,” he “looks +frightfully ill,” becomes rigid, and admits that he “has been taking +opium for a pain, an agony that sometimes overcomes me.” This “agony,” +we learn, is the pain of hearing Edwin speak lightly of his love, whom +Jasper so furiously desires. “Take it as a warning,” Jasper says, but +Edwin, puzzled, and full of confiding tenderness, does not understand. + +In the next scene we meet the school-girl, Rosa, who takes a walk and has +a tiff with Edwin. Sir Luke Fildes’s illustration shows Edwin as “a lad +with the bloom of a lass,” with a _classic profile_; _and a gracious head +of long_, _thick_, _fair hair_, long, though we learn it has just been +cut. He wears a soft slouched hat, and the pea-coat of the period. + + + +SAPSEA AND DURDLES + + +Next, Jasper and Sapsea, a pompous ass, auctioneer, and mayor, sit at +their wine, expecting a third guest. Mr. Sapsea reads his absurd epitaph +for his late wife, who is buried in a “Monument,” a vault of some sort in +the Cathedral churchyard. To them enter Durdles, a man never sober, yet +trusted with the key of the crypt, “as contractor for rough repairs.” In +the crypt “he habitually sleeps off the fumes of liquor.” Of course no +Dean would entrust keys to this incredibly dissipated, dirty, and +insolent creature, to whom Sapsea gives the key of his vault, for no +reason at all, as the epitaph, of course, is to be engraved on the +outside, by Durdles’s men. However, Durdles insists on getting the key +of the vault: he has two other large keys. Jasper, trifling with them, +keeps clinking them together, so as to know, even in the dark, by the +sound, which is the key that opens Sapsea’s vault, in the railed-off +burial ground, beside the cloister arches. He has met Durdles at +Sapsea’s for no other purpose than to obtain access at will to Mrs. +Sapsea’s monument. Later in the evening Jasper finds Durdles more or +less drunk, and being stoned by a _gamin_, “Deputy,” a retainer of a +tramp’s lodging-house. Durdles fees Deputy, in fact, to drive him home +every night after ten. Jasper and Deputy fall into feud, and Jasper has +thus a new, keen, and omnipresent enemy. As he walks with Durdles that +worthy explains (in reply to a question by Jasper), that, by tapping a +wall, even if over six feet thick, with his hammer, he can detect the +nature of the contents of the vault, “solid in hollow, and inside solid, +hollow again. Old ’un crumbled away in stone coffin, in vault.” He can +also discover the presence of “rubbish left in that same six foot space +by Durdles’s men.” Thus, if a foreign body were introduced into the +Sapsea vault, Durdles could detect its presence by tapping the outside +wall. As Jasper’s purpose clearly is to introduce a foreign body—that of +Edwin who stands between him and Rosa—into Mrs. Sapsea’s vault, this +“gift” of Durdles is, for Jasper, an uncomfortable discovery. He goes +home, watches Edwin asleep, and smokes opium. + + + +THE LANDLESSES + + +Two new characters are now introduced, Neville and Helena Landless, {11} +twins, orphans, of Cingalese extraction, probably Eurasian; very dark, +the girl “almost of the gipsy type;” both are “fierce of look.” The +young man is to read with Canon Crisparkle and live with him; the girl +goes to the same school as Rosa. The education of both has been utterly +neglected; instruction has been denied to them. Neville explains the +cause of their fierceness to Crisparkle. In Ceylon they were bullied by +a cruel stepfather and several times ran away: the girl was the leader, +always “_dressed as a boy_, _and showing the daring of a man_.” Edwin +Drood’s air of supercilious ownership of Rosa Bud (indicated as a fault +of youth and circumstance, not of heart and character), irritates Neville +Landless, who falls in love with Rosa at first sight. As Rosa sings, at +Crisparkle’s, while Jasper plays the piano, Jasper’s fixed stare produces +an hysterical fit in the girl, who is soothed by Helena Landless. Helena +shows her aversion to Jasper, who, as even Edwin now sees, frightens +Rosa. “You would be afraid of him, under similar circumstances, wouldn’t +you, Miss Landless?” asks Edwin. “Not under any circumstances,” answers +Helena, and Jasper “thanks Miss Landless for this vindication of his +character.” + +The girls go back to their school, where Rosa explains to Helena her +horror of Jasper’s silent love-making: “I feel that I am never safe from +him . . . a glaze comes over his eyes and he seems to wander away into a +frightful sort of dream in which he threatens most,” as already quoted. +Helena thus, and she alone, except Rosa, understands Jasper thoroughly. +She becomes Rosa’s protectress. “_Let whomsoever it most concerned look +well to it_.” + +Thus Jasper has a new observer and enemy, in addition to the omnipresent +street boy, Deputy, and the detective old hag of the opium den. + +Leaving the Canon’s house, Neville and Edwin quarrel violently over Rosa, +in the open air; they are followed by Jasper, and taken to his house to +be reconciled over glasses of mulled wine. Jasper drugs the wine, and +thus provokes a violent scene; next day he tells Crisparkle that Neville +is “murderous.” “There is something of the tiger in his dark blood.” He +spreads the story of the _fracas_ in the town. + + + +MR. GREWGIOUS + + +Grewgious, Rosa’s guardian, now comes down on business; the girl fails to +explain to him the unsatisfactory relations between her and Edwin: +Grewgious is to return to her “at Christmas,” if she sends for him, and +she does send. Grewgious, “an angular man,” all duty and sentiment (he +had loved Rosa’s mother), has an interview with Edwin’s trustee, Jasper, +for whom he has no enthusiasm, but whom he does not in any way suspect. +They part on good terms, to meet at Christmas. Crisparkle, with whom +Helena has fallen suddenly in love, arranges with Jasper that Edwin and +Landless shall meet and be reconciled, as both are willing to be, at a +dinner in Jasper’s rooms, on Christmas Eve. Jasper, when Crisparkle +proposes this, denotes by his manner “some close internal calculation.” +We see that he is reckoning how the dinner suits his plan of campaign, +and “_close_ calculation” may refer, as in Mr. Proctor’s theory, to the +period of the moon: _on Christmas Eve there will be no moonshine at +midnight_. Jasper, having worked out this problem, accepts Crisparkle’s +proposal, and his assurances about Neville, and shows Crisparkle a diary +in which he has entered his fears that Edwin’s life is in danger from +Neville. Edwin (who is not in Cloisterham at this moment) accepts, by +letter, the invitation to meet Neville at Jasper’s on Christmas Eve. + +Meanwhile Edwin visits Grewgious in his London chambers; is lectured on +his laggard and supercilious behaviour as a lover, and receives the +engagement ring of the late Mrs. Bud, Rosa’s mother, which is very dear +to Grewgious—in the presence of Bazzard, Grewgious’s clerk, a gloomy +writer of an amateur unacted tragedy. Edwin is to return the ring to +Grewgious, if he and Rosa decide not to marry. The ring is in a case, +and Edwin places it “in his breast.” We must understand, in the +breast-pocket of his coat: no other interpretation will pass muster. +“Her ring—will it come back to me?” reflects the mournful Grewgious. + + + +THE UNACCOUNTABLE EXPEDITION + + +Jasper now tells Sapsea, and the Dean, that he is to make “a moonlight +expedition with Durdles among the tombs, vaults, towers, and ruins +to-night.” The impossible Durdles has the keys necessary for this, +“surely an unaccountable expedition,” Dickens keeps remarking. The moon +seems to rise on this night at about 7.30 p.m. Jasper takes a big +case-bottle of liquor—drugged, of course and goes to the den of Durdles. +In the yard of this inspector of monuments he is bidden to beware of a +mound of quicklime near the yard gate. “With a little handy stirring, +quick enough to eat your bones,” says Durdles. There is some +considerable distance between this “mound” of quicklime and the crypt, of +which Durdles has the key, but the intervening space is quite empty of +human presence, as the citizens are unwilling to meet ghosts. + +In the crypt Durdles drinks a good deal of the drugged liquor. “They are +to ascend the great Tower,”—and why they do that is part of the Mystery, +though not an insoluble part. Before they climb, Durdles tells Jasper +that he was drunk and asleep in the crypt, last Christmas Eve, and was +wakened by “the ghost of one terrific shriek, followed by the ghost of +the howl of a dog, a long dismal, woeful howl, such as a dog gives when a +person’s dead.” Durdles has made inquiries and, as no one else heard the +shriek and the howl, he calls these sounds “ghosts.” + +They are obviously meant to be understood as supranormal premonitory +sounds; of the nature of second sight, or rather of second hearing. +Forster gives examples of Dickens’s tendency to believe in such +premonitions: Dickens had himself a curious premonitory dream. He +considerably overdid the premonitory business in his otherwise excellent +story, _The Signalman_, or so it seems to a student of these things. The +shriek and howl heard by Durdles are to be repeated, we see, in real +life, later, on a Christmas Eve. The question is—when? More probably +_not_ on the Christmas Eve just imminent, when Edwin is to vanish, but, +on the Christmas Eve following, when Jasper is to be unmasked. + +All this while, and later, Jasper examines Durdles very closely, studying +the effects on him of the drugged drink. When they reach the top of the +tower, Jasper closely contemplates “that stillest part of it” (the +landscape) “which the Cathedral overshadows; but he contemplates Durdles +quite as curiously.” + +There is a motive for the scrutiny in either case. Jasper examines the +part of the precincts in the shadow of the Cathedral, because he wishes +to assure himself that it is lonely enough for his later undescribed but +easily guessed proceedings in this night of mystery. He will have much +to do that could not brook witnesses, after the drugged Durdles has +fallen sound asleep. We have already been assured that the whole area +over which Jasper is to operate is “utterly deserted,” even when it lies +in full moonlight, about 8.30 p.m. “One might fancy that the tide of +life was stemmed by Mr. Jasper’s own gate-house.” The people of +Cloisterham, we hear, would deny that they believe in ghosts; but they +give this part of the precinct a wide berth (Chapter XII.). If the +region is “utterly deserted” at nine o’clock in the evening, when it lies +in the ivory moonlight, much more will it be free from human presence +when it lies in shadow, between one and two o’clock after midnight. +Jasper, however, from the tower top closely scrutinizes the area of his +future operations. It is, probably, for this very purpose of discovering +whether the coast be clear or not, that Jasper climbs the tower. + +He watches Durdles for the purpose of finding how the drug which he has +administered works, with a view to future operations on Edwin. Durdles +is now in such a state that “he deems the ground so far below on a level +with the tower, and would as lief walk off the tower into the air as +not.” + +All this is apparently meant to suggest that Jasper, on Christmas Eve, +will repeat his expedition, _with Edwin_, whom he will have drugged, and +that he will allow Edwin to “walk off the tower into the air.” There are +later suggestions to the same effect, as we shall see, but they are +deliberately misleading. There are also strong suggestions to the very +opposite effect: it is broadly indicated that Jasper is to strangle Edwin +with a thick black-silk scarf, which he has just taken to wearing for the +good of his throat. + +The pair return to the crypt, Durdles falls asleep, dreams that Jasper +leaves him, “and that something touches him and something falls from his +hand. Then something clinks and gropes about,” and the lines of +moonlight shift their direction, as Durdles finds that they have really +done when he wakens, with Jasper beside him, while the Cathedral clock +strikes two. They have had many hours, not less than five, for their +expedition. The key of the crypt lies beside Durdles on the ground. +They go out, and as Deputy begins stone-throwing, Jasper half strangles +him. + + + +PURPOSE OF THE EXPEDITION + + +Jasper has had ample time to take models in wax of all Durdles’s keys. +But he could have done that in a few minutes, while Durdles slept, if he +had wax with him, without leaving the crypt. He has also had time to +convey several wheelbarrowfuls of quicklime from Durdles’s yard to Mrs. +Sapsea’s sepulchre, of which monument he probably took the key from +Durdles, and tried its identity by clinking. But even in a Cathedral +town, even after midnight, several successive expeditions of a lay +precentor with a wheelbarrow full of quicklime would have been apt to +attract the comment of some belated physician, some cleric coming from a +sick bed, or some local roysterers. Therefore it is that Dickens insists +on the “utterly deserted” character of the area, and shows us that Jasper +has made sure of that essential fact by observations from the tower top. +Still, his was a perilous expedition, with his wheelbarrow! We should +probably learn later, that Jasper was detected by the wakeful Deputy, who +loathed him. Moreover, next morning Durdles was apt to notice that some +of his quicklime had been removed. As far as is shown, Durdles noticed +nothing of that kind, though he does observe peculiarities in Jasper’s +behaviour. + +The next point in the tale is that Edwin and Rosa meet, and have sense +enough to break off their engagement. But Edwin, represented as really +good-hearted, now begins to repent his past behaviour, and, though he has +a kind of fancy for Miss Landless, he pretty clearly falls deeper in love +with his late _fiancée_, and weeps his loss in private: so we are told. + + + +CHRISTMAS EVE + + +Christmas Eve comes, the day of the dinner of three, Jasper, Landless, +and Edwin. The chapter describing this fateful day (xiv.) is headed, +_When shall these Three meet again_? and Mr. Proctor argues that Dickens +intends that _they shall_ meet again. The intention, and the hint, are +much in Dickens’s manner. Landless means to start, next day, very early, +on a solitary walking tour, and buys an exorbitantly heavy stick. We +casually hear that Jasper knows Edwin to possess no jewellery, except a +watch and chain and a scarf-pin. As Edwin moons about, he finds the old +opium hag, come down from London, “seeking a needle in a bottle of hay,” +she says—that is, hunting vainly for Jasper. + +Please remark that Jasper has run up to town, on December 23, and has +saturated his system with a debauch of opium on the very eve of the day +when he clearly means to kill Edwin. This was a most injudicious +indulgence, in the circumstances. A maiden murder needs nerve! We know +that “fiddlestrings was weakness to express the state of” Jasper’s +“nerves” on the day after the night of opium with which the story opens. +On December 24, Jasper returned home, the hag at his heels. The old +woman, when met by Edwin, has a curious film over her eyes; “he seems to +know her.” “Great heaven,” he thinks, next moment. “Like Jack that +night!” This refers to a kind of fit of Jasper’s, after dinner, on the +first evening of the story. Edwin has then seen Jack Jasper in one of +his “filmy” seizures. The woman prays Edwin for three shillings and +sixpence, to buy opium. He gives her the money; she asks his Christian +name. “Edwin.” Is “Eddy” a sweetheart’s form of that? He says that he +has no sweetheart. He is told to be thankful that his name is not Ned. +Now, Jasper alone calls Edwin “Ned.” “‘Ned’ is a threatened name, a +dangerous name,” says the hag, who has heard Jasper threaten “Ned” in his +opium dreams. + +Edwin determines to tell this adventure to Jasper, _but not on this +night_: to-morrow will do. Now, _did_ he tell the story to Jasper that +night, in the presence of Landless, at dinner? If so, Helena Landless +might later learn the fact from Neville. If she knew it, she would later +tell Mr. Grewgious. + +The three men meet and dine. There is a fearful storm. “Stones are +displaced upon the summit of the great tower.” Next morning, early, +Jasper yells to Crisparkle, who is looking out of his window in Minor +Canon Row, that Edwin has disappeared. Neville has already set out on +his walking tour. + + + +AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE + + +Men go forth and apprehend Neville, who shows fight with his heavy stick. +We learn that he and Drood left Jasper’s house at midnight, went for ten +minutes to look at the river under the wind, and parted at Crisparkle’s +door. Neville now remains under suspicion: Jasper directs the search in +the river, on December 25, 26, and 27. On the evening of December 27, +Grewgious visits Jasper. Now, Grewgious, as we know, was to be at +Cloisterham at Christmas. True, he was engaged to dine on Christmas Day +with Bazzard, his clerk; but, thoughtful as he was of the moody Bazzard, +as Edwin was leaving Cloisterham he would excuse himself. He would +naturally take a great part in the search for Edwin, above all as Edwin +had in his possession the ring so dear to the lawyer. Edwin had not +shown it to Rosa when they determined to part. He “kept it in his +breast,” and the ring, we learn, was “_gifted with invincible force to +hold and drag_,” so Dickens warns us. + +The ring is obviously to be a _pièce de conviction_. But our point, at +present, is that we do not know how Grewgious, to whom this ring was so +dear, employed himself at Cloisterham—after Edwin’s disappearance—between +December 25 and December 27. On the evening of the 27th, he came to +Jasper, saying, “I have _just left Miss Landless_.” He then slowly and +watchfully told Jasper that Edwin’s engagement was broken off, while the +precentor gasped, perspired, tore his hair, shrieked, and finally +subsided into a heap of muddy clothes on the floor. Meanwhile, Mr. +Grewgious, calmly observing these phenomena, warmed his hands at the fire +for some time before he called in Jasper’s landlady. + +Grewgious now knows by Jasper’s behaviour that he believes himself to +have committed a superfluous crime, by murdering Edwin, who no longer +stood between him and Rosa, as their engagement was already at an end. +Whether a Jasper, in real life, would excite himself so much, is another +question. We do not know, as Mr. Proctor insists, what Mr. Grewgious had +been doing at Cloisterham between Christmas Day and December 27, the date +of his experiment on Jasper’s nerves. Mr. Proctor supposes him to have +met the living Edwin, and obtained information from him, after his escape +from a murderous attack by Jasper. Mr. Proctor insists that this is the +only explanation of Grewgious’s conduct, any other “is absolutely +impossible.” In that case the experiment of Grewgious was not made to +gain information from Jasper’s demeanour, but was the beginning of his +punishment, and was intended by Grewgious to be so. + +But Dickens has been careful to suggest, with suspicious breadth of +candour, another explanation of the source of Grewgious’s knowledge. If +Edwin has really escaped, and met Grewgious, Dickens does not want us to +be sure of that, as Mr. Proctor was sure. Dickens deliberately puts his +readers on another trail, though neither Mr. Walters nor Mr. Proctor +struck the scent. As we have noted, Grewgious at once says to Jasper, +“_I have just come from Miss Landless_.” This tells Jasper nothing, but +it tells a great deal to the watchful reader, who remembers that Miss +Landless, and she only, is aware that Jasper loves, bullies, and insults +Rosa, and that Rosa’s life is embittered by Jasper’s silent wooing, and +his unspoken threats. Helena may also know that “Ned is a threatened +name,” as we have seen, and that the menace comes from Jasper. As Jasper +is now known to be Edwin’s rival in love, and as Edwin has vanished, the +murderer, Mr. Grewgious reckons, is Jasper; and his experiment, with +Jasper’s consequent shriek and fit, confirms the hypothesis. Thus +Grewgious had information enough, from Miss Landless, to suggest his +experiment—Dickens intentionally made that clear (though not clear enough +for Mr. Proctor and Mr. Cuming Walters)—while his experiment gives him a +moral certainty of Jasper’s crime, but yields no legal evidence. + +But does Grewgious know no more than what Helena, and the fit and shriek +of Jasper, have told him? Is his knowledge limited to the evidence that +Jasper has murdered Edwin? Or does Grewgious know more, know that Edwin, +in some way, has escaped from death? + +That is Dickens’s secret. But whereas Grewgious, if he believes Jasper +to be an actual murderer, should take him seriously; in point of fact, he +speaks of Jasper in so light a tone, as “our local friend,” that we feel +no certainty that he is not really aware of Edwin’s escape from a +murderous attack by Jasper, and of his continued existence. + +Presently Crisparkle, under some mysterious impression, apparently +telepathic (the book is rich in such psychical phenomena), visits the +weir on the river, at night, and next day finds Edwin’s watch and chain +in the timbers; his scarf-pin in the pool below. The watch and chain +must have been placed purposely where they were found, they could not +float thither, and, if Neville had slain Edwin, he would not have stolen +his property, of course, except as a blind, neutralised by the placing of +the watch in a conspicuous spot. However, the increased suspicions drive +Neville away to read law in Staple Inn, where Grewgious also dwells, and +incessantly watches Neville out of his window. + +About six months later, Helena Landless is to join Neville, who is +watched at intervals by Jasper, who, again, is watched by Grewgious as +the precentor lurks about Staple Inn. + + + +DICK DATCHERY + + +About the time when Helena leaves Cloisterham for town, a new character +appears in Cloisterham, “a white-headed personage with black eyebrows, +_buttoned up in a tightish blue surtout_, with a buff waistcoat, grey +trowsers, and something of a military air.” His shock of white hair was +unusually thick and ample. This man, “a buffer living idly on his +means,” named Datchery, is either, as Mr. Proctor believed, Edwin Drood, +or, as Mr. Walters thinks, Helena Landless. By making Grewgious drop the +remark that Bazzard, his clerk, a moping owl of an amateur tragedian, “is +off duty here,” at his chambers, Dickens hints that Bazzard is Datchery. +But that is a mere false scent, a ruse of the author, scattering paper in +the wrong place, in this long paper hunt. + +As for Helena, Mr. Walters justly argues that Dickens has marked her for +some important part in the ruin of Jasper. “There was a slumbering gleam +of fire in her intense dark eyes. Let whomsoever it most concerned look +well to it.” Again, we have been told that Helena had high courage. She +had told Jasper that she feared him “in no circumstances whatever.” +Again, we have learned that in childhood she had dressed as a boy when +she ran away from home; and she had the motives of protecting Rosa and +her brother, Neville, from the machinations of Jasper, who needs +watching, as he is trying to ruin Neville’s already dilapidated +character, and, by spying on him, to break down his nerve. Really, of +course, Neville is quite safe. There is no _corpus delicti_, no carcase +of the missing Edwin Drood. + +For the reasons given, Datchery might be Helena in disguise. + +If so, the idea is highly ludicrous, while nothing is proved either by +the blackness of Datchery’s eyebrows (Helena’s were black), or by +Datchery’s habit of carrying his hat under his arm, not on his head. A +person who goes so far as to wear a conspicuous white wig, would not be +afraid also to dye his eyebrows black, if he were Edwin; while either +Edwin or Helena _must_ have “made up” the face, by the use of paint and +sham wrinkles. Either Helena or Edwin would have been detected in real +life, of course, but we allow for the accepted fictitious convention of +successful disguise, and for the necessities of the novelist. A tightly +buttoned surtout would show Helena’s feminine figure; but let that also +pass. As to the hat, Edwin’s own hair was long and thick: add a wig, and +his hat would be a burden to him. + +What is most unlike the stern, fierce, sententious Helena, is Datchery’s +habit of “chaffing.” He fools the ass of a Mayor, Sapsea, by most +exaggerated diference: his tone is always that of indolent mockery, which +one doubts whether the “intense” and concentrated Helena could assume. +He takes rooms in the same house as Jasper, to whom, as to Durdles and +Deputy, he introduces himself on the night of his arrival at Cloisterham. +He afterwards addresses Deputy, the little _gamin_, by the name “Winks,” +which is given to him by the people at the Tramps’ lodgings: the name is +a secret of Deputy’s. + + + +JASPER, ROSA, AND TARTAR + + +Meanwhile Jasper formally proposes to Rosa, in the school garden: +standing apart and leaning against a sundial, as the garden is commanded +by many windows. He offers to resign his hopes of bringing Landless to +the gallows (perhaps this bad man would provide a _corpus delicti_ of his +own making!) if Rosa will accept him: he threatens to “pursue her to the +death,” if she will not; he frightens her so thoroughly that she rushes +to Grewgious in his chambers in London. She now suspects Jasper of +Edwin’s murder, but keeps her thoughts to herself. She tells Grewgious, +who is watching Neville,—“I have a fancy for keeping him under my +eye,”—that Jasper has made love to her, and Grewgious replies in a parody +of “God save the King”! + + “On Thee his hopes to fix + Damn him again!” + +Would he fool thus, if he knew Jasper to have killed Edwin? He is not +certain whether Rosa should visit Helena next day, in Landless’s rooms, +opposite; and Mr. Walters suggests that he may be aware that Helena, +dressed as Datchery, is really absent at Cloisterham. However, next day, +Helena is in her brother’s rooms. Moreover, it is really a sufficient +explanation of Grewgious’s doubt that Jasper is lurking around, and that +not till next day is a _private_ way of communication arranged between +Neville and his friends. In any case, next day, Helena is in her +brother’s rooms, and, by aid of a Mr. Tartar’s rooms, she and Rosa can +meet privately. There is a good deal of conspiring to watch Jasper when +he watches Neville, and in this new friend, Mr. Tartar, a lover is +provided for Rosa. Tartar is a miraculously agile climber over roofs and +up walls, a retired Lieutenant of the navy, and a handy man, being such a +climber, to chase Jasper about the roof of the Cathedral, when Jasper’s +day of doom arrives. + + + +JASPER’S OPIUM VISIONS + + +In July, Jasper revisits the London opium den, and talks under opium, +watched by the old hag. He speaks of a thing which he often does in +visions: “a hazardous and perilous journey, over abysses where a slip +would be destruction. Look down, look down! You see what lies at the +bottom there?” He enacts the vision and says, “There was a fellow +traveller.” He “speaks in a whisper, and as if in the dark.” The vision +is, in this case, “a poor vision: no struggle, no consciousness of peril, +no entreaty.” Edwin, in the reminiscent vision, dies very easily and +rapidly. “When it comes to be real at last, it is so short that it seems +unreal for the first time.” “And yet I never saw _that_ before. Look +what a poor miserable mean thing it is. _That_ must be real. It’s +over.” + +What can all this mean? We have been told that, shortly before Christmas +Eve, Jasper took to wearing a thick black-silk handkerchief for his +throat. He hung it over his arm, “his face knitted and stern,” as he +entered his house for his Christmas Eve dinner. If he strangled Edwin +with the scarf, as we are to suppose, he did not lead him, drugged, to +the tower top, and pitch him off. Is part of Jasper’s vision +reminiscent—the brief, unresisting death—while another part is a separate +vision, is _prospective_, “premonitory”? Does he see himself pitching +Neville Landless off the tower top, or see him fallen from the Cathedral +roof? Is Neville’s body “_that_”—“I never saw _that_ before. Look what +a poor miserable mean thing it is! _That_ must be real.” Jasper “never +saw _that_”—the dead body below the height—before. _This_ vision, I +think, is of the future, not of the past, and is meant to bewilder the +reader who thinks that the whole represents the slaying of Drood. The +tale is rich in “warnings” and telepathy. + + + +DATCHERY AND THE OPIUM WOMAN + + +The hag now tracks Jasper home to Cloisterham. Here she meets Datchery, +whom she asks how she can see Jasper? If Datchery is Drood, he now +learns, _what he did not know before_, _that there is some connection +between Jasper and the hag_. He walks with her to the place where Edwin +met the hag, on Christmas Eve, and gave her money; and he jingles his own +money as he walks. The place, or the sound of the money, makes the woman +tell Datchery about Edwin’s gift of three shillings and sixpence for +opium. Datchery, “with a sudden change of countenance, gives her a +sudden look.” It does not follow that he is _not_ Drood, for, though the +hag’s love of opium was known to Drood, Datchery is not to reveal his +recognition of the woman. He does what any stranger would do; he “gives +a sudden look,” as if surprised by the mention of opium. + +Mr. Walters says, “Drood would not have changed countenance on hearing a +fact he had known six months previously.” But if Drood was playing at +being somebody else, he would, of course, give a kind of start and stare, +on hearing of the opium. When he also hears from the hag that her former +benefactor’s name was Edwin, he asks her how she knew that—“a fatuously +unnecessary question,” says Mr. Walters. A needless question for +Datchery’s information, if he be Drood, but as useful a question as +another if Drood be Datchery, and wishes to maintain the conversation. + + + +DATCHERY’S SCORE + + +Datchery keeps a tavern score of his discoveries behind a door, in +cryptic chalk strokes. He does this, says Mr. Walters, because, being +Helena, he would betray himself if he wrote in a female hand. But nobody +would _write_ secrets on a door! He adds “a moderate stroke,” after +meeting the hag, though, says Mr. Walters, “Edwin Drood would have +learned nothing new whatever” from the hag. + +But Edwin would have learned something quite new, and very important—that +the hag was hunting Jasper. Next day Datchery sees the woman shake her +fists at Jasper in church, and hears from her that she knows Jasper +“better far than all the reverend parsons put together know him.” +Datchery then adds a long thick line to his chalked score, yet, says Mr. +Walters, Datchery has learned “nothing new to Edwin Drood, if alive.” + +This is an obvious error. It is absolutely new to Edwin Drood that the +opium hag is intimately acquainted with his uncle, Jasper, and hates +Jasper with a deadly hatred. All this is not only new to Drood, if +alive, but is rich in promise of further revelations. Drood, on +Christmas Eve, had learned from the hag only that she took opium, and +that she had come from town to Cloisterham, and had “hunted for a needle +in a bottle of hay.” That was the sum of his information. Now he learns +that the woman knows, tracks, has found, and hates, his worthy uncle, +Jasper. He may well, therefore, add a heavy mark to his score. + +We must also ask, How could Helena, fresh from Ceylon, know “the old +tavern way of keeping scores? Illegible except to the scorer. The +scorer not committed, the scored debited with what is against him,” as +Datchery observes. An Eurasian girl of twenty, new to England, would not +argue thus with herself: she would probably know nothing of English +tavern scores. We do not hear that Helena ever opened a book: we do know +that education had been denied to her. What acquaintance could she have +with old English tavern customs? + +If Drood is Datchery, then Dickens used a form of a very old and +favourite _ficelle_ of his: the watching of a villain by an improbable +and unsuspected person, in this case thought to be dead. If Helena is +Datchery, the “assumption” or personation is in the highest degree +improbable, her whole bearing is quite out of her possibilities, and the +personation is very absurd. + +Here the story ends. + + + + +THEORIES OF THE MYSTERY + + +FORSTER’S EVIDENCE + + +WE have some external evidence as to Dickens’s solution of his own +problem, from Forster. {48} On August 6, 1869, some weeks before he +began to work at his tale, Dickens, in a letter, told Forster, “I have a +very curious and new idea for my new story. Not communicable (or the +interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though +difficult to work.” Forster must have instantly asked that the +incommunicable secret should be communicated to _him_, for he tells us +that “_immediately after_ I learnt”—the secret. But did he learn it? +Dickens was ill, and his plot, whatever it may have been, would be +irritatingly criticized by Forster before it was fully thought out. +“Fules and bairns should not see half-done work,” and Dickens may well +have felt that Forster should not see work not even begun, but merely +simmering in the author’s own fancy. + +Forster does not tell us that Dickens communicated the secret in a +letter. He quotes none: he says “I was told,” orally, that is. When he +writes, five years later (1874), “Landless was, _I think_, to have +perished in assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer,” +he is clearly trusting, not to a letter of Dickens’s, but to a defective +memory; and he knows it. He says that a nephew was to be murdered by an +uncle. The criminal was to confess in the condemned cell. He was to +find out that his crime had been needless, and to be convicted by means +of the ring (Rosa’s mother’s ring) remaining in the quicklime that had +destroyed the body of Edwin. + +Nothing “new” in all this, as Forster must have seen. “The originality,” +he explains, “was to consist in the review of the murderer’s career by +himself at the close, when its temptations were to be dwelt upon as if, +not he the culprit, but some other man, were the tempted.” + +But all this is not “hard to work,” and is not “original.” As Mr. +Proctor remarks, Dickens had used that trick twice already. (“Madman’s +Manuscript,” _Pickwick_; “Clock Case Confession,” in _Master Humphrey’s +Clock_.) The quicklime trick is also very old indeed. The disguise of a +woman as a man is as ancient as the art of fiction: yet Helena _may_ be +Datchery, though nobody guessed it before Mr. Cuming Walters. She ought +not to be Datchery; she is quite out of keeping in her speech and manner +as Datchery, and is much more like Drood. + + + +“A NEW IDEA” + + +There are no new ideas in plots. “All the stories have been told,” and +all the merit lies in the manner of the telling. Dickens had used the +unsuspected watcher, as Mr. Proctor shows, in almost all his novels. In +_Martin Chuzzlewit_, when Jonas finds that Nadgett has been the watcher, +Dickens writes, “The dead man might have come out of his grave and not +confounded and appalled him so.” Now, to Jasper, Edwin _was_ “the dead +man,” and Edwin’s grave contained quicklime. Jasper was sure that he had +done for Edwin: he had taken Edwin’s watch, chain, and scarf-pin; he +believed that he had left him, drugged, in quicklime, in a locked vault. +Consequently the reappearance of Edwin, quite well, in the vault where +Jasper had buried him, would be a very new idea to Jasper; would +“confound and appall him.” Jasper would have emotions, at that +spectacle, and so would the reader! It is not every day, even in our age +of sixpenny novels, that a murderer is compelled to visit, alone, at +night, the vault which holds his victim’s “cold remains,” and therein +finds the victim “come up, smiling.” + +Yes, for business purposes, this idea was new enough! The idea was +“difficult to work,” says Dickens, with obvious truth. How was he to get +the quicklime into the vault, and Drood, alive, out of the vault? As to +the reader, he would at first take Datchery for Drood, and then think, +“No, that is impossible, and also is stale. Datchery cannot be Drood,” +and thus the reader would remain in a pleasant state of puzzledom, as he +does, unto this day. + +If Edwin is dead, there is not much “Mystery” about him. We have as good +as seen Jasper strangle him and take his pin, chain, and watch. Yet by +adroitly managing the conduct of Mr. Grewgious, Dickens persuaded Mr. +Proctor that certainly, Grewgious knew Edwin to be alive. As Grewgious +knew, from Helena, all that was necessary to provoke his experiment on +Jasper’s nerves, Mr. Proctor argued on false premises, but that was due +to the craft of Dickens. Mr. Proctor rejected Forster’s report, from +memory, of what he understood to be the “incommunicable secret” of +Dickens’s plot, and I think that he was justified in the rejection. +Forster does not seem to have cared about the thing—he refers lightly to +“the reader curious in such matters”—when once he had received his +explanation from Dickens. His memory, in the space of five years, may +have been inaccurate: he probably neither knew nor cared who Datchery +was; and he may readily have misunderstood what Dickens told him, orally, +about the ring, as the instrument of detection. Moreover, Forster quite +overlooked one source of evidence, as I shall show later. + + + +MR. PROCTOR’S THEORY + + +Mr. Proctor’s theory of the story is that Jasper, after Edwin’s return at +midnight on Christmas Eve, recommended a warm drink—mulled wine, +drugged—and then proposed another stroll of inspection of the effects of +the storm. He then strangled him, somewhere, and placed him in the +quicklime in the Sapsea vault, locked him in, and went to bed. Next, +according to Mr. Proctor, Durdles, then, “lying drunk in the precincts,” +for some reason taps with his hammer on the wall of the Sapsea vault, +detects the presence of a foreign body, opens the tomb, and finds Drood +in the quicklime, “his face fortunately protected by the strong silk +shawl with which Jasper has intended to throttle him.” + + + +A MISTAKEN THEORY + + +This is “thin,” very “thin!” Dickens must have had some better scheme +than Mr. Proctor’s. Why did Jasper not “mak sikker” like Kirkpatrick +with the Red Comyn? Why did he leave his silk scarf? It might come to +be asked for; to be sure the quicklime would destroy it, but why did +Jasper leave it? Why did the intoxicated Durdles come out of the crypt, +if he was there, enter the graveyard, and begin tapping at the wall of +the vault? Why not open the door? he had the key. + +Suppose, however, all this to have occurred, and suppose, with Mr. +Proctor, that Durdles and Deputy carried Edwin to the Tramps’ lodgings, +would Durdles fail to recognize Edwin? We are to guess that Grewgious +was present, or disturbed at his inn, or somehow brought into touch with +Edwin, and bribed Durdles to silence, “until a scheme for the punishment +of Jasper had been devised.” + +All this set of conjectures is crude to the last degree. We do not know +how Dickens meant to get Edwin into and out of the vault. Granting that +Edwin was drugged, Jasper might lead Edwin in, considering the licence +extended to the effects of drugs in novels, and might strangle him there. +Above all, how did Grewgious, if in Cloisterham, come to be at hand at +midnight? + + + +ANOTHER WAY + + +If I must make a guess, I conjecture that Jasper had one of his “filmy” +seizures, was “in a frightful sort of dream,” and bungled the murder: +made an incomplete job of it. Half-strangled men and women have often +recovered. In Jasper’s opium vision and reminiscence there was no +resistance, all was very soon over. Jasper might even bungle the locking +of the door of the vault. He was apt to have a seizure after opium, in +moments of excitement, and _he had been at the opium den through the +night of December_ 23, for the hag tracked him from her house in town to +Cloisterham on December 24, the day of the crime. Grant that his +accustomed fit came upon him during the excitement of the murder, as it +does come after “a nicht wi’ opium,” in chapter ii., when Edwin excites +him by contemptuous talk of the girl whom Jasper loves so furiously—and +then anything may happen! + +Jasper murders Edwin inefficiently; he has a fit; while he is unconscious +the quicklime revives Edwin, by burning his hand, say, and, during +Jasper’s swoon, Edwin, like another famous prisoner, “has a happy +thought, he opens the door, and walks out.” + +Being drugged, he is in a dreamy state; knows not clearly what has +occurred, or who attacked him. Jasper revives, “look on’t again he dare +not,”—on the body of his victim—and _he_ walks out and goes home, where +his red lamp has burned all the time—“thinking it all wery capital.” + +“Another way,”—Jasper not only fails to strangle Drood, but fails to lock +the door of the vault, and Drood walks out after Jasper has gone. Jasper +has, before his fit, “removed from the body the most lasting, the best +known, and most easily recognizable things upon it, the watch and +scarf-pin.” So Dickens puts the popular view of the case against Neville +Landless, and so we are to presume that Jasper acted. If he removed no +more things from the body than these, he made a fatal oversight. + +Meanwhile, how does Edwin, once out of the vault, make good a secret +escape from Cloisterham? Mr. Proctor invokes the aid of Mr. Grewgious, +but does not explain why Grewgious was on the spot. I venture to think +it not inconceivable that Mr. Grewgious having come down to Cloisterham +by a late train, on Christmas Eve, to keep his Christmas appointment with +Rosa, paid a darkling visit to the tomb of his lost love, Rosa’s mother. +Grewgious was very sentimental, but too secretive to pay such a visit by +daylight. “A night of memories and sighs” he might “consecrate” to his +lost lady love, as Landor did to Rose Aylmer. Grewgious was to have +helped Bazzard to eat a turkey on Christmas Day. But he could get out of +that engagement. He would wish to see Edwin and Rosa together, and Edwin +was leaving Cloisterham. The date of Grewgious’s arrival at Cloisterham +is studiously concealed. I offer at least a conceivable motive for +Grewgious’s possible presence at the churchyard. Mrs. Bud, his lost +love, we have been told, was buried hard by the Sapsea monument. If +Grewgious visited her tomb, he was on the spot to help Edwin, supposing +Edwin to escape. Unlikelier things occur in novels. I do not, in fact, +call these probable occurrences in every-day life, but none of the story +is probable. Jasper’s “weird seizures” are meant to lead up to +_something_. They may have been meant to lead up to the failure of the +murder and the escape of Edwin. Of course Dickens would not have treated +these incidents, when he came to make Edwin explain,—nobody else could +explain,—in my studiously simple style. The drugged Edwin himself would +remember the circumstances but mistily: his evidence would be of no value +against Jasper. + +Mr. Proctor next supposes, we saw, that Drood got into touch with +Grewgious, and I have added the circumstances which might take Grewgious +to the churchyard. Next, when Edwin recovered health, he came down, +perhaps, as Datchery, to spy on Jasper. I have elsewhere said, as Mr. +Cuming Walters quotes me, that “fancy can suggest no reason why Edwin +Drood, if he escaped from his wicked uncle, should go spying about +instead of coming openly forward. No plausible unfantastic reason could +be invented.” Later, I shall explain why Edwin, if he is Datchery, might +go spying alone. + +It is also urged that Edwin left Rosa in sorrow, and left blame on +Neville Landless. Why do this? Mr. Proctor replies that Grewgious’s +intense and watchful interest in Neville, otherwise unexplained, is due +to his knowledge that Drood is alive, and that Neville must be cared for, +while Grewgious has told Rosa that Edwin lives. He also told her of +Edwin’s real love of her, hence Miss Bud says, “Poor, poor Eddy,” quite +_à propos de bottes_, when she finds herself many fathoms deep in love +with Lieutenant Tartar, R.N. “‘Poor, poor Eddy!’ thought Rosa, as they +walked along,” Tartar and she. This is a plausible suggestion of Mr. +Proctor. Edwin, though known to Rosa to be alive, has no chance! But, +as to my own remark, “why should not Edwin come forward at once, instead +of spying about?” Well, if he did, there would be no story. As for “an +unfantastic reason” for his conduct, Dickens is not writing an +“unfantastic” novel. Moreover, if things occurred as I have suggested, I +do not see what evidence Drood had against Jasper. Edwin’s clothes were +covered with lime, but, when he told his story, Jasper would reply that +Drood never returned to his house on Christmas Eve, but stayed out, +“doing what was correct by the season, in the way of giving it the +welcome it had the right to expect,” like Durdles on another occasion. +Drood’s evidence, if it was what I have suggested, would sound like the +dream of an intoxicated man, and what other evidence could be adduced? +Thus I had worked out Drood’s condition, if he really was not killed, in +this way: I had supposed him to escape, in a very mixed frame of mind, +when he would be encountered by Grewgious, who, of course, could make +little out of him in his befogged state. Drood could not even prove that +it was not Landless who attacked him. The result would be that Drood +would lie low, and later, would have reason enough for disguising himself +as Datchery, and playing the spy in Cloisterham. + +At this point I was reinforced by an opinion which Mr. William Archer had +expressed, unknown to me, in a newspaper article. I had described +Edwin’s confused knowledge of his own experience, if he were thoroughly +drugged, and then half strangled. Mr. Archer also took that point, and +added that Edwin being a good-hearted fellow, and fond of his uncle +Jasper, he would not bring, or let Grewgious bring, a terrible charge +against Jasper, till he knew more certainly the whole state of the case. +For that reason, he would come disguised to Cloisterham and make +inquiries. By letting Jasper know about the ring, he would compel him to +enter the vault, and then, Mr. Archer thinks, would induce him to “repent +and begin life afresh.” + +I scarcely think that Datchery’s purpose was so truly honourable: he +rather seems to be getting up a case against Jasper. Still, the idea of +Mr. Archer is very plausible, and, at least, given Drood’s need of +evidence, and the lack of evidence against Jasper, we see reason good, in +a novel of this kind, for his playing the part of amateur detective. + + + +DICKENS’S UNUSED DRAFT OF A CHAPTER + + +Forster found, and published, a very illegible sketch of a chapter of the +tale: “How Mr. Sapsea ceased to be a Member of the Eight Club, Told by +Himself.” This was “a cramped, interlined, and blotted” draft, on paper +of only half the size commonly used by Dickens. Mr. Sapsea tells how his +Club mocked him about a stranger, who had mistaken him for the Dean. The +jackass, Sapsea, left the Club, and met the stranger, _a young man_, who +fooled him to the top of his bent, saying, “If I was to deny that I came +to this town to see and hear you, Sir, what would it avail me?” +Apparently this paper was a rough draft of an idea for introducing a +detective, as a _young_ man, who mocks Sapsea just as Datchery does in +the novel. But to make the spy a _young_ man, whether the spy was Drood +or Helena Landless, was too difficult; and therefore Dickens makes +Datchery “an elderly buffer” in a white wig. If I am right, it was +easier for Helena, a girl, to pose as a young man, than for Drood to +reappear as a young man, not himself. Helena _may_ be Datchery, and yet +Drood may be alive and biding his time; but I have disproved my old +objection that there was no reason why Drood, if alive, should go spying +about in disguise. There were good Dickensian reasons. + + + +A QUESTION OF TASTE + + +Mr. Cuming Walters argues that the story is very tame if Edwin is still +alive, and left out of the marriages at the close. Besides, “Drood is +little more than a name-label, attached to a body, a man who never +excites sympathy, whose fate causes no emotion, he is saved for no useful +or sentimental purpose, and lags superfluous on the stage. All of which +is bad art, so bad that Dickens would never have been guilty of it.” + +That is a question of taste. On rereading the novel, I see that Dickens +makes Drood as sympathetic as he can. He is very young, and speaks of +Rosa with bad taste, but he is really in love with her, much more so than +she with him, and he is piqued by her ceaseless mockery, and by their +false position. To Jasper he is singularly tender, and remorseful when +he thinks that he has shown want of tact. There is nothing ominous about +his gaiety: as to his one fault, we leave him, on Christmas Eve, a +converted character: he has a kind word and look for every one whom he +meets, young and old. He accepts Mr. Grewgious’s very stern lecture in +the best manner possible. In short, he is marked as faulty—“I am young,” +so he excuses himself, in the very words of Darnley to Queen Mary! (if +the Glasgow letter be genuine); but he is also marked as sympathetic. + +He was, I think, to have a lesson, and to become a good fellow. Mr. +Proctor rightly argues (and Forster “thinks”), that Dickens meant to kill +Neville Landless: Mr. Cuming Walters agrees with him, but Mr. Proctor +truly adds that Edwin has none of the signs of Dickens’s doomed men, his +Sidney Cartons, and the rest. You can tell, as it were by the sound of +the voice of Dickens, says Mr. Proctor, that Edwin is to live. The +impression is merely subjective, but I feel the impression. The doom of +Landless is conspicuously fixed, and why is Landless to be killed by +Jasper? Merely to have a count on which to hang Jasper! He cannot be +hanged for killing Drood, if Drood is alive. + + + +MR. PROCTOR’S THEORY CONTINUED + + +Mr. Proctor next supposes that Datchery and others, by aid of the opium +hag, have found out a great deal of evidence against Jasper. They have +discovered from the old woman that his crime was long premeditated: he +had threatened “Ned” in his opiated dreams: and had clearly removed +Edwin’s trinkets and watch, because they would not be destroyed, with his +body, by the quicklime. This is all very well, but there is still, so +far, no legal evidence, on my theory, that Jasper attempted to take +Edwin’s life. Jasper’s enemies, therefore, can only do their best to +make his life a burden to him, and to give him a good fright, probably +with the hope of terrifying him into avowals. + +Now the famous ring begins “to drag and hold” the murderer. He is given +to know, I presume, that, when Edwin disappeared, he had a gold ring in +the pocket of his coat. Jasper is thus compelled to revisit the vault, +at night, and there, in the light of his lantern, he sees the long-lost +Edwin, with his hand in the breast of his great coat. + +Horrified by this unexpected appearance, Jasper turns to fly. But he is +confronted by Neville Landless, Crisparkle, Tartar, and perhaps by Mr. +Grewgious, who are all on the watch. He rushes up through the only +outlet, the winding staircase of the Cathedral tower, of which we know +that he has had the key. Neville, who leads his pursuers, “receives his +death wound” (and, I think, is pitched off the top of the roof). Then +Jasper is collared by that agile climber, Tartar, and by Crisparkle, +always in the pink of condition. There is now something to hang Jasper +for—the slaying of Landless (though, as far as I can see, _that_ was done +in self-defence). Jasper confesses all; Tartar marries Rosa; Helena +marries Crisparkle. Edwin is only twenty-one, and may easily find a +consoler of the fair sex: indeed he is “ower young to marry yet.” + +The capture of Jasper was fixed, of course, for Christmas Eve. The +phantom cry foreheard by Durdles, two years before, was that of Neville +as he fell; and the dog that howled was Neville’s dog, a character not +yet introduced into the romance. + + + +MR. CUMING WALTERS’S THEORY + + +Such is Mr. Proctor’s theory of the story, in which I mainly agree. Mr. +Proctor relies on a piece of evidence overlooked by Forster, and +certainly misinterpreted, as I think I can prove to a certainty, by Mr. +Cuming Walters, whose theory of the real conduct of the plot runs thus: +After watching the storm at midnight with Edwin, Neville left him, and +went home: “his way lay in an opposite direction. Near to the Cathedral +Jasper intercepted his nephew. . . . Edwin may have been already +drugged.” How the murder was worked Mr. Cuming Walters does not say, but +he introduces at this point, the two sounds foreheard by Durdles, without +explaining “the howl of a dog.” Durdles would hear the cries, and Deputy +“had seen what he could not understand,” whatever it was that he saw. +Jasper, not aware of Drood’s possession of the ring, takes only his +watch, chain, and pin, which he places on the timbers of the weir, and in +the river, to be picked up by that persistent winter-bather, Crisparkle +of the telescopic and microscopic eyesight. + +As to the ring, Mr. Cuming Walters erroneously declares that Mr. Proctor +“ignores” the power of the ring “to hold and drag,” and says that potent +passage is “without meaning and must be disregarded.” Proctor, in fact, +gives more than three pages to the meaning of the ring, which “drags” +Jasper into the vault, when he hears of its existence. {74} Next, Mr. +Cuming Walters supposes Datchery to learn from Durdles, whom he is to +visit, about the second hearing of the cry and the dog’s howl. Deputy +may have seen Jasper “carrying his burden” (Edwin) “towards the Sapsea +vault.” In fact, Jasper probably saved trouble by making the drugged +Edwin walk into that receptacle. “Datchery would not think of the Sapsea +vault unaided.” No—unless Datchery was Drood! “Now Durdles is useful +again. Tapping with his hammer he would find a change . . . inquiry must +be made.” Why should Durdles tap the Sapsea monument? As Durdles had +the key, he would simply walk into the vault, and find the quicklime. +Now, Jasper also, we presume, had a key, made from a wax impression of +the original. If he had any sense, he would have removed the quicklime +as easily as he inserted it, for Mr. Sapsea was mortal: he might die any +day, and be buried, and then the quicklime, lying where it ought not, +would give rise to awkward inquiries. + +Inquiry being made, in consequence of Durdles’s tappings, the ring would +be found, as Mr. Cuming Walters says. But even then, unless Deputy +actually saw Jasper carry a man into the vault, nobody could prove +Jasper’s connection with the presence of the ring in the vault. +Moreover, Deputy hated Jasper, and if he saw Jasper carrying the body of +a man, on the night when a man disappeared, he was clever enough to lead +Durdles to examine the vault, _at once_. Deputy had a great dislike of +the Law and its officers, but here was a chance for him to distinguish +himself, and conciliate them. + +However these things may be, Mr. Cuming Walters supposes that Jasper, +finding himself watched, re-enters the vault, perhaps, “to see that every +trace of the crime had been removed.” In the vault he finds—Datchery, +that is, Helena Landless! Jasper certainly visited the vault and found +somebody. + + [Picture: The cover of The Mystery of Edwin Drood] + + + +EVIDENCE OF COLLINS’S DRAWINGS + + +We now come to the evidence which Forster strangely overlooked, which Mr. +Proctor and Mr. Archer correctly deciphered, and which Mr. Cuming Walters +misinterprets. On December 22, 1869, Dickens wrote to Forster that two +numbers of his romance were “now in type. Charles Collins has designed +an excellent cover.” Mr. C. A. Collins had married a daughter of +Dickens. {77} He was an artist, a great friend of Dickens, and author of +that charming book, “A Cruise on Wheels.” His design of the paper cover +of the story (it appeared in monthly numbers) contained, as usual, +sketches which give an inkling of the events in the tale. Mr. Collins +was to have illustrated the book; but, finally, Mr. (now Sir) Luke Fildes +undertook the task. Mr. Collins died in 1873. It appears that Forster +never asked him the meaning of his designs—a singular oversight. + +The cover lies before the reader. In the left-hand top corner appears an +allegorical female figure of joy, with flowers. The central top space +contains the front of Cloisterham Cathedral, or rather, the nave. To the +left walks Edwin, with hyacinthine locks, and a thoroughly classical type +of face, and Grecian nose. _Like Datchery_, _he does not wear_, _but +carries his hat_; this means nothing, if they are in the nave. He seems +bored. On his arm is Rosa; _she_ seems bored; she trails her parasol, +and looks away from Edwin, looks down, to her right. On the spectator’s +right march the surpliced men and boys of the Choir. Behind them is +Jasper, black whiskers and all; he stares after Edwin and Rosa; his right +hand hides his mouth. In the corner above him is an allegorical female, +clasping a stiletto. + +Beneath Edwin and Rosa is, first, an allegorical female figure, looking +at a placard, headed “LOST,” on a door. Under that, again, is a girl in +a garden-chair; a young man, whiskerless, with wavy hair, kneels and +kisses her hand. She looks rather unimpassioned. I conceive the man to +be Landless, taking leave of Rosa after urging his hopeless suit, for +which Helena, we learn, “seems to compassionate him.” He has avowed his +passion, early in the story, to Crisparkle. Below, the opium hag is +smoking. On the other side, under the figures of Jasper and the Choir, +the young man who kneels to the girl is seen bounding up a spiral +staircase. His left hand is on the iron railing; he stoops over it, +looking down at others who follow him. His right hand, the index finger +protruded, points upward, and, by chance or design, points straight at +Jasper in the vignette above. Beneath this man (clearly Landless) +follows a tall man in a “bowler” hat, a “cut-away” coat, and trousers +which show an inch of white stocking above the low shoes. His profile is +hid by the wall of the spiral staircase: he might be Grewgious of the +shoes, white stockings, and short trousers, but he may be Tartar: he +takes two steps at a stride. Beneath him a youngish man, in a low, soft, +clerical hat and a black pea-coat, ascends, looking downwards and +backwards. This is clearly Crisparkle. A Chinaman is smoking opium +beneath. + +In the central lowest space, a dark and whiskered man enters a dark +chamber; his left hand is on the lock of the door; in his right he holds +up a lantern. The light of the lantern reveals a young man in a soft hat +of Tyrolese shape. His features are purely classical, his nose is +Grecian, his locks are long (at least, according to the taste of to-day); +he wears a light paletot, buttoned to the throat; his right arm hangs by +his side; his left hand is thrust into the breast of his coat. He calmly +regards the dark man with the lantern. That man, of course, is Jasper. +The young man is EDWIN DROOD, of the Grecian nose, hyacinthine locks, and +classic features, as in Sir L. Fildes’s third illustration. + +Mr. Proctor correctly understood the unmistakable meaning of this last +design, Jasper entering the vault— + + “_To-day the dead are living_, + _The lost is found to-day_.” + +Mr. Cuming Walters tells us that he did not examine these designs by Mr. +Collins till he had formed his theory, and finished his book. “On the +conclusion of the whole work the pictures were referred to for the first +time, and were then found to support in the most striking manner the +opinions arrived at,” namely, that Drood was killed, and that Helena is +Datchery. Thus does theory blind us to facts! + +Mr. Cuming Walters connects the figure of the whiskerless young man +kneeling to a girl in a garden seat, with the whiskered Jasper’s proposal +to Rosa in a garden seat. But Jasper does not kneel to Rosa; he stands +apart, leaning on a sundial; he only once vaguely “touches” her, which +she resents; he does not kneel; he does not kiss her hand (Rosa “took the +kiss sedately,” like Maud in the poem); and—Jasper had lustrous thick +black whiskers. + +Again, the same whiskerless young man, bounding up the spiral staircase +in daylight, and wildly pointing upwards, is taken by Mr. Cuming Walters +to represent Jasper climbing the staircase to reconnoitre, at night, with +a lantern, and, of course, with black whiskers. The two well-dressed men +on the stairs (Grewgious, or Tartar, and Crisparkle) also, according to +Mr. Cuming Walters, “relate to Jasper’s unaccountable expedition with +Durdles to the Cathedral.” Neither of them is Jasper; neither of them is +Durdles, “in a suit of coarse flannel”—a disreputable jacket, as Sir L. +Fildes depicts him—“with horn buttons,” and a battered old tall hat. +These interpretations are quite demonstrably erroneous and even +impossible. Mr. Archer interprets the designs exactly as I do. + +As to the young man in the light of Jasper’s lamp, Mr. Cuming Walters +says, “the large hat and the tightly-buttoned surtout must be observed; +they are the articles of clothing on which most stress is laid in the +description of Datchery. But the face is young.” The face of Datchery +was elderly, and he had a huge shock of white hair, a wig. Datchery wore +“a tightish blue surtout, with a buff waistcoat and grey trousers; he had +something of a military air.” The young man in the vault has anything +but a military air; he shows no waistcoat, and he does not wear “a +tightish blue surtout,” or any surtout at all. + + [Picture: Under the trees] + +The surtout of the period is shown, worn by Jasper, in Sir L. Fildes’s +sixth and ninth illustrations. It is a frock-coat; the collar descends +far below the top of the waistcoat (buff or otherwise), displaying that +garment; the coat is tightly buttoned beneath, revealing the figure; the +tails of the coat do not reach the knees of the wearer. The young man in +the vault, on the other hand, wears a loose paletot, buttoned to the +throat (vaults are chilly places), and the coat falls so as to cover the +knees; at least, partially. The young man is not, like Helena, “very +dark, and fierce of look, . . . of almost the gipsy type.” He is blonde, +sedate, and of the classic type, as Drood was. He is no more like Helena +than Crisparkle is like Durdles. Mr. Cuming Walters says that Mr. +Proctor was “unable to allude to the prophetic picture by Collins.” As a +fact, this picture is fully described by Mr. Proctor, but Mr. Walters +used the wrong edition of his book, unwittingly. + +Mr. Proctor writes:—“Creeping down the crypt steps, oppressed by growing +horror and by terror of coming judgment, sickening under fears engendered +by the darkness of night and the charnel-house air he breathed, Jasper +opens the door of the tomb and holds up his lantern, shuddering at the +thought of what it may reveal to him. + +“And what sees he? Is it the spirit of his victim that stands there, ‘in +his habit as he lived,’ his hand clasped on his breast, where the ring +had been when he was murdered? What else can Jasper deem it? There, +clearly visible in the gloom at the back of the tomb, stands Edwin Drood, +with stern look fixed on him—pale, silent, relentless!” + + [Picture: Durdles Cautions Mr. Sapsea against Boasting] + +Again, “On the title-page are given two of the small pictures from the +Love side of the cover, two from the Murder side, and the central picture +below, which presents the central horror of the story—the end and aim of +the ‘Datchery assumption’ and of Mr. Grewgious’s plans—showing Jasper +driven to seek for the proofs of his crime amid the dust to which, as he +thought, the flesh and bones, and the very clothes of his victim, had +been reduced.” + +There are only two possible choices; either Collins, under Dickens’s oral +instructions, depicted Jasper finding Drood alive in the vault, an +incident which was to occur in the story; or Dickens bade Collins do this +for the purpose of misleading his readers in an illegitimate manner; +while the young man in the vault was really to be some person “made up” +to look like Drood, and so to frighten Jasper with a pseudo-ghost of that +hero. The latter device, the misleading picture, would be childish, and +the pseudo-ghost, exactly like Drood, could not be acted by the +gipsy-like, fierce Helena, or by any other person in the romance. + + + +MR. WALTERS’S THEORY CONTINUED + + +Mr. Cuming Walters guesses that Jasper was to aim a deadly blow (with his +left hand, to judge from the picture) at Helena, and that Neville “was to +give his life for hers.” But, manifestly, Neville was to lead the hunt +of Jasper up the spiral stair, as in Collins’s design, and was to be +dashed from the roof: his body beneath was to be “_that_, I never saw +before. _That_ must be real. Look what a poor mean miserable thing it +is!” as Jasper says in his vision. + +Mr. Cuming Walters, pursuing his idea of Helena as both Datchery and also +as the owner of “the _young_ face” of the youth in the vault (and also of +the young hands, a young girl’s hands could never pass for those of “an +elderly buffer”), exclaims: “Imagine the intense power of the dramatic +climax, when Datchery, the elderly man, is re-transformed into Helena +Landless, the young and handsome woman; and when she reveals the +seemingly impenetrable secret which had been closed up in one guilty +man’s mind.” + +The situations are startling, I admit, but how would Canon Crisparkle +like them? He is, we know, to marry Helena, “the young person, my dear,” +Miss Twinkleton would say, “who for months lived alone, at inns, wearing +a blue surtout, a buff waistcoat, and grey—” Here horror chokes the +utterance of Miss Twinkleton. “Then she was in the vault in _another_ +disguise, not more womanly, at that awful scene when poor Mr. Jasper was +driven mad, so that he confessed all sorts of nonsense, for, my dear, all +the Close believes that it _was_ nonsense, and that Mr. Jasper was +reduced to insanity by persecution. And Mr. Crisparkle, with that +elegant dainty mother of his—it has broken her heart—is marrying this +half-caste gipsy _trollop_, with her blue surtout and grey—oh, it is a +disgrace to Cloisterham!” + +The climax, in fact, as devised by Mr. Cuming Walters, is rather too +dramatic for the comfort of a minor canon. A humorist like Dickens ought +to have seen the absurdity of the situation. Mr. Walters _may_ be right, +Helena may be Datchery, but she ought not to be. + + + +WHO WAS THE PRINCESS PUFFER? + + +Who was the opium hag, the Princess Puffer? Mr. Cuming Walters writes: +“We make a guess, for Dickens gives us no solid facts. But when we +remember that not a word is said throughout the volume of Jasper’s +antecedents, who he was, and where he came from; when we remember that +but for his nephew he was a lonely man; when we see that he was both +criminal and artist; when we observe his own wheedling propensity, his +false and fulsome protestations of affection, his slyness, his subtlety, +his heartlessness, his tenacity; and when, above all, we know that the +opium vice is _hereditary_, and that a _young_ man would not be addicted +to it unless born with the craving; {91} then, it is not too wild a +conjecture that Jasper was the wayward progeny of this same opium-eating +woman, all of whose characteristics he possessed, and, perchance, of a +man of criminal instincts, but of a superior position. Jasper is a +morbid and diseased being while still in the twenties, a mixture of +genius and vice. He hates and he loves fiercely, as if there were wild +gipsy blood in his veins. Though seemingly a model of decorum and +devoted to his art, he complains of his “daily drudging round” and “the +cramped monotony of his existence.” He commits his crime with the +ruthlessness of a beast, his own nature being wholly untamed. If we +deduce that his father was an adventurer and a vagabond, we shall not be +far wrong. If we deduce that his mother was the opium-eater, prematurely +aged, who had transmitted her vicious propensity to her child, we shall +almost certainly be right.” + + + +WHO WAS JASPER? + + +Who was Jasper? He was the brother-in-law of the late Mr. Drood, a +respected engineer, and University man. We do not know whence came Mrs. +Drood, Jasper’s sister, but is it likely that her mother “drank +heaven’s-hard”—so the hag says of herself—then took to keeping an opium +den, and there entertained her son Jasper, already an accomplished +vocalist, but in a lower station than that to which his musical genius +later raised him, as lay Precentor? If the Princess Puffer be, as on Mr. +Cuming Walters’s theory she is, Edwin’s long-lost grandmother, her +discovery would be unwelcome to Edwin. Probably she did not live much +longer; “my lungs are like cabbage nets,” she says. Mr. Cuming Walters +goes on— + +“Her purpose is left obscure. How easily, however, we see possibilities +in a direction such as this. The father, perhaps a proud, handsome man, +deserts the woman, and removes the child. The woman hates both for +scorning her, but the father dies, or disappears, and is beyond her +vengeance. Then the child, victim to the ills in his blood, creeps back +to the opium den, not knowing his mother, but immediately recognized by +her. She will make the child suffer for the sins of the father, who had +destroyed her happiness. Such a theme was one which appealed to Dickens. +It must not, however, be urged; and the crucial question after all is +concerned with the opium woman as one of the unconscious instruments of +justice, aiding with her trifle of circumstantial evidence the Nemesis +awaiting Jasper. + +“Another hypothesis—following on the Carker theme in ‘Dombey and Son’—is +that Jasper, a dissolute and degenerate man, lascivious, and heartless, +may have wronged a child of the woman’s; but it is not likely that +Dickens would repeat the Mrs. Brown story.” + +Jasper, _père_, father of John Jasper and of Mrs. Drood, however +handsome, ought not to have deserted Mrs. Jasper. Whether John Jasper, +prematurely devoted to opium, became Edwin’s guardian at about the age of +fifteen, or whether, on attaining his majority, he succeeded to some +other guardian, is not very obvious. In short, we cannot guess why the +Princess Puffer hated Jasper, a paying client of long standing. We are +only certain that Jasper was a bad fellow, and that the Princess Puffer +said, “I know him, better than all the Reverend Parsons put together know +him.” On the other hand, Edwin “seems to know” the opium woman, when he +meets her on Christmas Eve, which may be a point in favour of her being +his long-lost grandmother. + +Jasper was certainly tried and condemned; for Dickens intended “to take +Mr. Fildes to a condemned cell in Maidstone, or some other gaol, in order +to make a drawing.” {96} Possibly Jasper managed to take his own life, +in the cell; possibly he was duly hanged. + +Jasper, after all, was a failure as a murderer, even if we suppose him to +have strangled his nephew successfully. “It is obvious to the most +excruciatingly feeble capacity” that, if he meant to get rid of proofs of +the identity of Drood’s body by means of quicklime, it did not suffice to +remove Drood’s pin, watch, and chain. Drood would have coins of the +realm in his pockets, gold, silver, bronze. Quicklime would not destroy +these metallic objects, nor would it destroy keys, which would easily +prove Drood’s identity. If Jasper knew his business, he would, of +course, rifle _all_ of Edwin’s pockets minutely, and would remove the +metallic buttons of his braces, which generally display the maker’s name, +or the tailor’s. On research I find “H. Poole & Co., Savile Row” on my +buttons. In this inquiry of his, Jasper would have discovered the ring +in Edwin’s breast pocket, and would have taken it away. Perhaps Dickens +never thought of that little fact: if he did think of it, no doubt he +found some mode of accounting for Jasper’s unworkmanlike negligence. The +trouser-buttons would have led any inquirer straight to Edwin’s tailor; I +incline to suspect that neither Dickens nor Jasper noticed that +circumstance. The conscientious artist in crime cannot afford to neglect +the humblest and most obvious details. + + + + +CONCLUSION + + +ACCORDING to my theory, which mainly rests on the unmistakable evidence +of the cover drawn by Collins under Dickens’s directions, all “ends +well.” Jasper comes to the grief he deserves: Helena, after her period +of mourning for Neville, marries Crisparkle: Rosa weds her mariner. +Edwin, at twenty-one, is not heart-broken, but, a greatly improved +character, takes, to quote his own words, “a sensible interest in works +of engineering skill, especially when they are to change the whole +condition of an undeveloped country”—Egypt. + +These conclusions are inevitable unless we either suppose Dickens to have +arranged a disappointment for his readers in the _tableau_ of Jasper and +Drood, in the vault, on the cover, or can persuade ourselves that not +Drood, but some other young man, is revealed by the light of Jasper’s +lantern. Now, the young man is very like Drood, and very unlike the dark +fierce Helena Landless: disguised as Drood, this time, not as Datchery. +All the difficulty as to why Drood, if he escaped alive, did not at once +openly denounce Jasper, is removed when we remember, as Mr. Archer and I +have independently pointed out, that Drood, when attacked by Jasper, was +(like Durdles in the “unaccountable expedition”) stupefied by drugs, and +so had no valid evidence against his uncle. Whether science is +acquainted with the drugs necessary for such purposes is another +question. They are always kept in stock by starving and venal +apothecaries in fiction and the drama, and are a recognized convention of +romance. + +So ends our unfolding of the Mystery of Edwin Drood. + + * * * * * + + THE END + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SON, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{11} Landless is not “Lackland,” but a form of de Laundeles, a Lothian +name of the twelfth century, merged later in that of Ormistoun. + +{48} _Life of Dickens_, vol. iii. pp. 425–439. + +{74} J. Cuming Walters, p. 102; Proctor, pp. 131–135. Mr. Cuming +Walters used an edition of 1896, apparently a reprint of a paper by +Proctor, written earlier than his final book of 1887. Hence the error as +to Mr. Proctor’s last theory. + +{77} Mrs. Perugini, the books say, but certainly a daughter. + +{91} What would Weissmann say to all this? + +{96} So Mr. Cuming Walters quotes Mr. Hughes, who quotes Sir L. Fildes. +_He_ believes that Jasper strangled Edwin with the black-silk scarf, and, +no doubt, Jasper was for long of that opinion himself. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUZZLE OF DICKENS'S LAST PLOT*** + + +******* This file should be named 738-0.txt or 738-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/3/738 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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