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diff --git a/738-h/738-h.htm b/738-h/738-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f71c95e --- /dev/null +++ b/738-h/738-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2130 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot, by Andrew Lang</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +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: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUZZLE OF DICKENS'S LAST +PLOT*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman and Hall edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>THE PUZZLE OF<br /> +DICKENS’S LAST PLOT</h1> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +ANDREW LANG</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br /> +CHAPMAN & HALL, <span class="GutSmall">LD.</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">1905</span></p> +<h2><a name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vi</span>INTRODUCTION</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Forster</span> tells us that Dickens, in +his later novels, from <i>Bleak House</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>roman policier</i>, careful study of character. Except +<i>Great Expectations</i>, none of his later tales rivals in +merit his early picaresque stories of the road, such as +<i>Pickwick</i> and <i>Nicholas Nickleby</i>. “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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>Peveril</i>, he said, “smacked of the +apoplexy.” But Dickens’s new story of <i>The +Mystery of Edwin Drood</i>, 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 <i>gamin</i>, in Deputy, who is in not +unpleasant contrast with the pathetic Jo of <i>Bleak +House</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>By a coincidence, in September, 1869, Dickens was working over +the late Lord Lytton’s tale for <i>All The Year Round</i>, +“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! (<i>All the +Year Round</i>, September-October, 1869.)</p> +<p>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, +“<i>that</i>, I never saw <i>that</i> before.” +We may be sure that he was to see “<i>that</i>” 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 <i>Mugby Junction</i>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">ANDREW LANG.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">St. Andrews</span>,</p> +<p> <i>September</i> 4, +1905.</p> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>THE +STORY</h2> +<h3><span class="smcap">Dramatis Personæ</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> the discovery of +Dickens’s secret in <i>Edwin Drood</i> it is necessary to +obtain a clear view of the characters in the tale, and of their +relations to each other.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>before</i> +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.</p> +<p>Jasper is secretly in love with Rosa, the +<i>fiancée</i> 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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Opening of the Tale</span></h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>classic profile</i>; <i>and a gracious +head of long</i>, <i>thick</i>, <i>fair hair</i>, long, though we +learn it has just been cut. He wears a soft slouched hat, +and the pea-coat of the period.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Sapsea and Durdles</span></h3> +<p>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 +<i>gamin</i>, “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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">The Landlesses</span></h3> +<p>Two new characters are now introduced, Neville and Helena +Landless, <a name="citation11"></a><a href="#footnote11" +class="citation">[11]</a> 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 “<i>dressed as a boy</i>, +<i>and showing the daring of a man</i>.” 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.”</p> +<p>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. +“<i>Let whomsoever it most concerned look well to +it</i>.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>fracas</i> in the town.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Mr. Grewgious</span></h3> +<p>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 +“<i>close</i> calculation” may refer, as in Mr. +Proctor’s theory, to the period of the moon: <i>on +Christmas Eve there will be no moonshine at midnight</i>. +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">The Unaccountable Expedition</span></h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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, <i>The +Signalman</i>, 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 <i>not</i> on the Christmas +Eve just imminent, when Edwin is to vanish, but, on the Christmas +Eve following, when Jasper is to be unmasked.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>All this is apparently meant to suggest that Jasper, on +Christmas Eve, will repeat his expedition, <i>with Edwin</i>, +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Purpose of the Expedition</span></h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>fiancée</i>, and weeps his loss in private: so we are +told.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Christmas Eve</span></h3> +<p>Christmas Eve comes, the day of the dinner of three, Jasper, +Landless, and Edwin. The chapter describing this fateful +day (xiv.) is headed, <i>When shall these Three meet again</i>? +and Mr. Proctor argues that Dickens intends that <i>they +shall</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Edwin determines to tell this adventure to Jasper, <i>but not +on this night</i>: to-morrow will do. Now, <i>did</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">After the Disappearance</span></h3> +<p>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 +“<i>gifted with invincible force to hold and +drag</i>,” so Dickens warns us.</p> +<p>The ring is obviously to be a <i>pièce de +conviction</i>. 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 +<i>just left Miss Landless</i>.” 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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>I have just come from Miss +Landless</i>.” 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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Dick Datchery</span></h3> +<p>About the time when Helena leaves Cloisterham for town, a new +character appears in Cloisterham, “a white-headed personage +with black eyebrows, <i>buttoned up in a tightish blue +surtout</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>corpus delicti</i>, no carcase of the missing Edwin Drood.</p> +<p>For the reasons given, Datchery might be Helena in +disguise.</p> +<p>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 <i>must</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>gamin</i>, by the name +“Winks,” which is given to him by the people at the +Tramps’ lodgings: the name is a secret of +Deputy’s.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Jasper, Rosa, and Tartar</span></h3> +<p>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 <i>corpus delicti</i> 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”!</p> +<blockquote><p>“On Thee his hopes to fix<br /> + Damn him again!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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 <i>private</i> +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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Jasper’s Opium Visions</span></h3> +<p>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 <i>that</i> +before. Look what a poor miserable mean thing it is. +<i>That</i> must be real. It’s over.”</p> +<p>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 <i>prospective</i>, +“premonitory”? Does he see himself pitching +Neville Landless off the tower top, or see him fallen from the +Cathedral roof? Is Neville’s body +“<i>that</i>”—“I never saw <i>that</i> +before. Look what a poor miserable mean thing it is! +<i>That</i> must be real.” Jasper “never saw +<i>that</i>”—the dead body below the +height—before. <i>This</i> 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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Datchery and the Opium Woman</span></h3> +<p>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, <i>what he did not know +before</i>, <i>that there is some connection between Jasper and +the hag</i>. 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 <i>not</i> +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Datchery’s Score</span></h3> +<p>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 <i>write</i> +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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>If Drood is Datchery, then Dickens used a form of a very old +and favourite <i>ficelle</i> 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.</p> +<p>Here the story ends.</p> +<h2>THEORIES OF THE MYSTERY</h2> +<h3><span class="smcap">Forster’s Evidence</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have some external evidence as +to Dickens’s solution of his own problem, from Forster. <a +name="citation48"></a><a href="#footnote48" +class="citation">[48]</a> 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 <i>him</i>, for +he tells us that “<i>immediately after</i> 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.</p> +<p>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>I think</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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,” <i>Pickwick</i>; “Clock Case +Confession,” in <i>Master Humphrey’s +Clock</i>.) 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 <i>may</i> 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.</p> +<h3>“<span class="smcap">A New Idea</span>”</h3> +<p>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 <i>Martin +Chuzzlewit</i>, 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 <i>was</i> “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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Mr. Proctor’s Theory</span></h3> +<p>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.”</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">A Mistaken Theory</span></h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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?</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Another Way</span></h3> +<p>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 <i>he had been at the opium den through the night of +December</i> 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!</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <i>he</i> walks out and goes home, +where his red lamp has burned all the time—“thinking +it all wery capital.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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 <i>something</i>. +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>à propos de +bottes</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Dickens’s Unused Draft of a +Chapter</span></h3> +<p>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, <i>a young man</i>, 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 <i>young</i> man, who +mocks Sapsea just as Datchery does in the novel. But to +make the spy a <i>young</i> 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 <i>may</i> 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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">A Question of Taste</span></h3> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Mr. Proctor’s Theory +Continued</span></h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, +<i>that</i> 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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Mr. Cuming Walters’s +Theory</span></h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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. <a name="citation74"></a><a +href="#footnote74" class="citation">[74]</a> 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.</p> +<p>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, <i>at +once</i>. Deputy had a great dislike of the Law and its +officers, but here was a chance for him to distinguish himself, +and conciliate them.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p76b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The cover of The Mystery of Edwin Drood" +title= +"The cover of The Mystery of Edwin Drood" +src="images/p76s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Evidence of Collins’s +Drawings</span></h3> +<p>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. <a name="citation77"></a><a +href="#footnote77" class="citation">[77]</a> 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.</p> +<p>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. <i>Like Datchery</i>, <i>he +does not wear</i>, <i>but carries his hat</i>; this means +nothing, if they are in the nave. He seems bored. On +his arm is Rosa; <i>she</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Mr. Proctor correctly understood the unmistakable meaning of +this last design, Jasper entering the vault—</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>To-day the dead are living</i>,<br /> + <i>The lost is found to-day</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p84b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Under the trees" +title= +"Under the trees" +src="images/p84s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p86b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Durdles Cautions Mr. Sapsea against Boasting" +title= +"Durdles Cautions Mr. Sapsea against Boasting" +src="images/p86s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Mr. Walters’s Theory +Continued</span></h3> +<p>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 +“<i>that</i>, I never saw before. <i>That</i> must be +real. Look what a poor mean miserable thing it is!” +as Jasper says in his vision.</p> +<p>Mr. Cuming Walters, pursuing his idea of Helena as both +Datchery and also as the owner of “the <i>young</i> +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.”</p> +<p>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 <i>another</i> 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 <i>was</i> 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 <i>trollop</i>, +with her blue surtout and grey—oh, it is a disgrace to +Cloisterham!”</p> +<p>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 <i>may</i> be right, Helena may be +Datchery, but she ought not to be.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Who was the Princess Puffer</span>?</h3> +<p>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 <i>hereditary</i>, and that a +<i>young</i> man would not be addicted to it unless born with the +craving; <a name="citation91"></a><a href="#footnote91" +class="citation">[91]</a> 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.”</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Who was Jasper</span>?</h3> +<p>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—</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Jasper, <i>père</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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.” <a +name="citation96"></a><a href="#footnote96" +class="citation">[96]</a> Possibly Jasper managed to take +his own life, in the cell; possibly he was duly hanged.</p> +<p>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 <i>all</i> 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.</p> +<h2>CONCLUSION</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">According</span> 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.</p> +<p>These conclusions are inevitable unless we either suppose +Dickens to have arranged a disappointment for his readers in the +<i>tableau</i> 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.</p> +<p>So ends our unfolding of the Mystery of Edwin Drood.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">THE END</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">PRINTED BY +WILLIAM CLOWES AND SON, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.</span></p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11" +class="footnote">[11]</a> Landless is not +“Lackland,” but a form of de Laundeles, a Lothian +name of the twelfth century, merged later in that of +Ormistoun.</p> +<p><a name="footnote48"></a><a href="#citation48" +class="footnote">[48]</a> <i>Life of Dickens</i>, vol. iii. +pp. 425–439.</p> +<p><a name="footnote74"></a><a href="#citation74" +class="footnote">[74]</a> 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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote77"></a><a href="#citation77" +class="footnote">[77]</a> Mrs. Perugini, the books say, but +certainly a daughter.</p> +<p><a name="footnote91"></a><a href="#citation91" +class="footnote">[91]</a> What would Weissmann say to all +this?</p> +<p><a name="footnote96"></a><a href="#citation96" +class="footnote">[96]</a> So Mr. Cuming Walters quotes Mr. +Hughes, who quotes Sir L. Fildes. <i>He</i> believes that +Jasper strangled Edwin with the black-silk scarf, and, no doubt, +Jasper was for long of that opinion himself.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUZZLE OF DICKENS'S LAST PLOT***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 738-h.htm or 738-h.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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