'v;^';'i;;'•'f'S!;;^i!■'•••':';::;:fe^^ ;;i';':-;'r i: iililiiiilliSli is^iiiliii^iiiiliii^ii^ PRINTERS : WHITEHEAD AND MILLER, LTD. LEEDS. THE MURDER OF EDWIN DROOD •^ [FroiUispiece THE MURDER OF EDWIN DROOD- RECOUNTED BY JOHN JASPER BEING An Attempted Solution of the Mystery based on Dickens' Manuscript and Memoranda. BY PERCY T. GARDEN AN INTRODUCTION. BY B. W. MATZ. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS N EW York 1920 PRINTERS : WHITEHEAD AND MILLER, LTD., LEEDS. INDEX PAGE List of Illustrations . . . . . . viii Introduction by B. W. Matz ix Author's Preface xiii The Manuscript Begins i Episode I. Dead and Buried .. .. .. .. 7 II. A Key and its Keeper 19 III. Accounts for the Unaccountable . . . . 27 IV. The Engaged Couple . . . . . . . • 43 V. The Green-Eyed Monster 49 VI. Mr. Jasper Proposes . . . . . . . . 63 VII. On Secret Service . . . . . . . . 69 VIII. Landless Proposes 79 IX. The Third Dawn 89 X. Helena's Part . . . . . , . . . . 103 XI. Flight and Pursuit . . . . . . . . 109 The Manuscript Ends 115 Postscript .. .. ,. .. ., .. .. ..116 Appendices .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ng 465i..:;'^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. TO FACE PAGE Frontispiece V John Jasper's Gateway . . 9 Ordnance Survey Map . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Cathedral and Precincts (From 800 Feet) . . 15 DuRDLES Cautions Sapsea Against Boasting . . . . 29 The Cathedral and Precincts (From 500 Feet) . , 37 " The Mystery of Edwin Drood." (Original Cover 81 Drawing) INTRODUCTION BY B. W. MATZ. NEVER having attempted to solve the wonderful mystery woven into Dickens' unfinished story, and thereby being innocent of marked prejudices regarding the numerous knotty problems it presents to those who delve deeply into its intricacies, I have no misgivings in complying with the invitation to write a few prefatory words to this, the latest endeavour to unravel the tangled threads of the story's fabric. I am, however, an enthusiastic student of the problem, content with the fascination derived from following the many by-ways traversed by all those who seek to lead others to a solution. That there have been many such guides a long row of books and pamphlets bear witness. Alluring in themselves, each book in its own different way contributes something to the in- tellectual exercise which the minute study of the subject offers. I suppose every reader of Edwin Drood laments bitterly that it comes to so abrupt an end, and few lay it aside without some thought as to how it was to terminate had Dickens Hved to finish it. Many devote to the mystery something more than the concession of a passing thought, and some attempt with scholarly instinct to unravel its mysteries for themselves, and evolve theories concerning its probable ending until they are caught Introduction by the fever of its subtle spell. And so the readers of the book are divided into two classes : those who are badly attacked by the fever and those who prove to be immune. The former have come to be dubbed " Droodists," and it is for these that scientific efforts to solve the problem, of which Mr. Garden's is one, have their chief interest and attraction. Although the one and true solution may never definitely be discovered, there is no doubt that every fresh study of the book reveals something helpful towards that end, and for that reason has its particular value. In this way, one point, hitherto debatable, has been established with sufi&cient surety to put it beyond doubt : John Jasper actually murdered his nephew. Mr. Garden starts off from that hypothesis, and I am naturally in complete agreement with him on that point. The other main question which confronts and baffles all students is that of the Datchery assumption. That Datchery is one of the characters of the book in disguise is generally agreed, and each of those who could possibly have filled that role has in turn been suggested, and the individual cases presented and argued by previous writers. The weeding out process leaves as most likely Helena Landless, Bazzard and Tartar. The strongest claim has been for Helena Landless, whilst Bazzard has been a favourite second. Mr. Garden chooses Tartar, and his case for the sailor is much the best that has yet been presented. In arriving at this conclusion he is able also to find an important part for Helena to perform quite in keeping with the pecuhar and distinctive traits in her character, traits which Introduction xi Dickens so often insists in revealing, and chiefly for which she has been singled out as the fitting person to enact the part. Bazzard too, is found work by Mr. Garden suitable to his disposition and far more in keeping with his nature than that of playing at being a detective. But Mr. Garden's book appeals to me as one of the most important contributions to the subject by virtue of the fact that he has read and studied carefully every word of the manuscript and of the notes which Dickens prepared for his own guidance, and has collated them with the printed book. The result is his discovery of certain erasures and alterations in the manuscript which help him to come to certain conclusions, not possible without this close study and comparison. These include certain passages which Dickens wrote and which were not pubHshed, one of which refers to Dur- dles's yard, and the possibility of Jasper avaiUng himself of it in conjunction with his use of quick-lime in the execution of his deed. He also has been able to locate at Rochester the site of Durdles's yard, which makes his theory regarding the manner of the murder and the attempted concealment of it locally quite possible. His reading too of the cover design is most in- genious and quite consistent with his theory. The figure kneeling to Rosa on the left hand side he claims to be Neville Landless, for he discovers internal evidence that Neville had a moustache — a real piece of the Sherlock Holmes method. But perhaps the most important and interesting discovery he has made is the exact date of the story which almost eerily fits the context in every detail, xii Introduction including even the topography of Rochester and the neighbourhood at the time the story was being enacted. This enables him to work out the complete chronology of events to the surmounting of the hitherto arguable point concerning the phrase " at about this time," at the beginning of chapter xviii. Altogether, Mr. Garden has made a notable con- tribution to the solution of the ever green and ever baffling puzzle, and although, of course, it is not supposed that everyone will be in agreement with his theories, few will dispute the care and reason he employs in stating his case or his competency to deal with the whole problem. Mr. Garden is a newcomer in the game as he calls it — a game the greatest danger to which he thinks is lest it should one da}^ end in a complete solution. In the meantime, he enters the centre court, and with his effective strokes, fresh methods and new ideas, is sure to stimulate the other players and attract the onlookers, for throughout he exhibits a sane, good-natured and dignified attitude. For these reasons his performance is worthy of careful study and consideration in con- junction and in comparison with those of the " Older Hands," who have done so much to make the game such a fine and skilful pastime. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. " np'HE Murder of Edwin Drood " has been chosen J[ as the title of this book because, in the author's opinion, doubt is no longer possible that Edwin Drood was murdered. If the intrinsic evidence afforded by the book, strong as it is, is not thought to be con- clusive, yet there remain the added testimionies of Charles Dickens' son, of his biographer and of his illustrator, and these render almost inevitable a verdict of " wilful murder " against John Jasper. The originality of the story, had Dickens lived to complete it, was to have consisted 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." So Forster tells us in his " Life of Charles Dickens." The last chapters of the book were to have been written in the con- demned cell, and it is for this reason that the present story takes the form of a manuscript confession by Jasper of his crime. But since Jasper's wickedness was to have been " all elaborately elicited from him as if told of another," the narrative has been framed im- personally in a series of episodes made to read hke a novel rather than the confession or autobiography of a murderer. The introductory and the concluding por- tions, however, are supposed to have been penned in the first person by Jasper in his condemned cell. These portions are in fact taken (with such slight adaptations xiv Author's Preface as the purpose for which they are borrowed renders necessary) from the short story which Dickens named " A confession found in a prison in the time of Charles the Second." This Httle read story appears in " Master Humphrey's Clock." It is not perhaps a perfect tale, but certainly it is a " strong " one. It tells the story of the murder by an uncle of his brother's child aged four or five. The body was unearthed by bloodhounds from its grave beneath the chair the cowering murderer was then seated upon . After condemnation the murderer reviews his own career and (speaking posthumously from his prison cell) sets down on paper a critical analysis of his morbid mind and motives. The author has ventured to draw upon this story to supply the atmo- sphere of a Confession such as Dickens had intended to ehcit from Jasper. An apology is no doubt expected from the author for this addition to the already astounding Ubrary of books on Edwin Drood. He will also, perhaps, be ex- pected to explain what kind of book it is that he has attempted to achieve. Is it a sequel or a solution ? Continuations and sequels, Mr. Cuming Walters has said, must be sharply distinguished from theories and solutions. The writers of sequels, he has truly added, have " cut the Gordian knot rather than untied it." The solutionists, on the other hand, have honestly attempted extrication. If the author must be classified with one of these, he naturally prefers penning as a sheep with the solutionists to casting forth from the fold with the continuation goats. His claim to be a sheep is that he has honestly attempted extrication of some among Author's Preface xv the many mysteries of Edwin Drood. He makes no claim to have completed the masterpiece which Charles Dickens of immortal memory has left unfinished. Only the unknown sculptor of the famous Venus could com- plete that statue as a work of art. But a very sorry artist might have the luck to solve the mysteries of its complete construction and by means of a conjecturally completed statue would best convey the original artist's notion. Good wine needs no bush, and no apology is needed for publishing unpublished words of Dickens. The manuscript of Edwin Drood is in the Forster collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, and is open to public inspection. Just before the war it occurred to the present author to study this manu- script minutely. He was rewarded by the discovery of passages unmistakably written by Dickens which have never appeared in print. He has transcribed these passages. They will be found incorporated and duly noted in this book. He also scrutinized very carefully for clues, the " Plans " for Edwin Drood that Dickens jotted for his personal use and studied microscopically such of the alterations, deletions and interUneations in the manuscript and proofs as are decipherable. These new discoveries proved of value and one excision in particular threw out a hint by which the author has been enabled as he beheves, to solve a mystery that has baffled other solvers. It concerns the quick-Hme. {See App. IV). Cloisterham, as the student of the Mystery is of course aware, is Rochester. There was no spire in those xvi Author's Preface days, but otherwise the Cathedral and its precincts have changed but Uttle since the night when Jasper looked down from the Cathedral Tower " on Cloisterham fair to see in the moonlight ; its ruined habitations and sanctuaries of the dead at the Tower's base ; its moss-softened red tiled roofs and red-brick houses of the living clustering beyond ; its river winding down from the mist on the horizon, as though that were its source, and already heaving with a restless knowledge of its approach towards the sea." Like Jasper we are privileged to view this scene ; but by daylight and from a point of vantage higher even than the tower top. Sailing high above the City in a sea-plane the camera's uncanny eye unrolls the picture like a map beneath us. Then falling to 800 feet we view the scene as Jasper saw it, but without the tower's obstruction which blocked the view behind him. There, spread out before us, is the whole scene of the murder and the journey Jasper was engaged upon. Next, coming very low we get a splendid view of the graves in one of which was Edwin's " final destination " ; and can follow too the route which Jasper took to carry quick-Hme to it ; after which we skim the leaded roofs which Jasper scrambled over and fly back to the sea-plane station on the river. To Major Sippe, D.S.O., of Short Bros., Ltd., the author tenders his most grateful thanks for these air photographs of Rochester. Without them it would have been impossible to convey that local knowledge which is essential to a true understanding of the Mystery. They were taken expressly for this book by a " Short " Author's Preface xvii sea-plane on the 23rd of March, in response to a simple telephone enquiry by the author's friend Mr. C. G. Grey, the Editor of The Aeroplane, and quite gratui- tuously. The author thanks and congratulates the pilot, Mr. Vance E. Galloway, and the photographic staff of Short Bros., Ltd., most heartily. " There seem to be tens of thousands of persons in this country " (writes a hostile critic of " this eternal controversy ") " who worry over the Drood problem as chess enthusiasts do over mates in five moves." The accusation is a true one and need not have been limited to this country. But why should we not ? Is it not " an amiable hobby that shies at nothing and kicks nobody ? " Might not we ten thousand have been worse employed ? " Yes, but it leads nowhere," the critic answers " the Mystery is insoluble and the solu- tionists merely contradict each other." That accusa- tion is not true. Step by step the many mysteries are being solved. The greatest danger is lest the game one day should have an end in a complete solution. But that day is not yet. To his mentors in this game the author tenders thanks for the pleasure he has had from it. He would name especially Professor Henry Jackson {About Edwin Drood), Mr. Montagu Saunders (The Mystery in the Drood Family), and Mr. Cuming Walters {The Complete Edwin Drood). Of Mr. G. F. Gadd {The Case for Tartar) the author's temptation is to sa}^ " pereant qui ante nos nostra," etc. Besides these and others, the author has received welcome assistance from his brother Major E. D. Garden, who enlarged and adapted for him the Ordnance Map of xvi Author's Preface days, but otherwise the Cathedral and its precincts have changed but Uttle since the night when Jasper looked down from the Cathedral Tower " on Cloisterham fair to see in the moonlight ; its ruined habitations and sanctuaries of the dead at the Tower's base ; its moss-softened red tiled roofs and red-brick houses of the living clustering beyond ; its river winding down from the mist on the horizon, as though that were its source, and already heaving with a restless knowledge of its approach towards the sea." Like Jasper we are privileged to view this scene ; but by daylight and from a point of vantage higher even than the tower top. Sailing high above the City in a sea-plane the camera's uncanny eye unrolls the picture like a map beneath us. Then falling to 800 feet we view the scene as Jasper saw it, but without the tower's obstruction which blocked the view behind him. There, spread out before us, is the whole scene of the murder and the journey Jasper was engaged upon. Next, coming very low we get a splendid view of the graves in one of which was Edwin's " final destination " ; and can follow too the route which Jasper took to carry quick-lime to it ; after which we skim the leaded roofs which Jasper scrambled over and fly back to the sea-plane station on the river. To Major Sippe, D.S.O., of Short Bros., Ltd., the author tenders his most grateful thanks for these air photographs of Rochester. Without them it would have been impossible to convey that local knowledge which is essential to a true understanding of the Mystery. They were taken expressly for this book by a " Short " Author's Preface xvii sea-plane on the 23rd of March, in response to a simple telephone enquiry by the author's friend Mr. C. G. Grey, the Editor of The Aeroplane, and quite gratui- tuously. The author thanks and congratulates the pilot, Mr. Vance E. Galloway, and the photographic staff of Short Bros., Ltd., most heartily. " There seem to be tens of thousands of persons in this country " (writes a hostile critic of " this eternal controversy ") " who worry over the Drood problem as chess enthusiasts do over mates in five moves." The accusation is a true one and need not have been limited to this country. But why should we not ? Is it not " an amiable hobby that shies at nothing and kicks nobody ? " Might not we ten thousand have been worse employed ? " Yes, but it leads nowhere," the critic answers " the Mystery is insoluble and the solu- tionists merely contradict each other." That accusa- tion is not true. Step by step the many mysteries are being solved. The greatest danger is lest the game one day should have an end in a complete solution. But that day is not yet. To his mentors in this game the author tenders thanks for the pleasure he has had from it. He would name especially Professor Henry Jackson (About Edwin Drood), Mr. Montagu Saunders (The Mystery in the Drood Family), and Mr. Cuming Walters (The Complete Edwin Drood). Of Mr. G. F. Gadd (The Case for Tartar) the author's temptation is to say " pereant qui ante nos nostra," etc. Besides these and others, the author has received welcome assistance from his brother Major E. D. Garden, who enlarged and adapted for him the Ordnance Map of xviii Author's Preface Rochester, and in a very special degree from Mr. B. W. Matz, but for whose approval, encouragement and assistance, this book would not have been published. THE MANUSCRIPT BEGINS. THE MURDER OF EDWIN DROOD THE MANUSCRIPT BEGINS. THIS is the last night I have to Uve, and I will set down the naked truth without disguise. I am a double murderer. I was never a cheerful or a happy man. From childhood I have always been of a solemn, sombre, secret nature. I speak of myself as if I had passed from the world, for while I write this, my grave is digging and my name is written in the black book of death. I had a nephew— Ned. I say " I had," because last Christmas Eve I killed and buried him. In the prim prison cemetery outside this cell, I hear my burial pre- paring. Ned never heard my preparation of his place of sepulture. To-morrow as I travel to the scaffold through the cemetery I shall see my open grave. To think how often Ned and I have gone together through that other churchyard and passed his burying place ; two fellow- travellers I on the road of death ! To think how many 1 Two Fellow Travellers. The phrase " a fellow-traveller," em- ployed by Jasper, in the opium den, of Edwin, has evoked discussion. Some read it literally, others in a sense merely metaphorical. Jasper and Edwin had travelled together literally and often past the latter's destined grave unknown to Edwin. Metaphorically, too, the pair were feUow-travellers on the road of death and neither knew it. The ambiguity is probably intentional. 4 :< ; ] THE MURDER OF times he went the journey and never saw the road ! Ned never knew his death was near. He died without a struggle. Perhaps I hide the truth from myself, but I do not think that when this began I meditated to do him any wrong. I may have thought how serviceable his in- heritance would be to me, and may have \\dshed him dead ; but I believe I had no thought of compassing his death. Neither did the idea come upon me at once, but by very slow degrees, presenting itself at first in very dim shapes at a very great distance, as men may think of an earthquake or the last daj^ ; then drawing nearer and nearer, and losing something of its horror and improbabihty ; then coming to be part and parcel — nay nearly the whole sum and substance — of m}^ daily thoughts, and resolving itself into a question of means and safety ; not of doing or abstaining from the deed. While this was going on within me I never could bear that Ned should call me Uncle ; nor have him note the intentness of my look — that look of hungry, exacting, watchful and yet (as he supposed) devoted affection which I knew to be always on my face when addressed in his direction. And yet I was under a fascination which made it a kind of business with me to contemplate his slight and fragile figure and think how easil}^ it might be done. Sometimes I would steal upstairs and watch him as he slept. ^ How easy it would be to smother him ! 2 As he slept. " His nephew lies asleep, calm and untroubled. John Jasper stands looking down upon him, his unlighted pipe in his hand, for a long time with a fixed attention." EDWIN DROOD " Inhuman callous brute," I hear you call me, " cold-bloodedly to set down thus the morbid details of his murderous thoughts and actions." No longer, therefore, will I tell my tale myself ; but will set forth instead the story of another murderer. EPISODE I. DEAD AND BURIED. JOHN JASPER'S GATEWAY. EPISODE I. DEAD AND BURIED. ON the Eve of Christmas, 1842, at midnight precisely, and at the very cHmax of the great storm which went thundering along the empty streets rattUng at all the latches and tearing at all the shutters as if warning the people to get up and fly with it, John Jasper murdered Edwin Drood. Jealousy was the motive of the murder and a large black scarf of strong close-woven silk the instrument. The death was instantaneous 1 ; the body hidden immediately.^ Staged at Cloisterham, the tragedy took place within the sombre precincts of the old Cathedral. Among these secluded nooks there is very little stir or movement after dark. There is Httle enough in the high tide of the day, but there is next to none at night. Besides that the cheerfully frequented High Street is the natural channel in which the Cloisterham traffic flows, a certain awful hush pervades the ancient pile, the cloisters and the churchyard after dark which not many people care 1 The Death was Instantaneous. Jasper tells the Opium Woman as much. " Time and place are both at hand. . . Hush ! The journey's made. Its over." " So soon ? " " That's what I said to you. So soon." 2 The Body Hidden Immediately. The site of the murder and of the burial must have been close together. Common sense requires it. Also Forster says so. " By means of a gold ring which had resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which he had thrown the body, not only the person murdered was to have been identified, but the locality of the crime." 10 THE MURDER OF to encounter. One might fancy that the tide of hfe was stemmed by Mr. Jasper's own Gatehouse. The murmur of the tide is heard beyond. But no wave passes the archway over which his lamp burns red behind his curtain as if the building were a lighthouse. On this Christmas Eve, three are to dine together in the house of Jasper on the margin of the tide of life. The host is to be peacemaker between his nephew and the shy fierce stranger Neville Landless, with whom Edwin has quarrelled bitterly. A social dinner and the season of good-will provide the occasion. Neville is the first to arrive at the postern stair beneath the gate- way. Twice he passes it by, reluctant it seems to enter, " I wish I were not going to this dinner; Helena," he has told his sister. But at last with a rapid turn, he passes in. Edwin Drood comes next. He has spent a solitary day, and as he strolls about and about to pass the time until the dinner hour, his wonted carelessness has been replaced by a wistful looking at and dwelling upon all the familiar landmarks of Cloisterham. He will soon be far away and may never see them again, he thinks. Ah, he little knows ^ how near a case he has for thinking so. Poor youth, poor youth ! The Cathedral chime strikes a sudden surprise to his heart as he turns in under the archway of the Gatehouse. And so he goes up the postern stair. John Jasper passes a more agreeable and cheerful ^He Utile knows. This passage is here pubhshed for the first time from Dickens' manuscript (see Author's Introduction). " Poor youth, poor youth ! " was substituted in the printed book. EDWIN DROOD ii day than either of his guests. He is in beautiful voice this day. In the pathetic supphcation to have his heart inchned to keep this law he quite astonishes his fellows by his melodious power. His nervous temp- perament is occasionally prone to take difficult music a little too quickly. To-day his time is perfect. These results are probably attained by a grand composure of the spirits. The mere mechanism of his throat is a little tender for he wears a large black scarf of strong close-woven silk slung loosely round his neck. After service he accompanies Mr. Crisparkle to Minor Canon Corner to call for Neville. Finding that his guest has already left for the Gatehouse, he bids good-night to the Minor Canon on the latter's doorstep, retraces his steps to the Cathedral door, and turns down past it towards his home. He sings in a low voice and with dehcate expression as he walks along. It still seems as if a false note were not in his power to-night, and as if nothing could hurry or retard him. Arriving thus under the arched entrance of his dweUing, he pauses for an instant in the shelter to pull off that great black scarf, and hang it in a loop upon his arm. For that brief time his face is knitted and stern. But it im- mediately clears, as he resumes his singing and his way. And so he goes up the postern stair. " Three are to meet at the Gatehouse to-night." They meet and dine and the dinner is dull but decorous. The quarrel is healed and some half-hour before mid- night the dinner party breaks up. At Jasper's suggestion Neville and Edwin go down to the river to see the action of the wind there. Jasper BASED UPON THE ORDNANCE SURVEY MAP WITH THE SANCTION OF THE CONTROLLER OF H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE. EDWIN DROOD 13 excuses himself on the score of his throat and bids them good-night at the foot of the postern stair. " When shall these three meet again ? In thunder, lightning or in rain ? " No sooner have the pair turned down the High Street towards the river than Jasper regains his room, changes his coat for a pea-jacket, puts on his low-crowned flap-brimmed hat, loops once more upon his arm the black silk scarf, and treading softly down the postern stair, issues forth carrying keys and an unlit lantern. He turns right-handed * towards the churchyard and cathedral, and leaves the High Street and his guests behind him. On reaching the railed-in graveyard on his left he unlocks the gate and steps inside. Then selecting a vault and entering it, he comes out again almost at once, leaving his unlit lamp within. He then pursues the path past the west door of the cathedral. This brings him to Minor Canon Row, at the end of which far- thest from Neville's temporary home there is a piece of old dwarf wall, breast high, the only remaining boundary of what was once a garden, but is now the thoroughfare. * He turns Right-handed. The reader is invited to consult the plan and the air photographs from time to time for explanation and con- firmation of the story. Turning sharp to the left on coming out of the west door of the Cathedral, the only path leads straight to Minor Canon Corner, which is at the west end of an obvious row of houses. This path continued leads to " the Vines " (not in the picture). Re- turning past the West Door, the path bisects the cemetery. The Drood sarcophagus and Sapsea tomb are in the right-hand, darkly shadowed portion of the graveyard. In the nearer photographic view the gate posts of the entrance to this part can just be seen. Next comes a church, and after that the Gatehouse spanning the foot- way " on the margin of the tide of life," with the High Street visible beyond it. 14 •* THE MURDER OF Behind this old dwarf wall Jasper stops and takes his station. Folding his arms upon the top of the wall he rests his chin on them and waits and watches. Meanwhile the storm blows and abates not. No such power of wind has blown for many a winter night. Chimneys topple in the streets and Neville and Edwin hold to posts and corners and to one another to keep themselves upon their feet. At last they reach the Comer, and take sUght shelter from the storm beneath the porch above the Minor Canon's doorstep.^ As they part amicably, standing in the shaft of light cast through the open door from within the house, Jasper sees and watches them. This is the final meeting, and two of the three part there for ever. The door closes on Neville. Edwin retraces his steps towards the Gatehouse and so to bed. Cat-like, Jasper follows him. They pass the great West door of the Cathedral in close succession following the path across the pitch dark precincts. As the Cathedral tower tolls midnight they approach the steps which lead through the unlocked gate in the railings into the burial ground. Unheard in the echoing sounds Jasper closes in with sudden move upon his devoted victim and in an instant the great black scarf is tight round Edwin's windpipe. Without a struggle, an entreaty, without any consciousness of peril, Edmn is dead. " Time and Place are both at hand." Time — mid- night, Christmas Eve at the height of the great storm. 5 The Porch above the Minor Canon's Doorstep. All the houses in the Row have porches. " They had odd little porches over the doors like sounding-boards over old pulpits." [To face page 15. EDWIN DROOD 15 Place — the dark Cathedral Precincts. " Time, Place and Fellow Traveller." At midnight, on the eve of Christmas, at the point of greatest fury of the storm, crossing the deserted graveyard homeward bound goes Edwin Drood. " Hush," softly behind him Jasper approaches. " The journey's made, it's over." Ned is dead. " Wait a little. This is a vision. I shall sleep it off. It has been too short and easy. I must have a better vision than this ; this is the poorest of all. No struggle, no consciousness of peril, no en- treaty." Jasper in a sort of daze, between sleeping and waking stands over his victim half believing that he dreams it all. " And yet I never saw that before ! " Jasper is startled out of this reverie by his glance having fallen upon the corpse still lying at his feet. " Look at it ! Look what a poor mean miserable thing it is ! ^ That must be real. It's over." He knows his dream for reality at last. For the first time, too, he discovers the insignificance and weakness of that formidable and dangerous obstacle (as up to now he has pictured his rival to himself) the removal of which from his path he has made the one object of his life. With the reahzation there comes with a rush the need for instant action to conceal his crime. It is the work of less than a minute for Jasper to hft the body 6 Look what a poor mean miserable thing it is ! Compare with this passage The Dream of Eugene Aram. " Two sudden blows with a ragged stick and one with a heavy stone. One hurried gash with a hasty knife — and then the deed was done ! There was nothing lying at my feet but lifeless flesh and bone. Nothing but Hfeless flesh and bone that could not do me ill." i6 THE MURDER OF in his arms, carry it up the two steps into the burial ground and lay it on the grass for one moment outside the sarcophagus within which hes the poor lad's final destination.^ A few moments more are occupied in opening the door of the tomb, closing it again behind them, and lighting the lantern within. Its dim hght discloses a spade, a small heap of lime and a cavity laid bare by the removal of a few bricks from the wall. What are these things doing here ? Jasper has a last precaution to be taken before that appears. Kneeling by the body he takes from its clothing all articles of jewellery 8 which he knows to be there. They are a watch and chain and shirt pin. This done he hfts the body into the cavity, then covers it completely with quick- hme and walls it up with bricks and mortar. Ned is hidden as safely as though buried in the Pyramids he tells himself ! Nothing now remains but to dust from his clothing all specks of lime, extinguish the lantern, open the door of the sarcophagus, close it and lock it 7 The Sarcophagus. . . ihe Final Destination. During a lover's quarrel Edwin refers to "my destination" whereupon Rosa takes him up " you are not going to be buried in the Pyramids I hope ? " Previous investigators have generally assumed that if Edwin's des- tination was a tomb, that tomb was Mrs. Sapsea's. The present author prefers to place him in the Drood sarcophagus. The Drood family tomb, which lay close to Mrs. Sapsea's, seems somehow more appro- priate than her's — an utter stranger. Jasper, as the elder Drood's executor, no doubt would be the person to have the key of his sarco- phagus. There is, however, no evidence that the cavity was in this particular tomb — it was not in Mrs. Sapsea's. 8 Edwin's Jewellery. " He (Jasper) said with a smile that he had an inventory in his mind of all the jewellery his gentleman relative ever wore ; namely his watch and chain and his shirt pin." The original of the watchmaker to whom Jasper made this remark seems to have been D'Oiley the watchmaker in "The Disappearance of John Acland." EDWIN DROOD 17 behind him, and return, noiseless and alone, to the lonely Gatehouse where the steady light is burning. That was Ned's last Christmas Eve. EPISODE II. A KEY AND ITS KEEPER. 20 THE MURDER OF EPISODE 11. A KEY AND ITS KEEPER. MR. Thomas Sapsea, auctioneer, having invited Mr. John Jasper, Lay Precentor and Choir Master of Rochester Cathedral to supper at Mr, Sap- sea's house in the High Street on a day in the late Autumn before November gth,^ receives him. there in his ground floor sitting-room characteristically attended by his portrait, his eight-day clock and his weather-glass. Durdles, stonemason, also looks in by invitation to take a glass of port with them and to receive instructions from Mr. Sapsea anent an inscription to be placed upon the late Mrs. Sapsea's funeral monument. Mrs. Sapsea's key is about to go into an inner breast pocket of Durdle's flannel coat when Jasper interrupts with a remark which leads to this key, and two others, being handed to him to feel their weight. Improvising conversation with Durdles the while, Jasper not only feels the weight of the keys but also studies the Sapsea key with care, mentally noting the feel of its wards and the tone it gives out when struck. Then with ingenuous and friendly face he hands them back to Durdles who departs leaving Jasper and Sapsea to a hit at backgammon, followed by a supper of cold "^Before November gth. At this meeting with Jasper, Mr. Sapsea is not yet Mayor of Rochester. His importance has received this enhancement by the night of the unaccountable expedition. Lord Mayor's Day (November 9th), has therefore intervened. EDWIN DROOD 21 roast beef and salad. It is to be observed that the Sapsea key is not returned, as are the other two, into an inner pocket but is tied up in the dinner bundle, without which Durdles never appears in public. On Monday, November I4th,2 Jasper is again present at a little party. This is the friendly dinner of eight at Minor Canon Corner, planned by Mr. Crisparkle, and utterly spoilt by Honeythunder, the ninth and uninvited guest. Disasters succeed one another through- out the evening and culminate in the quarrel at the Gate- house. Neville goes home hatless and, Edwin having gone to bed, Jasper follows Neville, with his hat, for the double purpose of assuring himself that the boy has really gone back to his tutor's and has not drowned himself, or done anything equally fatal to Jasper's plans and of blackening the case against him to Mr. Crisparkle without raising suspicion as to his own motives. These benevolent aims accomplished, Jasper returns home through the Close,^ but on his way is brought to a standstill by the spectacle of Stony Durdles, dinner bundle and all, 2 Monday, November 14th. This date is arbitrary except that it was a Monday " so many weeks " before Friday, December i6th, the day of the wonderful closet. 3 Returns home through the Close. See the Note The Late Commotion on page 25. Professor Jackson gives a full account of the transposition of chapter V in " About Edwin Drood," and the author adopts his views verbatim. In addition to the evidence he puts forward it should be men- tioned (i) That the way from Sapsea's to the Gatehouse is not " through the Close," (2) That the manuscript comment on the Sapsea monu- ment introduced by Durdles is " with inscription finished." This is impossible if the same night as that in which it was put in hand is intended and (3) That the manuscript reference to " glittering frag- ments of the late commotion " is meaningless unless the night of Neville's quarrel is the night in question. 22 THE MURDER OF leaning against the railing of the burial ground while Deputy flings stones at him in the moonlight. This chance meeting with Durdles, in this state, is most opportune for Jasper's plans. Offering to accom- pany Durdles to his home, Jasper first ascertains that the all-important key still lies where last he saw it put. .This he does by patting the dinner bundle and hearing the key clink. Next he tries to secure possession of the bundle* for a moment, but Durdles will not part with it, but starts, instead, to introduce to Jasper, in drunken fashion, the gravestones near-by ^ beginning with " Your own brother-in-law," and not forgetting Mrs. Sapsea, that devoted wife whose tomb now dis- plays the famous inscription finished.® To have him on his own ground,' while helping him along, Jasper asks Durdles about his ramblings in the Crypt and round about the Cathedral, and gets Durdles to agree to let him go about with him sometime on these strange ex- peditions of his among the tombs, vaults, towers and ruins. As the mental state of Durdles^ and of all his sodden tribe is one hardly susceptible of astonishment ^ Shall I carry your bundle ? Manuscript adds " Jasper pats it and it clinks," also " ' Not on any account,' repeats Durdles, adjusting it." 5 The Gravestones Near-by. The manuscript has " Introducing a distant Sarchophagus," wTitten and then deleted. 6 With Inscription Finished, manuscript. " Departed Assessed Taxes " was " Departed King's Taxes," and the gravestone of the much respected muf&n-maker was " With extinguished torch." ~ To have him on his own ground. There words are in the manu- script immediately following " Is there anything new down in the Crypt, Durdles ? " asks John Jasper. 8 The Mental State of Durdles. The whole of this passage is from the manuscript. EDWIN DROOD 23 in itself so it is one hardly susceptible of any reasonable interpretation by other minds. But it happens to fall out to-night — just as it might have happened to fall out quite the other way — that Durdles rather likes his position in the dialogue and chuckles over it. When Jasper, pursuing his subject of romantic interest, says that what he dwells upon most is the remarkable accuracy with which Durdles would seem to find out where people are buried, Durdles decides to demonstrate his skill and looks about for some ledge or corner to place his bundle on. Jasper is quick to seize his chance and reheve him of it. Clink, clink. And his hammer is handed him. The Sapsea key is still within the bundle. How does Jasper know this ? He is used to pitching his note by sounding for it.» At Sapsea's house he memorized the note the key gives out, and now " clink, chnk " he has heard the note he seeks. Clearly the key has its regular residence tied up in the bundle where Jasper is content to leave it until he needs it. Deputy is now given warning and paid his wages and the longish journey is resumed. They have but to cross the Vines to come into Crow Lane at the bottom of which stands the crazy wooden house, the Traveller's Twopenny.io As Jasper and Durdles come near this place a woman is seen 11 crouching and smoking in the cold night air on a seat just outside the door which 9 By sounding for it. Manuscript. " You pitch your note by sounding for it, don't you Mr. Jasper ? " 10 The Traveller's Twopenny. It is not without interest that this famous spot was nearly called " The Traveller's Threepenny Lodgings." The manuscript has it so with Threepenny deleted. ^^ See next page. 24 THE MURDER OF stands ajar. Of a sudden Jasper stops and looks at this woman — the Hghter coloured figure of Durdles being between himself and her — very keenly. " Is that Deputy " ? she croaks out in a whimpering and feeble way ; " where have you been you young good-for- nothing wretch ? " " Out for my 'elth " returns the hideous sprite. " I'll claw you," retorts the woman, " when I can lay my fingers on you. I'll be bad for your 'elth (O me, O me, my breath is so short), I wanted my pipe and my little spoon and ye'd been and put 'em on a shelf I couldn't find." " Wot did yer go to bed for then," retorts Deputy quite unabashed. " Who'd ha' thought you was going to get up again ? " " You, you might ha' known I was like to do it." " Yer he," says Deputy in his only form of contradiction. ^i Further wrangling between the two is stopped by some half- dozen other hideous small boys who start into the moon- Ught like vultures attracted by some carrion scent of Deputy in the air, and instantly fall to stoning him and one another. Durdles remarks of the young savages with some point that " They haven't got an object " and leads the way down the lane. At the junction of Crow Lane with the High Street, they turn the corner into safety ^^ and Jasper takes Durdles home — Durdles stumbhng up his stony yard^^ as if he were going to 11 A Woman is seen. . . His only form of contradiction. The whole of this passage is in the manuscript verbatim. Its exclusion from the printed book is explained by a Note in the manuscript headed " Plans." 12 They turn the corner into safety. This is clearly the corner formed by the junction of Crow Lane and the High Street. 1^ See next page. EDWIN DROOD 25 turn headforemost into one of the unfinished tombs. John Jasper returns to his Gatehouse by another way 1* — the High Street — and entering softly with his key, finds his fire still burning and on the hearth some gUttering fragments of the late commotion i^ He ascends an inner staircase of only a few steps leading to two rooms. One his own sleeping chamber, one his nephew's. i^ There is a Ught in each. His nephew lies asleep, calm and untroubled. Jasper stands looking down upon him a long time with a fixed attention. Then he passes to his own room, fights his ' pipe of opium and dehvers himself to the ghosts and phantoms it invokes at mid- night. So ends this long eventful Monday. 13 Up his stony yard. " Up " in the manuscript becomes " among the litter of " in the printed text. The ground in fact runs uphill on that side of the High Street. '^^ Another way. See the plan. Observe how carefully Dickens leads the reader on to the conclusion that Durdle's house is far away from the cemetery; as it is by any orthodox approach. Compare also : " We can't help going round by the Traveller's Twopenny, if we go the short way, which is the back way." The manuscript has '• we must go "and " the right way " both deleted. It is not accidental. 15 The Late Commotion. This is from the manuscript. It proves to the hilt Professor Jackson's theory of the displacement of Chapter V. 16 One his Own. . . One his Nephew's. The verbal deviations from the printed text here are taken from the manuscript. ^ EPISODE III. ACCOUNTS FOR THE UNACCOUNTABLE. EPISODE III. ACCOUNTS FOR THE UNACCOUNTABLE.i MONDAY, December 19th 2 the third day after Mr. Crisparkle's mission of peace to Jasper, brings a letter from Edwin,^ proposing (as Jasper had advised him to propose) a friendly dinner with Neville on Xmas Eve " the better the day the better the deed, and let there be only we three, and let us shake hands all round there and then, and say no more about it." The date fixed for the dinner is less than a week ahead. So Jasper takes the letter round at once to the Minor Canon, who, quite elated, asks " You expect Mr. Neville, then," to which Jasper's reply is " I count upon his coming," On the evening of the same day Mr. Sapsea, now Mayor of Rochester, is walking slowly with his 1 The Unaccountable Expedition. This chapter according to the manuscript " Plans," was to " lay the ground for the manner of the murder to come out at last." Unless the murder really was a murder it is difficult to see how the manner of it could come out at last ! 2 Monday, December igth. Mr. Crisparlde fixes this date by what he says to Neville {see below). The group which met in view of the Gatehouse on this Monday evening has been placed by Sir L. Fildes, in his striking illustration, on the exact spot chosen by Jasper for the murder of his nephew. It was not, however, where Sapsea stands at the entrance to the left-hand portion of the graveyard that Jasper throttled Edwin, but just behind the cautioning figure of Durdles whose back is turned on his own yard. Jasper, who is looking at Durdles, can see beyond him a corner entrance to the larger piece of burial groimd containing the Sapsea tomb and Drood sarcophagus. The Dean's field of vision includes another pathway along which at a later hour to-night Jasper will be carrying quick-lime from Durdles' yard towards Edwin's burial place {see the plan). 3 Edwin's Letter. Immediately he learnt from Neville on the previous Friday of NeviUe's infatuation for Rosa, Mr. Crisparkle had 30 THE MURDER OF hands behind him near the Churchyard. Turning a corner he comes at once into the goodly presence of the Dean conversing with the Verger and Mr. Jasper about Jasper's nocturnal expedition to be made to-night with Durdles. Sapsea appearing thus opportunely, Jasper makes prompt use of the pompous ass by naming him exacted pledges from him {a) not to divulge his secret to Rosa, and (6) that Drood making the first advance the quarrel between them should be ended for ever. To secure that Drood shall make the first advance, Crisparkle decides to seek the aid of Jasper, to whom he says " I want to establish peace between these two young fellows," Jasper is perplexed. No wonder. The quarrel is essential to his scheme, and yet he must appear to wish to bring about a reconcihation. " How ? " he asked. " I want you to get your nephew to \\Tite you a short note in his Hvely fashion saying that he is willing to shake hands." Jasper turned that perplexed face towards the fire. Mr. Crisparkle found it even more perplexing than before, inasmuch as it seemed to denote (which could hardly be) some close internal calculation." Jasper was calculating — was there time ? There was less than a week to Christmas. Edwin would arrive on the 23rd to make the final preparation for the marriage. He stiU might break ofi the engage- ment and five. He must be given until Christmas Eve at least. Yet a reconcihation with Neville could not be long postponed if once they met each other, as they were bound to do in Cloisterham. A public notorious reconciliation would be fatal to Jasper's plans. Why not a private one, with no witnesses, on Christmas Eve, immediately before the time fixed by Jasper for the murder ? That would bring the two together at the vital moment for Jasper's plans. Rightly regarded, in fact, this suggestion of Mr. Crisparkle's will smooth the way for Jasper's plan (manuscript "plans" has noted against the title of the Chapter "Smoothing the Way," that is for Jasper's plan through Mr. Crisparkle who takes new ground on Neville's new confidence.) Yes, but will Neville come ? Is it safe to rely on his coming ? " You are always responsible and trustworthy ]Mr. Crisparkle. Do you really feel sure that you can answer for NeviUe so confidently ? " "I do." The perplexed and perplexing look vanished. " I will do it." As soon as Mr. Crisparkle had left him, Jasper sat down and drafted and sent to Edwin the letter he wished to receive from him. Thus making it appear as if his own suggested time table originated with Edwin. On the third day after this (Sunday intervening), he received from Edwin the letter for which he had asked containing nothing altered or added except expressions of afiection and a postscript. EDWIN DROOD 31 as the real originator of his own odd archaeological whim ; Jasper even succeeds in causing Sapsea to say- that he himself recollects having made the suggestion ! Durdles then comes slouching up and he too joins the group and amuses the others by cautioning Sapsea against the bad habit of boasting ; after which caution Sapsea stalks off. Durdles then going home to clean himself, the group breaks up ; the Dean withdrawing to his dinner. Tope to his tea, and Jasper to his piano where he sits chanting choir music in a low voice until it has been for some time dark and the moon is about to rise. Then he closes his piano softly, softly changes his coat for a pea jacket, with a goodly wicker-cased bottle in its largest pocket and putting on a low-crowned flap- brimmed hat goes softly out. Why does he move so softly to-night ? No out- ward reason is apparent for it. Can there be any sympathetic reason crouching darkly within him ? Jasper next repairs, as arranged, to Durdles' home. Durdles is an old bachelor, and he lives in a little antiquated hole of a house that was never finished ; supposed to be built so far of stones stolen from the City wall. It overlooks the Churchyard.* To this abode there is an approach ankle deep in stone chips. 4 It overlooks the Chtirchyard. These words are omitted in tiie printed book. In the manuscript they form part of the description of Durdles' home given in Chapter IV. They solve a problem of great importance. They explain how it was possible for Jasper to carry the quick-lime from Durdles' yard to the Drood sarcophagus without attracting observation. {See Appendix IV). The exact position of Durdles' yard is therefore of great importance. It is clearly shewn upon the plan. 32 THE MURDER OF Turning in here from the High Street, Jasper finds Durdles ready for their unaccountable expedition. Durdles takes his dinner bundle, a lantern and some matches and they start out together. Jasper, who is ahead at the yard gate, is warned by Durdles to beware of the mound of lime he sees there " quick enough to eat your boots. With a little handy stirring quick enough to eat your bones." But it is not Jasper's bones which are destined to that fate and so they go on to- wards the Cathedral presently passing the red windows of the Traveller's Twopenny and emerging into the clear moonhght of the Monk's Vineyard. This crossed they come to Minor Canon Row of which the greater part lies in shadow until the moon ^ shall rise higher in the sky. The sound of a closing house door strikes their ears, and tw^o men come out. They are Mr. Crisparkle and Neville. Jasper with a strange and sudden smile upon his face lays the palm of his hand upon the breast of Durdles stopping him where he stands. 5 The Moon. Careful attention is devoted by Dickens (and should be by the reader) to the moonlight shadows throughout the evening. The references to them are part of the plot, and not merely padding or picturesqueness. By a happy coincidence the shadows cast by the sun when the air photograph was being taken approximate very closely indeed to those cast by the moon on the night in question. Jasper sat at his piano with no light but that of the fire from early dusk, " for two or three hours, in short, until it has been for some time dark, and the moon is about to rise." The sun set that night at 3-50, and the moon rose two hours and five minutes later. The moon, by the way, was at the full two nights before this. It seems, therefore, that the start of the expedition was about 7 p.m., and that it lasted some six hours or more. EDWIN DROOD 33 At that end of Minor Canon Row, the shadow is profound in the existing state of the hght ; at that end too there is a piece of old dwarf wall ^ breast high, the only remaining boundary of what was once a garden but is now the thoroughfare. Jasper and Durdles would have turned this wall in another instant, but stopping so, short, stand behind it. " These two are only sauntering," Jasper whispers, " they will go out into the moonlight soon. Let us keep quiet here or they will detain us or want to join us, or what not." Durdles nods assent and falls to munching some fragments from his bundle. Jasper folds his arms upon the top of the wall and with his chin resting on them, watches Neville as though his eye were at the trigger ^ of a loaded rifle, and he had covered him and were going to fire. A sense of destructive power is so expressed in his face that even Durdles pauses in his munching and looks at him with an unmunched something in his cheek. Meanwhile Mr. Crisparkle and Neville walk to and fro quietly talking together. What they say ^ cannot 6 A piece of old dwarf wall. Some such piece of wall is shewn on a large scale plan by Mr. St. John Hope, which the writer has seen in the British Museum. This is the wall from behind which Jasper watches the final parting between Neville and Edwin. It is at the east end of Minor Canon Row and is indicated by a small black spot upon the plan. {See Episode I). 7 Eye . . at the trigger. We small fry like to catch the giants tripping ! Compare with this Rosa's " dark bright pouting eye " in Chapter III. 8 What they say. Crisparkle is telling Neville about his interview with Jasper three days before and of the letter from Edwin just received, Neville feels himself morally bound to go to the dinner, bearing in mind his pledge and Mr. Crisparkle's reminder " Remember that I said I answered for you confidently." He agrees to go. 34 THE MURDER OF be heard consecutively, but Mr. Jasper has aheady distinguished his own name more than once. " This is the first day of the week," Mr. Crisparkle can be distinctly heard to observe as they turn back " and the last day of the v/eek is Christmas Eve." " You may be certain of me, Sir." The echoes were favourable at those points and Jasper knows from Neville's own lips that Neville can be counted on ; that, however unwiUingly, he will come to the Gatehouse dinner. The pair slowly disappear, passing out into the moonlight at the other end of Minor Canon Row.^ It is not until they are gone that Mr. Jasper moves, but then he turns to Durdles and bursts into a fit of laughter. Before descending into the crypt by the small north door 10 of which Durdles has the key, Jasper scrutinizes the whole expanse of moonht churchyard in his view, and finds it utterly deserted. One might fancy that the tide of hfe was stemmed by his own Gatehouse. The murmur of the tide is heard beyond ; but no wave passes the archway over which his lamp burns red 11 behind the curtain, as if the building were a Light- house. Even in moonhght the churchyard is deserted. 9 The other end of Minor Canon Row. The pair must have gone through the Prior's gate else they would meet Durdles and Jasper later on their journey. The site of the Prior's gate is shewn upon the plan and in Kitton's drawing of it {see the frontispiece), in which the chimneys of Mr. Crisparkle's house are seen beyond. 10 North Door. The crypt must have been entered from the North side or Jasper's gatehouse would not have been in view. The point is of some importance since Durdles' yard is on the north. 11 Lamp Burns Red. Jasper is in the habit of leaving his lamp burning although he is out. It is also burning at midnight on Christmas Eve. EDWIN DROOD 35 They enter, locking themselves in, descend the rugged steps and are down in the Crypt. The taci- turnity of Durdles is for the time overcome by the contents of Jasper's wicker bottle 12 of which he partakes freely while Jasper only rinses his mouth once and casts forth the rinsing. So Durdles talks as up and down the lanes of light they walk some little while. They are to ascend the Great Tower. On the steps by which they rise to the Cathedral, Durdles pauses and seats himself upon a step. Mr. Jasper seats himself upon another. The odour from the wicker bottle (which has somehow passed into Durdles keeping) soon intimates that the cork has been taken out. Durdles drinks and drinks and finds it good. He tells his story of his last Christmas Eve, and the ghostly cries i3 he heard and provokes a fierce retort from Jasper who adds " Come we shall freeze here ; lead the way.'' Durdles complies not over steadily, and seems unconscious of the close scrutiny of Jasper 1^ while fumbling among his pockets for a key confided to him i^ that will open an iron gate and so enable them to pass to the staircase of the Great Tower. 12 Wicker Bottle. The contents were " bought on purpose " to make Durdles sleep, whether drugged or merely extra strong who can say ? 13 Ghostly Cries. What is the " ghost " of a sound ? Can it be the " shadow " cast by a sound not yet uttered on the ghostly anniversary before its utterance ? The idea recalls the words that Thomas Campbell found himself repeating as he awoke out of sleep " Coming events cast their shadows before." Anyhow Jasper finds the story a httle " creepy " in the chilling crypt. 14 The close scrutiny of Jasper. Jasper watches the influence of the drink on Durdles minutely in order so to time their travels that Durdles shall be overcome when they reach the crypt and when the moon is Vv^holly off the churchyard. ^^ See next page. 36 THE MURDER OF " That and the bottle are enough for you to carr}^" says Jasper, giving the key to Durdles, " hand your bundle to me." Durdles hesitates for a moment be- ween bundle and bottle ; but gives the preference to the bottle, and by this simple stratagem, Jasper secures the bundle and the key tied up in it. Then they go up the winding staircase of the great tower, and at last they look down on Rochester fair to see in the moonlight ; its ruined habitations and sanctuaries of the dead at the tower's base. Jasper (always moving softly with no \isible reason) contemi- plates especially that stillest part which the Cathedral overshadows. 16 But he contemplates Durdles quite as curiously, and Durdles is by times conscious of his watchful eyes. Only by times because Durdles is getting drowsy. On his way down he charges himself with more liquid from the wdcker bottle. Durdles who is as seldom drunk as sober is drugged with drink to-night, and when they reach the crypt he half drops, half throws himself down by one of the heavy pillars and is asleep at once, and in his sleep he dreams a dream. i" He 15 Key confided to him. Perhaps the Dean's permission was necessary for Jasper to have this key whence sprang the earlier con- versation with that functionary. Durdles must have been very fuddled not to notice the absurdity of being handed a key to lighten his load ! It is not that key that Jasper needs, but the one tied up in Durdles' bundle which he secures by this very simple stratagem without Dmrdles being aware he has ever parted with it. 16 Which the Cathedral overshadon's. At this hour this will be the west and north-west — in other words a portion of the churchyard. It should be noted that the Cathedral is not correctly orientated. 17 He dreams a dream. The dream is his subconscious realisa- tion of what is actually occurring, not a dream unrelated to immediate occurrences. [To face page 37. EDWIN DROOD 37 dreams of lying there asleep and yet counting his com- panion's footsteps as he walks to and fro. He dreams that the footsteps die away into distance of time and space. Actually what takes place meanwhile is this ; Jasper at first walks to and fro with heavy tread. Then hushing his footsteps, softly tip toe, Jasper comes close to Durdles. Durdles dreams that something touches him, and that something falls from his hand. Then something clinks and gropes about. Actually Jasper touches him and the Crypt key falls from his hand, and Jasper gropes about and picks it up. He dreams that he is alone for so long a time that the lanes of light take new directions as the moon advances in her course.^* Actually he is alone this long while. Jasper is gone from the Crypt taking lantern and keys and letting him- self out by the same North door by which they entered. Emerging into the Churchyard, it is no longer moonlit. The southing of the moon has cast the heavy shadow of the nave over the whole expanse of burial ground and churchyard. All is dark and deserted. Still moving softly but quickly, Jasper visits first the Sapsea tomb, opens it with Durdles' key and leaves the lantern within. Then closes but does not lock the door. Next he hastens with noiseless footsteps along the path which leads from the graveyard eastwards, passing beneath an archway and keeping within the shadows cast by the Cathedral until he reaches an angle in the 18 The moon advances in her course. The southing of the moon took place that night a httle after one o'clock (1-7 to be precise). The lanes of Hght would be changing their angle all the time. But the most noticeable change came when they fell through the south windows of the crypt in place of through the north. 38 THE MURDER OF wall from the far side of which Durdles' unfinished dwelling overlooks the Churchyard precincts. The wall is low and not difficult to pass. Once across it Jasper finds a spade 19 in Durdles' yard, and making several journeys, carries sufficient quick lime for his purpose and heaps it in the churchyard — where ? In Mrs. Sapsea's tomb.20 When Jasper has collected sufficient lime within it, and is satisfied that he has not been observed, he unlocks the Drood sarcophagus with a key in his possession and transfers the hme to it. Also the lantern which (having closed the door) he fights. By its aid and by sounding with the handle of the spade he finds a hollow portion of the wall, and by removing a few bricks soon discloses a cavity 21 large enough to house a body. Into the cavity he drops some quick- lime and arranges the bricks where he can easily get at them to put them back. The lime not yet required is heaped at the further end of the tomb away from the 19 A spade. On the cover note the crossed spade and key above the bundle. 20 Mrs. Sapsea's tomb. It seems incredible to the writer that this tomb had no important part to play after the trouble Jasper is made to take to secure the key to it. At the same time one recoils trom the idea that Edwin is buried in a stranger's monument. Also the key was returned the same night to Durdles' bundle, and there is no hint given that an impression was taken of it or that it was borrowed on Christmas Eve. We are led, therefore, to the conclusion that the im- portant use made of the tomb was as a half-way-house for the imple- ments required. The advantage was that had they been tound there by some mischance while the preparations were being made, there was nothing to connect them with Jasper. In Dro^d's sarcophagus this was not the case. 21 A Cavity. As already stated this cavity is somewhat hypo- thetical {See Note in Episode I). The cavity mentioned by Durdles was not in Mrs. Sapsea's tomb. " Say Mrs. Sapsea. Her wall's thicker, but say Mrs. Sapsea." EDWIN DROOD 39 door. The spade stands in the corner. All is now prepared. Jasper puts out the hght and leaves the place, locking the door behind him. The Sapsea outer door he had already locked before entering the Drood sarcophagus. Still in the shadow, he takes the lantern back to the Crypt, lets himself in by the same door that let him out, finds Durdles still asleep and puts the crypt key by his hand, ties the Sapsea key up in the bundle and wakens Durdles by walking up and down noisily beating his hands and stamping his feet. Durdles, his dream now over, awakes to a perception of the lanes of Ught really changed much as he had dreamed. He asks the time. " Hark ! the bells are going in the Tower." " Two ! " cries Durdles, scrambhng up. " Why did'nt you try to wake me Mr. Jasper ? " "I did. I might as well have tried to wake the dead." " Did you touch me ? " " Touch you ! Yes, shook you." As Durdles recalls that touching something in his dream, he looks down on the pavement, and sees the key of the crypt door lying close to where he himself lay. " I dropped you, did I ? he says, picking it up and re- caUing that part of his dream. He is again conscious of being watched by his companion.22 " Well," says Jasper smiling " are you quite ready ? Pray don't hurry." "Let me get my bundle right, Mister Jarsper, and I'm with you." 22 Watched by his Companion. It is no longer Durdles' state of intoxication that Jasper watches, but his state of comprehension. How much has he noticed ? Does he suspect anything ? Durdles reverses the position when he asks of what Jasper suspects him ? 40 THE MURDER OF As he ties it afresh he is once more conscious that he is very narrowly observed. " What do you suspect me of Mister Jarsper," he asks ? " I've no suspicions of you my good Mr. Durdles, but I have suspicions that my bottle was filled with something stiffer than either of us supposed. And I also have suspicions that its empty." Durdles condescends to laugh at this. Con- tinuing to chuckle he rolls to the door and unlocks it. They both pass out and Durdles relocks it and pockets the key. " A thousand thanks for a curious and in- teresting night " says Jasper, " you can make your own way home ? " Each is turning his own way when Deputy appears. " What, ! is that baby devil on the watch ^3 there ! " cries Jasper and rushes at him, collars him and tries to bring him across. " Don't hurt the boy, Mister Jarsper," urges Durdles. " Recollect yourself." " He followed us to-night when we first came here." " Yer lie, I didn't," replies Deputy, in his only form of polite contradiction. " He has been prowHng near us ever since ! " " Yer lie, I haven't " returns Deputy. " I'd only just come out for my 'elth when I see you two a coming out of the Kinfreederel." " Take him home, then " retorts Jasper ferociously, though with a strong check upon himself. They depart. Deputy stoning Durdles home. 23 On the Watch. Jasper in his fear and fury lets us see just what he dreads. " He followed us when we first came here. He has been prowling near us ever since. He has seen all I have done to-night." His relief at Deputy's lie " I'd only just come out," is intense. Deputy had really seen something but not much. Probably he had seen Jasper enter the Crypt alone after i a.m. The manuscript note in " Plans," is " Keep the boy suspended." EDWIN DROOD ^l Jasper goes to his Gatehouse brooding. And thus the unaccountable expedition comes to an end for the time being. EPISODE IV. THE ENGAGED COUPLE. 44 THE MURDER OF EPISODE IV. THE ENGAGED COUPLE. ROSA Bud, at the opening of the story, was a young and pretty httle creature very like her mother had been. She was an orphan, both her parents having died before she was seven years old. Her mother was drowned at a party of pleasure on the river and her father died of grief on the first anniversary of that hard day. She had no other relative that she knew of in the world. Rosa's guardian, Mr. Grewgious, was not a relative, but had been her father's friend for many years. Rosa was engaged to marry Edwin Drood as every- one in chattering Cloisterham knew. Their two fathers had been fast friends and old college companions and the betrothal of Rosa by anticipation to Drood's son grew out of Drood's soothing of Bud's year of mental distress. When first they plighted their troth to one another, Rosa's father had given her mother a ring — a rose of diamonds and rubies delicately set in gold. This ring he took from her dead finger in Grewgious' presence and when his own death drew near he placed it in Grewgious' hands upon this trust — that Edwin and Rosa growing to manhood and womanhood and being betrothed and their betrothal prospering and coming to maturity, Grewgious should give the ring to Edwin to place upon Rosa's finger to seal their compact. EDWIN DROOD 45 The marriage was fixed for the month of May in 1843, when Edwin would be of age. His father (now buried at Rochester) had been a partner in a firm of Engineers operating in Egypt, and on coming of age Edwin would attain an interest in the partnership. Until then he was a charge upon the firm, and his maternal uncle Jasper was his guardian and trustee. This betrothal of the two friends' children to one another by their fathers, was a wish, a sentiment, a friendly project tenderly expressed upon both sides. It was nothing more. There was to be no forfeiture of property on either side if it did not lead to marriage. But the pair, when they were both children began to be accustomed to it, and grew up accustomed to it, and so had come to be, as they were when the story opens, an engaged couple. But though resigned to their situation, Rosa and Edwin were not happy in it, each felt the irksomeness of not being free to choose in such a matter. Rosa found it absurd to be an engaged orphan and to have the girls and the servants scuttling about after her like mice in the wainscot when her affianced husband came to call on her — for even the young ladies at the Nun's house had it pat that a husband had been chosen for Rosa by will and bequest. And Edwin found it irritating to be so dictated to by dead and gone parents, and to have everyone in chattering old Cloisterham referring to it. "I wonder no public house has been set up with my portrait for the sign of ' the Betrothed's Head,' or ' Pussy's Portrait.' One or the other," he says in pique. 46 THE MURDER OF Yet Edwin would have drifted into their wedding day without a pause for real thought loosely trusting that all would go well left alone — would have done so but for Rosa and the ring. The ring of diamonds and rubies held on trust to be the engagement ring of Edwin and Rosa was kept by Mr. Grewgious locked in an escritoire in his chambers in Staple Inn. His intention had been to take it down to Rochester with him on his promised visit to Rosa at Christmas, and then to give it to Edwin to place upon her finger. But Edwin happened to \dsit Grewgious in his chambers before journeying down to Rochester (where he was to make the final irrevocable preparations for his marriage), and on this visit to Mr. Grewgious he shewed such coolness, lassitude, doubt, indifference, disclosed a state of mind half smoke, half fire, and so unlike that Mr. Grewgious looked for in a true lover, that Grewgious decided to fulfil his trust by handing the ring to Edwin then and there in the presence of Bazzard, his clerk, as witness, and to make the solemnity the occasion of this appeal to Edwin : " Your placing it on her finger," giving him the ring, " will be the solemn seal upon your strict fidelity to the living and the dead. If anything should be amiss, if anything should be even slightly wrong between you, if you should have any secret consciousness that you are committing yourself to this step for no higher reason than because you have long been accustomed to look forward to it ; then I charge you once more by the living and the dead to bring that ring back to me." That serious putting him on his trust to the living EDWIN DROOD 47 and the dead, brought Edwin to a check. He must either give the ring to Rosa or he must take it back. " I will be guided by what she says and by how we get on " was his decision. Rosa, meanwhile, on her side, had long been thinking about abandoning their intended relations and had at last summoned up the courage to make the suggestion. " Eddy, let us be courageous. Let us change to brother and sister from this day forth." " Never be husband and wife ? " " Never ! you are not truly happy in our engagement. I am not truly happy in it. If we knew yesterday, and we did know yesterday and on many, many yesterdays that we were far from right to- gether in these relations which were not of our own choos- ing, what better could we do to-day than change them ? " Her full heart breaking into tears he puts his arm about her waist and they walk by the river side together. She tells of Grewgious' visit to her and he of his to Grewgious. The ring ! His right hand was in his breast seeking the ring ; but he checked it as he thought " If I am to take it back, why should I tell her of it ? Let them be, let them lie unspoken of in his breast." Among the mighty store of wonderful chains that are for ever forging day and night in the vast ironworks of time and circumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that small conclusion ^ riveted to the 1 The Small Conclusion. " All discovery of the murderer was to be baffled till towards the close when by means of a gold ring which had resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which he had thrown the body, not only the person murdered was to be identified, but the locality of the crime, and the man who committed it." Forster, Life of Charles Dickens. E 48 THE MURDER OF foundation of heaven and earth and gifted with in- vincible force to hold and drag. They kissed each other fervently. God bless you dear, goodbye ! God bless you dear, goodbye ! 2 2 Goodbye. Though they thought themselves to be parting as lovers only, this was really a final goodbye. Compare with it the passage in which Edwin takes leave of Rochester and the following extract from Martin Chuzzlewit. " It may be that the evening whispered to his conscience, or it ma^^ be (as it has been) that a shadowy veil was dropping round him closing out all thoughts but the presenti- ment and vague foreknowledge of impending doom. If there be fluids, as we know there are, which conscious of a coming wind or rain or frost, will shrink and strive to hide themselves in their glass arteries ; may not that subtle liquor of the blood perceive by properties within itself that hands are raised to waste and spill it ; and in the veins of men run cold and dull as his did in that hour ? " EDWIN DROOD 49 EPISODE V. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER. 50 THE MURDER OF EPISODE V. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER. (a) Jasper Warns Edwin. TAKE it as a warning then." In the act of having his hands released and of moving a step back Edwin pauses for an instant to consider the appUcation of these last words. The instant over, he says " The disinterestedness of your painfully laying your inner self bare as a warning to me," Mr. Jasper's steadiness of face and figure becomes so marvellous that his breathing seems to have stopped, " I really was not prepared for, as I may say, your sacrificing yourself to me in that way." Mr. Jasper becomes a breathing man again, shrugs his shoulders, laughs " you won't be warned then ? " " No, Jack." " You can't be warned then ? " " No, Jack." Mr. Jasper dissolves his attitude and they both go out together. What is it all about ? What does it mean ? Jasper has had an attack after his opium bout. He has reposed in Edwin the confidence that he takes opium for a pain — an agony and is troubled with some stray sort of ambition, aspiration, restlessness, dissatisfaction. "No wretched monk who droned his life away in that gloomy place before me can have been more tired of it than I am. He could take for rehef (and did take) to carving demons out of the stalls and seats and desks. EDWIN DROOD 51 What shall I do ? Must I take to carving them out of my heart ? " Jasper bids Edwin remember his state of mind and heart, and take it as a warning. In the act of moving a step back, Edwin pauses for an instant to consider the application to himself of these last words. Jasper watches him, holding his breath at the very thought that Edwin is beginning to reahse how he is threatened. The instant over " Your sacrificing yourself to me," says Edwin, and Jasper knows he has failed to under- stand the warning. Instantly Jasper becomes a breath- ing man again and shrugs his shoulders. He won't and can't be warned ! (b) Rosa's Confidence to Helena. " Who is Mr. Jasper ? You do not love him ? " " Ugh." " You knovv^ that he loves you ? " " Don't tell me of it. He terrifies me, he haunts my thoughts Hke a dreadful ghost. I feel as if he could pass in through the wall vv^hen he is spoken of. He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to understand him v/ithout his saying a word ; and he has forced me to keep silence without his uttering a threat. When I play he never moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing he never moves his eyes from my lips. When he plays a passage he himself is in the sounds whispering that he pursues me as a lover and commanding me to keep his secret. To-night when he watched my hps so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me and I couldn't bear it, but cried out. You must 52 THE MURDER OF never breathe this to anyone. But you said to-night that you would not be afraid of him under any circums- tances and that gives me — who am so much afraid of him — courage to tell only you. Hold me ! Stay with me ! I am too frightened to be left by myself." (c) Neville's Outburst. " I have never yet had the courage to say to you, Sir, what in full openness I ought to have said when you first talked with me on this subject. It is not easy to say, and I have been withheld by a fear of its seeming ridiculous, which is very strong upon me down to this last moment, and might, but for my sister, prevent my being quite open with you even now — I admire Miss Bud,i Sir, so very much, that I cannot bear her being treated with conceit or indifference ; and even if I did not feel that I had an injury against young Drood on my own account, I should feel that I had an injury against him on hers. I say that I love her and despise and hate him ! " {d) Jasper Misled. Plunged into a state of hopeless angularity by the spectacle of Miss Twinkleton's curtsey, 2 suggestive of marvels happening to her respected legs, Mr. Grewgious got out of the presence how he could. As he held it incumbent upon him to call on Mr. Jasper before leaving 1 / Admire Miss Bud. Manuscript " Plans " has " Neville admires Rosa. That comes out from himself." 2 Miss Twinkleton's Curtsey. This passage is a combination ot the text and manuscript. EDWIN DROOD 53 Rochester, he went to the Gatehouse, but Mr. Jasper's door being closed and presenting on a sHp of paper the word " Cathedral," Mr. Grewgious forthwith repaired thither to find the choir coming out. Among the dirty Hnen ^ that was already being unbuttoned behind with all the expedition compatible with a feint of following the mace in procession round the corner was the robe of Mr. Jasper. He threw it to a boy who sadly wanted " getting up " by some laundress, and he and Mr. Grewgious walked out of the Cathedral talking as they went. " Nothing is the matter ? " Mr. Jasper began rather quickly. " You have not been sent f or ? " " Not at all, not at all. I came down of my own accord. I have had it in my mind to come down this long time. But more off than on, I am ashamed to say." " Are you going to ? " "I have been to my pretty ward's and am now homeward bound again. I merely came to tell her seriously what a betrothal by deceased parents is— that it could not be considered binding against any such reason for its dissolution as a want of affection or want of disposition to carry it into effect." " Had you any special reason for telling her that ? " Mr. Grewgious shrugged his shoulders * as he answered somewhat sharply, " The special reason of resolving to do my duty, Sir. Simply that. I assure you that this impHes not the least doubt of or disrespect to your 3 The Dirty Linen. The passages " among the dirty linen " to " talking as they went," and " Have had it in my mind " to " When are you going to ! " and several minor alterations are here inserted from the manuscript. 4 Shrugged his Shoulders. Manuscript. 54 THE MURDER OF nephew. Duty in the abstract must be done,^ even if it did, but it did not and it does not. I like your nephew very much. I hope you are satisfied ? " " Can I be less than satisfied ? " " I will wager," said Jasper smiling — his lips were still so white that he was conscious of it and bit and moistened them while speaking. " I will wager that she hinted no wish to be released from Ned } " " And you will win your wager if you do, at least I suppose we should ^ allow some margin for little maidenly delicacies. What do you think ? " " There can be no doubt of it." " I am glad you say so because she seems to have some little delicate instinct that all prehminary arrangements had best be made between Mr. Edwin Drood and herself, dan't you see ? She don't want us, don't you know ? " Jasper touched himself on the breast and said somewhat indistinctly " You mean me." Mr. Grewgious touched himself on the breast and said " I mean us." " There- fore," said Mr. Grewgious in a cosily arranging manner,"^ *' let them have their little discussions and councils together when Mr. Edwin Drood comes here at Christmas, and then you and I will step in and put the final touches to the business." " So you settled with her that you would come back at that time " observed Jasper. "Eh?" said the other expressionlessly innocent. But 5 Duty . . . must be done. Manuscript. Jasper answers question with question because he is really the opposite of satisfied, but does not intend Mr. Grewgious to know it. He was hoping against hope that the pair would break off their engagement, hence his white- lipped anxiety. Grewgious' disclosure was a dire disappointment to him. ^ At least I suppose we should. Manuscript. "^ In a cosily arranging manner. Manuscript. EDWIN DROOD 55 not without adding internally " This is a very quick watch-dog ! " *' So you settled with her that you would come back at Christmas " repeated Jasper. " At Christmas ? Certainly. Oh dear, yes. I settled with her that I would come back at Christmas," replied Mr. Grewgious as if the question had previously lain between Lady Day, Midsummer Day, and Michaelmas. By this time, sometimes walking very slowly and sometimes standing still they had reached the Gatehouse. " Will you not walk up," said Jasper " and refresh ? " " Thank you, no. I have a horse and chaise here and have not too much time to get across and catch the new railroad over yonder." Jasper pressed his hand ® and they parted. When they next met, on the evening of Tuesday, the 27th December ^ Edwin was dead. (e) Jasper Enlightened. Unkempt and disordered, bedaubed with mud that had dried upon him, and with much of his clothing torn to rags 10 Jasper had but just dropped into his easy chair when Mr. Grewgious stood before him. " This is strange news," said Mr. Grewgious, " strange and fearful news." 8 Eh ? . . Jasper pressed his hand. The whole of this passage is from the manuscript. " The new railroad over yonder," is the " remote fragment of main line," which passengers from Rochester joined at Maidstone Road. A horse and chaise to Strood or Rochester stations would be absurd ! {See Appendix II). 9 Tuesday, 27th December. On Xmas day (Sunday) Neville was arrested. With the earliest light of the next morning men were at work upon the river until the next day dawned. All that day again the search went on, setting his watches for that night again Jasper went home exhausted. 10 Clothing torn to Rags. Thus effectually hiding any traces there might have been of the murder or the lime. 56 THE MURDER OF " I have a communication to make that will surprise you. At least it has surprised me." Jasper with a groaning sigh turned wearily in his chair. " Shall I put it off till to-morrow ? " said Mr. Grewgious. " Mind I warn you that I think it will surprise you ! " More attention and concentration came into John Jasper's eyes as they caught sight of Mr. Grewgious smoothing his head again and again looking at the fire, but now with a compressed and determined mouth. " What is it ? " demanded Jasper becoming upright in his chair. " To be sure," said Mr. Grewgious provokingly slowly and internally as he kept his eyes on the fire. " I might have known it sooner ; she gave me the opening. i^ but I am such an exceedingly angular man, that it never occurred to me ; I took it all for granted." " What is it ? " demanded Jasper once more. " This young couple, the lost youth and Miss Rosa, my ward, though so long betrothed, and so long recognising their betrothal, and so near being married," Mr. Grewgious saw a staring white face, and two quivering white lips in the easy chair, and saw two muddy hands gripping its sides. But for the hands he might have thought he had never seen the face. " This young couple came gradually to the discovery (made on both sides pretty equally I think), that they would be happier and better, both in their present and their future lives, as affectionate friends, or say rather as brother and sister, than as hus- band and wife." Mr. Grewgious saw a lead-coloured 11 She gave me the opening. " Rosa shook her head with an almost plaintive air of hesitation in want of help," &c. EDWIN DROOD 57 face in the easy chair, and on its surface dreadful starting drops or bubbles as if of steel. " This young couple formed at length the healthy resolution of interchanging their discoveries, openly, sensibly and tenderly. They met for that purpose. They agreed to dissolve their existing and their intended relations for ever and ever." Mr. Grewgious saw a ghastly figure rise open-mouthed from the easy chair and Hft its outspread hands towards its head. " Your nephew, however, forbore to tell you the secret for a few days and left it to be discharged by me, when I should come down to speak to you, and he would be gone. I speak to you and he is gone." Mr. Grewgious saw the ghastly figure throw back its head, clutch its hair with its hands and turn with a writhing action from him. " I have said now all I have to say, except that this young couple parted firmly, though not without tears and sorrow on the evening when you last saw them together.12 Mr. Grewgious heard a terrible shriek, and saw no ghastly figure sitting or standing ; saw nothing but a heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor i^. (/) Crisparkle's Confidence. When John Jasper recovered from his fit or swoon he found himself being tended by Mr. and Mrs. Tope. 12 When you last saw them together. " He saw us as we took leave of each other poor fellow ! he little thinks we have parted." 13 A heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor. " Mr. Grewgious took no pains to conceal his implacable disHke of Jasper, yet he never referred it however distantly to " any sort of suspicion that he had murdered Edwin. " But he was a reticent as well as an eccentric man ; and he made no mention of a certain evening when he warmed his hands at the Gatehouse fire and looked steadily down upon a certain heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor." THE MURDER OF His visitor, wooden of aspect, sat stiffly in a chair, watching his recovery. " Do you know," said Jasper after a hurried meal and when he had sat meditating for a few minutes " do you know that I find some crumbs of comfort in the communication with which you have so much amazed me ? I begin to beheve it possible that he may have disappeared from among us of his own accord and may yet be alive and well." ^* Mr. Cris- parkle came in at the moment and Jasper repeated this to him. " I pray to Heaven it may turn out so," exclaimed Mr. Crisparkle. " Mr. Grewgious ought to be possessed of the whole case." Jasper went on " He shall not through any suppression of mine be informed of a part of it and kept in ignorance of another part of it, I wish him to be good enough to understand that the communication he has made to me has hope- fully influenced my mind in spite of its having been before this mysterious occurrence took place, profoundly impressed against young Landless." This fairness troubled the Minor Canon much. He felt that he was not as open in his own dealing. He charged against himself reproachfully that he had suppressed so far the two points of a second strong outbreak of temper against Edwin Drood on the part of Neville and of the passion of jealousy i^ having to his own certain knowledge flamed up in Neville's breast against him. '^^ May yet be Alive and V/ell. Dickens in manuscript " Plans" describes this as " Jasper's artful use of the communication on his recovery." It would suit Jasper equally well whether it was commonly supposed that Edwin had absconded or that he had been murdered by Neville. In either case suspicion would be diverted from himself. ^^ See next page. EDWIN DROOD 59 He had been balancing in his mind, much to its distress, whether his volmiteering to tell these two fragments of truth at this time would not be tantamount to a piecing together of falsehood in the place of truth. However, here was a model before him. He hesitated no longer. Expressing his absolute confidence in the complete clearance of his pupil from the least taint of suspicion, sooner or later, he avowed that his confidence in that young gentleman had been formed in spite of his confiden- tial knowledge that his temper was of the hottest and fiercest, and that it was directly incensed against Mr. Jasper's nephew by the circumstance of his roman- tically supposing himself to be enamoured of the same young lady. The sanguine reaction manifest in Mr. Jasper was proof even against this unlooked for de- claration.is It turned him paler ; but he repeated that he would cling to the hope he had derived from Mr. Grewgious, and that if no trace of his dear boy were found, leading to the dreadful inference that he had been made away with, he would cherish unto the last 15 Neville's Jealousy. Ses above. Crisparkle's present can- dour to Jasper is thus traduced by Jasper to Rosa six months later on. " It was hawked through the late enquiries by Mr. Cris- parkle that Landless had confessed to him that he was a rival of my lost boy." 16 This Unlooked for Declaration. Neville's love for Rosa was news to Jasper and news of dreadful import to each of them. Jasper made it thenceforth the one object of his wasted life to purge upon the gallows the inexpiable offence of Neville in loving Rosa. The disclosure turned Jasper pale and instantly induced a second rapid change of plan. Jasper could no longer support the absconding theory. He must stand out for murder at the hands of Neville. Hence his " sanguine reaction " is straight- way watered down and made de- pendent on the non-finding of any trace of Edwin. Steps are then taken by Jasper to secure that such traces shall be found. 6o THE MURDER OF stretch of possibility the idea that he might have absconded of his own wild will. Now it fell out that Mr. Crisparkle going away from this conference still very uneasy in his mind took a memorable night walk.i' He walked to Cloisterham Weir. He often did so, and consequently there was nothing remarkable in his footsteps tending that way. But the preoccupation of his mind so hindered him from planning any walk, or taking heed of the objects he passed that his first consciousness of being near the Weir was derived from the sound of the falling water close at hand. " How did I come here ? " was his first thought as he stopped. " Why did I come here ? " was his second. Then he stood intently listening to the water. A famihar passage in his reading about airy tongues that syllable men's names ^^ rose so unbidden to his ear that he put it from him with his hand as if it were tangible. It was starlight. The water came over the Weir with its usual sound on a cold starlight night, and little could be 17 A Memorable Night Walk. This walk I believe to have been imposed upon Crisparkle by Jasper by " telepathy," " hypnotism," or " mesmerism " as in those days it would be called no doubt. The alternative theory is perhaps as likely that Jasper relied on Cris- parkle's known habit of bathing at Cloisterham Weir for ensuring the discovery of Edwin's watch and pin placed there by Jasper for the purpose of their being so discovered. The watch, it will be remembered had been wound at 2-20 p.m. on Xmas Eve and had run down when found in the water, Neville was arrested before mid-day on Christmas Day. Unless therefore the watch had an exceptionally short run, it could not have run down in his possession. If Jasper had it, as no doubt he had, he cannot have pJaced it in the water on the same night as the murder. 1^ See next page. EDWIN DROOD 6i seen of it ; yet Mr. Crisparkle had a strange idea that something unusual hung about the place ! He reasoned with himself. What was it ? Where was it ? Put it to the proof. Which sense did it address ? No sense reported anything unusual there. Knowing very well that the mystery with which his mind was occupied might of itself give the place this haunted air, he strained those hawk's eyes of his for the correction of his sight. Nothing in the least unusual was remotely shadowed forth. But he resolved he would come back early in the morning. The Weir ran through his broken sleep all night and he was back again at sunrise. His eyes were attracted keenly to one spot. It struck him that at that spot — a corner of the Weir — something glistened which did not move and come over with the ghstening water drops but remained stationary. He plunged into the icy water and swam for the spot ; cUmbing the timbers he took from them caught among their interstices by its chain a gold watch, bearing engraved upon its back E.D.^^ He dived and dived and dived until he could bear the cold no more. His notion was that he would find the body ; he only found a shirt- pin sticking in some mud and ooze. IS Airy tongues that syllable Men's Names. MILTON — " COMUS." " What might this be ? A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory. Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses." 1* E.D. — If (as some suppose) the murder was hallucination how came this watch and pin to be where they were found ? EPISODE VI. MR. JASPER PROPOSES. 64 THE MURDER OF EPISODE VI. MR. JASPER PROPOSES. MR. JASPER is a dark man of some six and twenty with thick lustrous well arranged black hair, and whiskers. He looks older than he is as dark men often do. His voice is deep and good, his face and figure are good but his manner is a Httle sombre. Lay Precentor, or Lay Clerk at Rochester Cathedral, he has the reputation of having done wonders with the choir there. He has the gift of teaching, and besides training the choir also acts as music master to the girls at the Nun's House School. Altogether he seems cut out for his vocation. But he hates it ! Unknown to others and unsuspected by Edwin even, he hates it all. Jasper has long been secretly and desperately in love with Rosa. Rosa, as we have seen, is bound to Edwin and daily drawing nearer marriage. Jasper has never spoken to Rosa about love. Never ! but he has made a slave of her with his looks. He has forced her to understand him without his saying a word. Jasper is an opium smoker. He took to opium when he could no longer bear his life ; his love and jealousy in the cramping monotony of his existence became a physical pain — an agony — which overcame him. He took to opium to get relief. He got it. He got it at a price. Carrying Rosa's image in his arms he wandered through paradises in visions ; carrying her image in EDWIN DROOD 65 his arms he rushed in visions through Hells. From Paradise and Hell alike he woke to the distasteful work of the day, and to the wakeful misery of the night. Watching day by day the ill-matched pair — his nephew and his loved one — Jasper cherished to the last stretch of possibihty the hope of their releasing one another and leaving his loved one to him. If not — and day by day the wretch's hope grew less as the arrangements for the marriage still went forward — if not Edwin must die. Jasper is resolved to kill him, and has his plans prepared. Finally he sees, or thinks he sees, the couple seal their parents' compact with a lover's kiss. That kiss has sealed the doom of Edwin who dies on Christmas Eve, strangled by Jasper secretly. Six months and more elapse after the murder before Jasper ventures to renew pursuit of Rosa. Then, calling at the school and finding Rosa there alone, he forces her to come to him. Rosa chooses the open air, but even there he magnetises her. He stands leaning lightly on the sundial in the garden. She cannot resist his horrible complusion but sits down with bent head on the garden seat beside him. Both are in mourning. Jasper questions Rosa about her music lessons and her refusal to go on with them. She is angered and declines to be cross-questioned or to answer. His gloating admiration of the touch of anger on her, and of the fire and animation brought by it causes her rising spirit to fall again and she struggles with a sense of shame, affront and fear much as at his following of her lips when he was her music master. When she rises to go he makes her sit again by threatening her with harm 66 THE MURDER OF to others if she does go. When he calls her " Dearest," " charming," " my beloved," she again starts up to go but his face is so wicked and menacing that her flight is arrested by horror as she looks at him. Frozen with fear she cannot flee him. So arrested, so compelled, Rosa Hstens to her first proposal. Jasper declares to her his mad unholy love. " Rosa, even when my dear boy was affianced to you I loved you madly, even when I strove to make him more ardently devoted to you, I loved you madly, even when he gave me the picture of your lovely face so carelessly traduced by him, which I feigned to hang always in my sight for his sake, but worshipped in tor- ment for years, I loved you madly ; I endured it all in silence. So long as you were his or so long as I supposed you to be his, I hid my secret loyally did I not ? " Jasper's lie so gross, while the mere words in which it is told are so true is more than Rosa can endure. She answers with kindhng indignation, " you were as false throughout, sir, as you are now, you were false to him daily and hourl5^ You know that you made my life unhappy by your pursuit of me. You know that you made me afraid to open his generous eyes and that you forced me for his own trusting good, good sake to keep the truth from him that you were a bad, bad man." His preservation of his easy attitude rendering his working features and his convulsive hands absolutely diabolical, he returns with a fierce extreme of admiration. " How beautiful you are ! You are more beautiful in anger than in repose. I don't ask you for your love. EDWIN DROOD 67 give me yourself and your hatred ; give me yourself and that enchanting scorn ; it will be enough for me." Impatient tears rise to the eyes of the trembling little beauty and her face flames. She rises to leave him in indignation. He detains her with a threat. " You care for your bosom friend's good name ; you care for her peace of mind, then remove the shadow of the gallows from her dear one ! " " You dare propose to me to . . . " Darling I dare propose to you. Stop there. If it be bad to idolize you I am the worst of men ; if it be good I am the best. My love for you is above all other love. My truth to you is above all other truth. Let me have hope and favour and I am a forsworn man for your sweet sake. So that you take me were it even mortally hating me. I love you, love you, love you. If you were to cast me off now — but you will not ! You would never be rid of me ; no one should come between us. I would pursue you to the death ! " The handmaid coming out to open the gate for him, he quietly pulls off his hat as a parting salute and goes away with no greater show of agitation than is visible in the efhgy of Mr. Sapsea's father opposite. Rosa faints in going upstairs. EPISODE VII. ON SECRET SERVICE. 70 THE MURDER OF EPISODE VII. ON SECRET SERVICE. AT about this time — on Wednesday, July 5th to be precise — a stranger appeared in Rochester, Dick Datchery was the name he went by in that picturesque old city, Tartar was his name in London. Yesterday he was up the river with Rosa, Grewgious and Lobley in a row-boat. To-day he has come down the Thames in his yacht with Lobley from Greenhithe to Gravesend. Thence he has travelled on alone by road to Rochester where he now announces his intention of taking a lodging for a month or two with a view of settling down there altogether. Meanwhile, Rosa pines in Bloomsbury waiting for something that will not come, that never comes ! " Until as the days crept on and nothing happened the neighbours began to say that the pretty girl at BilHckin's who looked so wistfully and so much out of the windows of the drawing room seemed to be losing her spirits. "1 Why this base desertion ? What had happened ? To understand the situation, we must retrace our steps as far as the Midsummer Recess at the Nun's House. Not so far in time as in occurrences. That was last 1 Losing Her Spirits. Let any reader who still doubts that it was for Tartar that Rosa was waiting and pining at Billickin's consider this passage : — " The pretty girl might have lost her spirits but for the accident of lighting on some books of voyages and sea adventures. As a compensation against their romance Miss Twinkleton made the most of all the .... statistics ; while Rosa hstening intently made the most of what was nearest to her heart. So they both did better than before." EDWIN DROOD 71 Monday, and to-day is only Wednesday. Then the High Street was musical with the cry in various silvery voices, "Goodbye, Rosebud darling! " and among the departing coaches carrying the young ladies to their several homes was one which carried Helena to attend her brother's fortunes in Staple Inn. Rosa remains and the same afternoon finds her alone, Mrs. Tisher being absent on leave and Miss Twinkleton having contributed herself and a veal pie to a picnic. Jasper calls, declares his mad love and announces his threat to Helena's peace of mind and to the life of Neville. Rosa the same night, flees to Grewgious and tells him all. Grewgious hears her story understandingly and begs to be told a second time those parts which bear on Helena and Neville. Next day, Tuesday, Tartar and Rosa meet and fall in love. " Poor, poor Neville ! " Helena divines the facts and seems to compassionate somebody. " My poor Neville." But Rosa's tale of Jasper's threatenings requires attention. " Would it be best," Helena won- ders "to wait until any more maligning and pursuing of Neville on the part of this wretch shall disclose itself or to try and anticipate it so far as .to find out whether any such goes on darkly about them in Staple Inn ? Neville has not so much as exchanged a word with anyone but Mr. Tartar there. Now if Mr. Tartar would call to see him openly and often ; if he would spare a minute for the purpose frequently ; if he would even do so almost daily; something might come of it. 2" 2 " Something might come of it." No wonder Rosa is perplexed. Helena's plan was nearly as nebulous as that " something " which Mr. Micawber was expecting to turn up. 72 THE MURDER OF " Something might come of it, dear ? " repeated Rosa with a highly perplexed face. " Something might ? " " If Neville's movements are really watched and if the purpose really is to isolate him from all friends and acquaintances and wear his daily life out grain by grain (which would seem to be the threat ^ to you) does it not appear likely * that his enemy would in some way communicate with Mr. Tartar to warn him off from Neville ? " " I see," cries Rosa, and Mr. Tartar at once de- clares his readiness to act and to enter on his task that very day. What then is Mr. Tartar doing at Rochester the very next day. Wliat of his promise ? What of Helena's hope to hear of Rosebud from Mr. Tartar ? No wonder Rosa is hke to lose her spirits looking and waiting in vain for the sailor to call at Billickin's. But we have forgotten Grewgious. He was no party to Helena's suggested plan ^ of action. He was no party to Helena's misunderstanding of what was threatened. He had Rosa's narration clearly put away and knew that " the gallows " was the threat to Neville not " isolation." The peace of mind to be disturbed was Helena's not Neville's. Mr. Grewgious held 3 " Which would seem to be the threat." Helena had not understood. Perhaps Rosa had toned down to her the threat of " the shadow of the gallows," for her dear one. Mr. Grewgious on the other hand, per- fectly understood what Jasper threatened. 4 " Does it not appear likely." Yes, if the hypothesis be granted ; but if the hypothesis was mistaken the inference loses its foundation. 5 Grewgious no party to Helena's plan. He was specially consulted about the desirability of taking action and agreed, but was markedly not consulted about the particular action suggested. EDWIN DROOD 73 decidedly to the general principle that if you could steal a march upon a brigand or a wild beast you had better do it ; and he also held decidedly to the special case that John Jasper was a brigand and a wild beast in combination. But he never endorsed Helena's plan. He had a plan of his own as he had told them. Jasper hoped by watching Neville in Staple Inn so to accumulate circumstances against him, so to direct, sharpen and point them that they might slay him. Why not turn his weapon against himself and thus steal a march upon him ? By perseverance the missing link, the wanting clue which would prove his guilt might be discovered and the shadow of the gallows be shifted to him and the burden of unjust suspicion be removed for ever from young Landless. Why not set a watch on Jasper at Rochester, the counter- part of the watch he keeps on Neville here in Staple ? If so, what better watchman than this young sailor, Tartar, so keen on Rosa and unknown or scarcely known to Jasper ? But will he undertake the task ? Mr. Grewgious will put it to him. Rosa is safely tucked in bed at Furnivals and dreaming of the everlastingly green garden and the beanstalk country and the Admiral's cabin — and perhaps the Admiral. The lieutenant, meanwhile, is seated in Grewgious' chair in Grewgious' chambers being fully confided in by Mr. Grewgious. Mr. Crisparkle, able now to reassure the anxious Miss Twinkleton and to arrange for her to join Rosa at Billickins' on Thursday, has returned to Rochester. His short summary to Tartar of the distresses of Neville and his sister has paved the way for the fuller and more 74 THE MURDER OF particular account of the whole mysterious story which Grewgious is now in course of giving Tartar. Bazzard is not about.6 it is night time and long past office hours. Tartar has been told already of Edwin's relations to Rosa and to Jasper and of his mysterious disappearance last Christmas. He now learns from Grewgious of Jasper's pursuit of Rosa as a lover. Anger springs up in Tartar. " Yesterday," continues Grewgious, " the scoundrel dared openly to propose to her," and he joins to this a lucid and precise account to Tartar of the exact terms in which Jasper had dared to threaten and propose to Rosa. " Damn him, how dare he ! " No question now if Tartar will help unmask him ! The villain ! To force his horrid shameless love on that young, innocent, unprotected lady ! Damn him again ! And now to plans for her protection and the disclosure of his villainy. The man takes opium. So much Grewgious knows from Rosa who got it from Edwin. Tick that off. He had ample motive for murder in his raging jealousy fed by the parting kiss he saw and mis- interpreted. Tick that off. Jealousy of a new rival — Neville — has urged him on to six months' silent labour in the effort to bring the latter to the gallows and burning jealousy still spurs him on. But we may doubt if pru- dent Mr. Grewgious told this to Tartar just yet. Suffi- cient for Lieutenant Tartar that Jasper is bent on fabricating evidence which shall bring Neville to trial and conviction. He must be watched and his plan ^Bazzard is not about. He is " off duty there altogether just at present " it will be remembered. EDWIN DROOD 75 prevented. Will Lieutenant Tartar undertake the task ? His yacht down Greenhithe way might be taken round to Gravesend and Lieutenant Tartar might appear at Rochester a stranger. Some slight disguise— a wig for instance — would be advisable on the off chance of Jasper having noticed him in Staple. Tartar hesitates an instant. The plan will mean indeterminate exile from Miss Rosa! He can hardly bring that reason before her guardian just at present, however. After all, he only met his love this morning as time goes on this planet ! His promise to visit Neville daily is urged in explanation of his slowness to respond, by which, as he sees, Grewgious is puzzled and dis- appointed. But for that, he tells him, he would jump at any sort of opportunity to serve Miss Rosa and the others. Grewgious is reheved. " If that is all," he will undertake to obtain absolution from the promise and plausibly to explain Tartar's absence to the Land- lesses— " Miss Rosa too ? " suggests the sailor. " I think it wisest that she shall know nothing of this as yet," says Mr. Grewgious, " but if she asks after you, as no doubt she will, I will explain to her that you are absent on her service." With that poor consolation Tartar must be content. So now we know how it comes about that Rosa pines and peaks in gritty London, and Tartar in his wig and pseudonym of Datchery takes lodgings at the Topes, in Rochester and lounges about the Precincts hke the chartered bore of the city. In a detective the bold step is the wise one. He confronts Jasper in his own room face to face at once, 76 THE MURDER OF and so he gets to know and be known by him. He also gets to know the Mayor and to be well estabhshed with him. As a cat watches a mouse hole so he takes his post with open door and watches Jasper's postern entrance opposite. He misses no opportunity of getting to know the lowly local characters. Deputy and he are " Winks " and " Dick," and Durdles is open to seeing him any evening if he brings liquor for two with him. So things are going famously when another stranger appears in Rochester. She turns in under the archway just after Jasper has arrived there and gone up his postern staircase. Tartar seeing her brought to a standstill asks whom she is looking for ? "A gentle- man in mourning '^ who passed in there this minute," is her answer. So she wants Jasper does she ? What can her business be with him ? Told his dwelling and his name she does not go to see him, but asks his calling. She seems to want to see and hear him singing in the choir. Odd that ! Where does she come from ? Jasper and the others have just come back from town. Is she from London too ? She does not answer that. Is she after money ? Tartar rattles the loose money in his trouser pockets. Yes, she asks for money to pay for her traveller's lodging — where Winks is servant. She knows that place then. Has she been here often ? Once in all her life she says. What's that ? Opium ! The plot begins to thicken. She seeks Jasper who takes opium and she takes opium. More to follow. The last time she was here was Christmas Eve when a young ■^ " In Mourning^ Manuscript. EDWIN DROOD 77 gentleman gave her three and sixpence and the young gentleman's name was Edwin and she asked him if he had a sweetheart and he said he hadn't. Phew ! That must have been Edwin Drood after he had jilted Rosa ! « Tartar could get no more from her just then without asking dangerous questions so gives her the three and six she asked him for and lets her go her way. Little enough he has learned, and yet there is promise in it. Probably, however, she merely wants to sell Jasper more opium. But why see him at 7 o'clock in the Cathedral if that is all ? Anyhow Tartar will see if she really does go there and meantime he will get Winks to find out where she comes from — exactly where she lives. The knowledge may prove useful. John Jasper's lamp is kindled, and his lighthouse is shining when Tartar returns, alone, towards it. As mariners on a dangerous voyage approaching an iron-bound coast may look along the beams of the warning light to the haven l5^ng beyond it that may never be reached so the sailor-detective's wistful gaze is directed to this beacon and beyond. Having fetched his hat Tartar goes out again and discovers Deputy or rather " Winks." Good ! Winks confirms that she is an opium smoker from Lon- don and is going to the " Kin-free-der-el," as Winks pronounces it, in the morning. " We are getting on ! " Still a moderate stroke Tartar concludes, is all that he is justified in scoring up as yet. Next morning, in the Cathedral, the service is pretty ^ After he had jilted Rosa. This is scarcely fair to Edwin but we must bear in mind that Tartar never knew him and was himself in love with Edwin's rejected fiancee. 78 THE MURDER OF well advanced, before Tartar can discern the opium woman. She is behind a pillar carefully withdrawn from Jasper's view, but regards him with the closest attention. Ah unconscious of her presence he chants and sings. She grins when he is most musically fervid and — yes, Tartar sees her do it ! — shakes her fist at him behind the pillar's friendly shelter. Tartar looks again to convince himself. Yes again ! She hugs herself in her lean arms and then shakes both fists at the leader of the choir. The service over Tartar accosts her outside the Cathedral. " Well, Mistress, Good-morning. You have seen him ? " " I've seen him deary ; I've seen him ! Know him ! Better far than all the Reverend Parsons put together know him." Before sitting down to his neat, clean breakfast, Tartar opens his corner cupboard door ; takes his bit of chalk from its shelf ; adds one thick hne to the score extending from the top of the cupboard door to the bottom ; and then falls to with an appetite. No won- der ! Patience and perseverance are bringing their reward. This woman knows Jasper for what he is. She hates him. He does not know it. She hves in London and has followed him down here. Jasper will return to her. That will give the sought for opportunity against him. With the woman as an ally, Tartar may be spectator of his opium ravings and learn his secrets from him. Good indeed ! EDWIN DROOD 79 EPISODE VIII. LANDLESS PROPOSES. Ho. !.] APEIL. 1870. [Price One SIlilling^ LONDON CHAPMAN 1- HALL, Vj3, PICCADILLY Advertisements to be seat to the Publishers, snd ADAMS & FRAHCia, 50, Fleet Street. B.C. [The right oj TTaii^Wtion is «f«T«d.l EPISODE VIII. LANDLESS PROPOSES.i WHILST Tartar was away at Rochester 2 the days dragged very heavily with Rosa. The gritty state of things had few rehefs. London waited and waited always for someone who never came. To Neville, too, in Staple Inn, the days were often long and listless. Whilst he has Helena with him things are better but her school hohdays are drawing to a close, and she has to return to Rochester to-morrow. Neville will then be solitary once again. The promise made to 1 Landless Proposes. The details of this scene are necessarily pure h>T)othesis, but the evidence for the scene itself is on the cover. It has been suggested that the kneehng figure kissing Rosa's hand is Jasper or else Tartar. But each of these is shewn elsewhere upon the cover and neither is the kneeling figure. The only certain clue to the identity of the latter is his moustache. Which character, if any, had a moustache ? The answer seems at first to be that no moustache is mentioned. But the school-girls at the Nuns' house knew better. " Nothing escapes their notice, sir." Recall the quarrel scene acted by Neville and Edwin and imitated by the Misses Ferdinand and Giggles. " Neville flings the dregs of his wine at Edwin Drood, and is in the act of flinging the goblet after it, when his arm is caught in the nick of time by Jasper." " Miss Ferdinand got into new trouble by surreptitiously clapping on a paper moustache at dinner-time and going through the motions of aiming a water-bottle at Miss Giggles who drew a table-spoon in self defence." On Miss Ferdinand's evidence we shall be safe in saying that Neville wore moustaches. Clearly then it is he who kneels at Rosa's feet kissing her hand upon the cover. The rustic seat gives the clue to where the scene took place. Even now the garden of Staple Inn would make a prettj/ setting for a love scene. In 1842, it was neither so public as now it is nor yet so small. {Scj Appendix II). 2 Tartar away at Rochester. As Datchery (See Episode VII). 82 THE MURDER OF visit him by Mr. Tartar has not been kept. Mr. Cris- parkle's visits are as frequent as he can make them, but he Uves in distant Rochester, and cannot often get to town. Mr. Grewgious is not far off, but he is a busy man and no great company. Left to himself, Neville's disposition is to work too hard and long, stay in all day and walk only at night. Meanwhile, day and night, he cannot cease to dream of Rosa or put her image from his mind. While young Drood was alive he pledged himself to do so and achieved a measure of success. Now he cannot cease to think of her. At last, the Minor Canon being in London for a couple of nights, Neville plucks up enough courage to beg for release from the pledge he gave not to make known to Rosa his love for her. He has kept his compact faithfulty. Its cause has gone now. Surely he may be released ? Reluc- tantly, since it cannot be withheld, consent is given. But, for his own sake, his sister and the Minor Canon view the growth of his resolve to tell his love with gravest apprehension. Helena knows that Rosa's heart is given elsewhere, and fears the shock to Neville. Added to which is the fear of Jasper's jealous rage should Neville's proposal to Rosa reach his ears. To gain a little respite Helena makes the suggestion that she and the Minor Canon — if he can spare the time — shall call on Rosa in Bloomsbury Square this afternoon. It would be well to sound Rosa first, and ascertain that she would not be likely to take ill, as yet, Neville's proposal, seeing how short a time, comparatively, has passed since Eddy's death — assuming indeed that he is dead. To which Helena adds that she herself wants to EDWIN DROOD 83 see Miss Twinkleton to learn the arrangements made for their journey down to Rochester to-morrow. Neville yields and so the matter remains for the present un- decided. Crisparkle gladly escorts Helena to Blooms- bury and Neville remains alone. While they are away Rosa suddenly appears to Neville's view ^ to his amaze- ment and delight, entering the pretty garden down below his window. In Bloomsbury Square there was little of comfort or dehght on that hot afternoon in early autumn. Packing and plans and bickerings between Miss Twink- leton and the ever victorious, ever lugubrious Billickin. Uncertaint}^ and dust and grittiness on all sides. Rosa will get away from it and spend the afternoon at Staple Inn she thinks. Now that Miss Twinkleton is leaving, new plans are to be made for Rosa. What more natural than that she should call on her guardian to learn them from him ? What can the visit have to do with Mr. Tartar ? He is not now at Staple. Does not Rosa knov,- he left there a good while back ? Yes, he keeps his chambers on, the porter thinks. No, he can't say where he is. No, nor when he will return. So Rosa visits P.J.T.-i to find that her guardian is not in at present. Bazzard is there but he is not communicative and does not invite Rosa to step inside. Rosa tells him she will await Mr. Grewgious' return, outside in the garden. 3 Rosa appears to Neville's View. A visit to Staple Inn will satisfy the reader that this would be so. Neville's, Tartar's and Grewgious' rooms are all carefully identified by Dickens. ^ Rosa Visits P.J.T. P.J.T. means "John Thompson Principal 1797," but it needs "no matter-of-fact identification here." For present purposes let it mean " Perhaps John Thomas or Perhaps Joe Tyler," who Possibly Jabbered Thus. 84 THE MURDER OF Thus, simply, it comes about that Neville looking aimlessly out of his window sees Rosa tripping down the steps of Grewgious' chambers and visiting the lovely little garden of the Inn, where the dust-laden air is cooled by the small stream of the spouting fountain on this hot afternoon which bees are rendering drowsy. Neville mil go down to her. She sits beneath a tree upon a rustic seat with room for two. There Neville joins her. She tells him of the reason of her visit. It is to see her guardian. He is out at present. She must await his return to learn his plans for her, as she expects to have to leave London to-morrow or some day soon she knows not when. To go ? She knows not whither nor cares a great deal. No ! cer- tainly not to Rochester ! She shudders at the thought. Never there again ! Neville attributes Rosa's agitation to the Mystery v/hich has blighted both their hves. He has heard nothing ^ of the scene in that other garden with Jasper in it. They have kept it from him. He merely knows that Jasper has spoken to Rosa about himself, and has disclosed to her that his hatred of him endures as though he still believed him guilty of the murder. Nevihe has no thought of Jasper as a jealous rival. He does not guess how Rosa fears the man and shudders at her recollection of him. ^ He has heard nothing of Jasper's Proposal. The whole story had been told to Helena it is true, but " I suppose " pursued Helena doubtfully " that he must know by and by all you have told me ; but I am not sure. Ask Mr. Crisparkle's advice my darhng. Ask him whether I may tell Neville as much or as little of what you have told me as I think best." The Minor Canon was for the free exercise of Helena's judgment. EDWIN DROOD 85 By way of preface to what he is come down to say to her, Neville alludes sadly to the tribulations through which they have passed — and yet must pass — together. With mournful air he begs her forgiveness for his share in having caused her sorrow, especially for his foohsh quarrel with Edwin. She would stop him if she could but what can she do or say ? She cannot make excuses and go ; for Neville has just heard from her own lips that she awaits her guardian there — if only he would come ! She cannot refuse to hear Neville, or surely he will suppose himself not merely not forgiven, but even not unsuspected of Eddy's death. Embarrassed and apprehensive of what next he is about to say — for she cannot but suspect to what all this is tending — she listens to the impulsive outburst of his pleading, looking away from him and nervously toying with a streamer from her summer hat. She answers confusedly that he would have her pardon if it were a case for pardoning and adds that she never has suspected him of anything but honest and open dealing with poor, poor Eddy. Neville at these words lets his hat which he has been holding in his hand fall upon the ground ^ and going on one knee, seizes Rosa's nearest idle hand and covers it with kisses. His passionate nature can no longer bear restraint, and his long pent feelings declare themselves in a torrent of ardent tones and words. His love is more than half declared, when Rosa snatches back her hand, starts from the seat, and in a low and strangled voice cries look ! 6 Hai upon the ground. The details of this scene are taicen from the cover. 86 THE MURDER OF look ! Neville looks and sees the sailor Tartar approaching ' He has just turned in under the archway closely followed by Mr. Grewgious. Did he see them ? What must he think ? What shall she say or do ? These thronging questions are driving Rosa half-dis- tracted. Tartar, a httle distant in his manner perhaps, greets Rosa with a cool " good afternoon, Miss Bud," raising his hat. To Neville, Tartar merely says " I notice Mr. Landless that your interest in flowers is not diminished." Mr. Grewgious who, with his short sight, evidently has noticed nothing, invites the whole party to step up to his chambers. But Tartar, raising his hat again, begs pardon if he has already intruded too much on Miss Bud's time and private business or inconvenienced her by keeping her guardian away overlong. While Neville on his part mutters some excuse in a strangled 7 Tartar approaching . . Jasper was standing there. Jasper has come to town pursuing Neville and Datchery pursuing Jasper. Learning from Mrs. Tope that Jasper is going " to get some medicine," in town, Datchery divines that Jasper will visit the opium woman during the night and lays his plans accordingly. First he visits her himself and arranges to be let in by her after Jasper is asleep — but before he begins to talk if possible. Datchery will come from the docks disguised as a common sailor. This settled, Datchery returns to his yacht and resumes his own personality as Tartar. Then he goes to Furnival's for lunch, and there meets Grewgious, and is returning with him to his chambers to report progress when turning in under the inner arch of Staple, he sees Neville on his knees to Rosa. Meanwhile Jasper has been to his hotel in Aldersgate and then either by chance or by arrangement has come in contact with the clerk Bazzard in Staple Inn, from whom he has learnt the story of the ring. Jasper is still hanging around Staple when Rosa arrives and he sees Neville hastening down to greet her. From the landing window he watches the whole scene which adds fresh fuel to his rage against Neville and decides him to instant action. He will get the ring at once, on his return, and cause it to be found in Neville's Chambers. That will hang him if any evidence can hang a man thinks Jasper. EDWIN DROOD 87 tone and hurries off without his hat until called back to be handed it by Mr. Tartar with a sweeping bow. Mr. Grewgious seems a little puzzled by the turn events have taken, b,ut asks Tartar if it would inconvenience him too much to look in later — say ten o'clock to-morrow morning ? Mr. Crisparkle will, he hopes, be there. This Tartar promises that he will do and takes his leave. Rosa, red and white and much perturbed wishes a hurried good-bye to him and Neville and precedes her guardian up the steps into his chambers. Rosa's agitation would have been much increased had she been aware of yet another spectator of Neville's action. This spectator might have been seen from Mr. Grewgious' first floor window to take the form of a slinking individual, standing at the second floor landing window of the second house from the left corner of the Inn. It was Jasper standing there 7 watching the proposal of his deadly-hated rival to his beloved. All but fainting with fury, his coun- tenance convulsed and purple, clenched teeth and staring eyes, Jasper stands glowering in the shadow and with his empty hands claws first the empty air then seems to throttle someone. An evil action ! He laughs aloud when Tartar comes upon the scene and breaks it up. First watching them part, Jasper then slinks away himself and leaves the Inn, EPISODE IX. THE THIRD DAWN. go THE MURDER OF EPISODE IX. THE THIRD DAWN. THE scene of this episode is familiar to you. In that meanest and closest of small rooms Eastward and still Eastward of Aldersgate it is dark as yet. The favourite customer is there already, and Hes dressed and drugged across the large unseemly broken-down bed groaning beneath the weight it bears. Listen ! He begins to mutter ! The tattered hag sets her face to his to catch his mumbhngs. Jasper takes no heed of her. A third figure hes across the bed — a maudhn sailor. He also sprawls and shifts about and draws up close to the talking dreamer throwing a tattooed arm about his neck. Removing the arm violently from him, Jasper rises bolt upright into a sitting posture. " Loose me " he shrieks. Then adds more calmly. " The noose is not for me but him, see ! Landless ! there ! " and points. Falling back on to one elbow he goes on talking in a low but forceful tone. " At last the reaping. He is mine — my lawful prey. He will not break this net. He cannot. The bird will not escape this fowler. The snare is set too well. He's mine. The clue is found. The clue is found. The link. The ring. It must still be there. I will go get it. Now^ ! To-night. It did not come back. Bazzard is certain. Father and son together." The sodden sailor has lain quiet all this while, heedless of his arm EDWIN DROOD 91 caught under the body of Jasper when he fell back on it. Now, at the name of Bazzard, he stirs a little and moves his arm. The action seems to waken Jasper from his dream and stupor. The focus of his eyes is changed from far to near. He sees the room, he sees the bed, he sees the sailor. Furiously he turns upon the hostess and assails her in language suited to the sordid den. Translated, he asks her what she means by letting unmentionable people come there and spy upon him ? He grasps the sailor by the arm and asks him who the blank he is and what the blank he wants there ? The woman shrinks and trembles and calls him dearie and offers him another pipe of comfort and whines she can't afford to shut out custom with trade so slack and the market price so drefHe high just now. But the sailor is in a different humour, and slings his tattooed arm round Jasper's neck again and hugs and kisses him ! Half smothers him ! Not less furious now, but oddly relieved, Jasper shakes off the sailor, brushes aside the woman and the pipe she offers him, and struggling to the window looks out upon the breaking dawn. The woman watches him with furtive glances. The sailor sings a sea-ditty of dubious meaning with voice and breath that speak of gin as much as opium. Clinging to the crazy curtains Jasper has much ado to collect his scattered normal consciousness. Having come to himself earlier than is his wont, he has not enjoyed the sequence of Kaleidoscopic colours and the Eastern Pageant. By a mighty effort and with many a shudder he succeeds at last in shaking off the drowsiness upon him and is more or less himself. Still furious with 92 THE MURDER OF the woman he flings her money roughly, reaches down his hat and stamps out through the door and down the creaking stairs with no good-morrow given to the rat- ridden door-keeper beneath them. Though he fre- quently looks back, as if expecting it, he is not followed as he makes his way, on foot first, to his cheap hotel in Aldersgate, and then by train to Rochester. Meanwhile, as soon as the stairs have ceased to creak to Jasper's tread, the sailor quits the bed and asks the hag for water. Wlien she has shambled off to get him some the sailor sHps off an upper pair of seaman's trousers worn over the pantaloons of a man of means if not of fashion. The woman returning with a cracked jug with water in it he pours some in the basin and with the assistance of a piece of yellow soap and vigorous rubbing transforms his stained and made up face and grubby neck and hands to those of clean and sunburnt Tartar. Next he rinses out his mouth and gargles to wash away the taste of vilest gin. The woman whines to him it was as potent as she dared to make it to get him to talk at all. Wlio'd ha thought he'd wake like that before he'd scarce begun to tell them anything ? She calls Tartar " Sir," and whines she'll do better with the devil next time when she gets him all along o' her lone self. She'll make him talk then ! She'll make him talk dearie — sir, she means. Bless you sir, when he first came here he'd lay like that for hours, and then when it was later, he'd begin to sing and 'd keep on singing right through the night. Tartar seems too much occupied in getting the look and smell and taste and atmosphere of the place out of EDWIN DROOD 93 his eyes and nose and mouth and mind, to pay much heed to what the woman says to him. But to her great reUef he does not appear annoyed with her or so dis- appointed as she expected him to show himself. It does not seem as if he had found his martyrdom as wasted, quite, as she supposes it to be. Giving the woman money — more than the price of the smokes he has not had, Tartar arranges to let her know when next he needs her help and nodding to her, speeds down the stairs with spirits rising with the morning and with the prospect of a busy day ahead. First he makes for his chambers in Staple Inn, there to snatch a little sleep and have a bath and shave and breakfast. After that, at ten o'clock, he will go round to Grewgious' chambers, as arranged, to confer with him and Crisparkle. On second thoughts, Tartar changes his programme slightly. Bazzard, it seems, is spjdng on them and may report the conference to Jasper. So ten o'clock finds Tartar smoking his after breakfast pipe on the seat that circles the centre tree of the front court clump watching for the Minor Canon to come in under the entrance arch from Holborn. Before his pipe is finished Cris- parkle comes briskly in. Tartar greets him and then diverts him from his plan of going at once to Grewgious' chambers and carries him up instead to his own. He does not detain him long there. Just long enough to explain about Bazzard and to arrange for the Minor Canon to go alone to the conference with Mr. Grewgious and to invite the latter, in Bazzard's hearing, to meet " an old schoolfellow of his at an early dinner at 94 THE MURDER OF Furnivals." There the real plan of action can be formulated between them without fear of spying. It is not necessary for us to follow in detail the intervening period. At Furnivals the three meet as arranged, and a rather long discussion between them produces a summary of the present position and the future plans somewhat to this effect : — All were now agreed that Edwin was dead, and that Jasper was his murderer. Clearly the motive was jealousy and love of Rosa. Mr. Grewgious disclosed the evidence he had on this point. There was Jasper's strange " God save them both." There was his white-lipped anxiety to learn whether Grewgious had been sent for to hear that the engagement was broken off. There was his recep- tion of the news of the utter needlessness of the murder for its object after he had committed it. Last and most conclusive of all there was his mad confession when making love to Rosa, Mr. Crisparkle, too, recalled Jasper's dehrious cry " What is the matter ? " " Who did it ? " when he disturbed him sleeping. Tartar added what he had been able to gather from the frag- ments overheard by the opium woman threatening danger to " Ned," and plainly disclosing Jasper's wild love for the threatened young man's sweetheart. Granted the murder, it must have been accomplished between the time of Neville's good-night to Edwin, and the time next morning when Jasper came shouting for his nephew. Mr. Crisparkle suggested that Jasper had somehow induced Edwin to go with him down to the river and there had drowned him. But Tartar had another theory. He had lately EDWIN DROOD 95 improved his acquaintance with Durdles the Stone- mason. Aided by a large bottle of spirits, he had managed to extract from him in the course of several conversations a disjointed account of his joumeyings with Jasper including in particular the unaccountable expedition on the Monday before the crime. Durdles' description was confused and blurred and puzzling to a degree, but these salient facts stood out from it. (i) That even before the murder — on this Monday — Neville was threatened by Jasper. Tartar's resum^ of what took place behind the fragment of wall of Minor Canon Comer, was supplemented by Mr. Crisparkle's recollection of what took place in front of it. Neither the Minor Canon nor Neville had any suspicion of being watched that night. (2) That Jasper showed a quite inexphcable interest in the keys that Durdles carried ; especially it would seem in the key tied up in Durdles' bundle which opened Mrs. Sapsea's tomb. (3) That Jasper had deliberately got Durdles drunk and had then left him locked up in the crypt while he himself was somewhere outside the Cathedral. This fact was not reaUsed by Durdles himself, but Tartar was sure of it. His confidence was based on a singular fact derived from Deputy — the Imp. Deputy had seen Jasper entering the crypt that Monday night, alone, less than an hour before the time he earned the enmity of the Imp by " a-histing him off his legs," and nearly choking him. Durdles too remembered being shaken in his sleep and " dropping " the crypt key. Durdles also noticed that his bundle in which he carried the Sapsea key was not tied as he himself always tied it. 96 THE MURDER OF Mr. Crisparkle, at this point, suggested an immediate search of the Sapsea tomb in the expectation of finding Edwin's body in it. But Tartar went on to explain that he had taken the hberty of borrowing Durdles' key without his knowledge and had searched the tomb himself already, but to his own intense surprise had found nothing at all unusual within it—" except," he said " a very small trace of hme left lying there." Mr. Grewgious here interposed that he was afraid that they were going to find themselves up against a most serious legal difficulty. Satisfied as they were — satisfied as any jury might be — that the boy was murdered and murdered by Jasper, yet no judge would allow a jury to convict unless some part at least of the body could be found, to prove the death. It looked to him as if in this case the body had been successfully and entirely destroyed or got rid of. Here again Mr. Tartar had clues and suggestions which he thought might help them. Mr. Grewgious was of course aware from Mr. Crisparkle of the painful disclosure that Jasper had made that morning from which it appeared that Mr. Grewgious' confidential clerk Bazzard had betrayed his employer. There could be no doubt that Bazzard was secretty communicating with Jasper about the mystery. Mr. Grewgious had not, by chance, commissioned Bazzard to do this for the sake of securing evidence had he ? No ! emphatic- ally . Mr. Grewgious had not done that. Could Mr. Grewgious throw hght at all on Jasper's refer- ence to Bazzard ? The words were — " the clue is found. The Unk. The ring. I will go get it. EDWIN DROOD 97 Now ! to-night ! It did not come back. Bazzard is certain." " Yes." Mr. Grewgious thought he knew exactly what was meant. A ring of diamonds and rubies in a gold setting which had belonged to Miss Rosa's mother was entrusted to him by Miss Rosa's father to give to Mr. Edwin, her betrothed, to be their engagement ring if they married. This ring Mr. Grewgious had handed to Edwin for that purpose in the presence of Bazzard. When handing the ring to him Mr. Grewgious had thought it right to charge Edwin very solemnly that if anything were at all amiss between him and Miss Rosa instead of giving the ring to her, he should bring it back to Mr. Grewgious. Bazzard, Mr. Grewgious beheved, was sleeping while this solemn injunction to bring the ring back was laid upon Edwin, but the clerk had wakened immediately afterwards and at Mr. Grew- gious' request had formally witnessed the transaction. Mr. Grewgious had since ascertained that the ring had not been given to Miss Rosa or even mentioned to her ; nor had it been returned to Mr. Grewgious. Mr. Tartar was clear, after what Mr. Grewgious had told them, that Bazzard had revealed to Jasper about the ring, its gift to Edwin and its non-return. Mr. Crisparkle now asked how it was that the ring was not with the watch and pin which he had found at Cloisterham Weir, and what interpretation could be put upon the rest of Jasper's ravings ? With regard to the Weir, Tartar put a few questions to Mr. Crisparkle which at once brought out that he frequently visited the Weir for bathing. This made it not unreasonable to 98 THE MURDER OF suppose that the jewellery had been left there by Jasper for the express purpose of its being found by the Minor Canon. The ring, on the other hand was, it seemed, unknown to Jasper and might not have been discovered by him when he took the watch and pin from the body. Had Mr. Grewgious communicated the trust on which he held the ring to Jasper ? No. It was mentioned in the will of Mr. Bud, but so far as Mr. Grewgious was aware, Jasper had never seen this will. An attested copy of it had been sent to Rosa, and another to Edwin, but none to Jasper. " Then," said Mr. Tartar " it seems that Jasper knew of the rest of the jewellery and removed it, but did not know of this ring till yesterday. "It must still lie there." What can this mean except that the ring must still lie where the body was left ? If that be so Jasper intends to visit the spot at once — to-night it may be — to secure the ring. He must be followed. I will follow him. Mr. Tartar then appealed to the lawyer to know whether, supposing Jasper caught in the act of bearing away a ring which Mr. Grewgious could identify as the ring he had given to the lad who had so mysteriously disappeared and bearing it away at night from a place which was found to contain some trace of human remains these facts coupled with circumstantial evidence of guilt, of motive and of opportunity might not be sufficient to overcome the legal difficulty arising from the absence of the body of the vanished lad ? Would not the case be allowed to go to a jury if these facts could be proved ? *' Yes," Mr. Grewgious thought in those circumstances that the Judge might not feel bound to direct acquittal. EDWIN DROOD 99 He was not certain but he thought so. In the circumstances of this case the ring would form very strong evidence of identity. Mr. Crisparkle next called attention to those other words which Jasper used. Who was " the lawful prey ? " Mr. Grewgious gravely feared it must mean Neville. It looked to him as if Jasper hoped to use the ring to assist him in bringing a charge of murder against Neville. Mr. Tartar had indeed rendered them a service by adventuring himself into this fearful den and learning what he had told them. Tartar beheves that the whole of Jasper's raving is now understood except the last ejaculation " Father and Son." There seems to be no context to throw Ught on that. Besides he cannot be quite positive that he heard the words aright. His movement of surprise on hearing Bazzard named had interrupted Jasper. A pity that. Otherwise he might have heard something really conclusive. However, they must act on the materials they had at present and hope that their inferences are the right ones. It would assist Mr. Tartar to make his own plans if he might be told those of the others for to-night and to-morrow ? By all means. The Minor Canon travels down to Rochester this afternoon with Miss Landless and Miss Twinkleton who has been chaperoning Miss Rosa in London as Mr. Tartar no doubt knows. And Mr. Landless and Miss Bud ? asks Tartar. Neville will remain in his chambers here and Miss Bud is to spend the next few days at Fumivals while arrangements are being concluded for her future residence by Mr. Grewgious. " I see," says 100 THE MURDER OF Mr. Tartar. " Well, I was proposing to sail my yacht to Gravesend this afternoon, as the wind serves, and then to take a coach and chaise to Rochester. Would it not be well if Mr. Landless came with me ? The sea air will do him no harm, and with his local knowledge and having been the last person to see young Drood alive he may be able to give me great assistance in Rochester. He need not fear recognition for it will be quite dark by the time we arrive, and he, Lobley and I will go straight to my rooms where he will meet no one else." Mr. Crisparkle undertakes to make this suggestion to NeviUe, but doubts if he will feel incHned to fall in with it as he is very loth to be seen in Rochester after what has happened. Mr. Grewgious remarks that he thinks it Landlesses' duty to go if there is any possibility of his being of assistance to Mr. Tartar by going. Before the luncheon party breaks up it is arranged that Mr. Crisparkle shall at once go openly to visit Neville while Mr. Tartar, after a short interval, shall return to his own chambers and then join Mr. Crisparkle and the Landlesses by climbing out of his own window and in at theirs. The only task of Mr. Grewgious for the present will be to arrange for Rosa's future and to keep a watch on Bazzard. The scheme is carried out. The whole story is laid before Helena and Neville and the plans made clear to them. Neville surprises the Minor Canon by seeming almost glad to leave Staple Inn for a while in spite of Rosa being at Furnivals. He seems depressed and dispirited but as Tartar's story proceeds, grows EDWIN DROOD loi furious against Jasper and more than once gives way to that motion of clenching his right hand which Mr. Crisparkle dishkes so much. As a concession to Neville's not unnatural dread of being seen and recognised in Rochester, Tartar undertakes to supply a disguise for him and it is arranged that Helena shall take down with her an outfit of her brother's usual clothing. Rosa, it is decided need not be told the plans at present. They hope to have something more definite to tell her by to-morrow. Having now completed our summary of the dawn's disclosures, and the day's discussions, we will adjourn the scene from Staple Inn to Rochester, where all the party now in Neville's room are to meet again before the next day dawns. EPISODE X. HELENA'S PART. 104 THE MURDER OF EPISODE X. HELENA'S PART. AN unusually handsome lithe young fellow and an unusually handsome lithe girl ; much alike ; both very dark and very rich in colour ; she of almost the gypsy type ; something untamed about them both ; a certain air upon them of hunter and huntress ; yet withal a certain air of being the objects of the chase rather than the followers. Slender, supple, quick of eye and limb ; half shy, half defiant ; fierce of look, an indefinable kind of pause coming and going on their whole expression, both of face and form, which might be equally likened to the pause before a crouch or a bound. The rough mental notes made in the first five minutes of his acquaintance with them by Mr. Crisparkle would have read thus verbatim. Neville's own short history of himself and his sister was as follows : " We come (my sister and I), from Ceylon. We are twin children. Our mother died there when we were Httle. We lived with a stepfather and have had a wretched existence. He was a miserly wretch who grudged us food to eat and clothes to wear and a cruel brute who beat my sister more than once or twice. My sister would have let him tear her to pieces before she would have let him believe that he could make her shed a tear. Nothing in our misery ever subdued her, though it often cowed me. When we ran away from it (we ran EDWIN DROOD y 105 away four times in six years to be soon brought back and cruelly punished), the flight was always of her planning and leading. Each time she dressed as a boy and showed the bearing of a man. I remember when I lost the pocket-knife with which she was to have cut her hair short how desperately she tried to tear it out or bite it off.'' A girl of remarkable character this Helena. True twin to her brother but without his imperfections and weaknesses of character. Rapid of thought and action it is she, first, who comes to Rosa's rescue at the piano. Quick of eye she alone first fathomed Jasper's secret love for Rosa and Rosa's fear and detes- tation of him. Bold of speech she endorses Edwin's conventional remark that Rosa's music master has made her afraid of him and her endorsement gives it meaning. Bolder still she says outright that she herself would not fear Jasper under any circumstances. How little then she thought under what circumstances of terror she was to prove her courageous fearlessness of him ! But there was a slumbering gleam of fire in the intense dark eyes that night when in the privacy of their own room she took the frightened Rosa under her strong protection. Let whomsoever it might concern look well to it ! Jasper has cause to be apprehensive of fierce Helena, not alone as protectress of Rosa, but also as protectress and avenger of her brother. She notices what others do not see." Oh, Mr. Crisparkle," she asks " would you have Neville throw himself at young Drood's feet or at Mr. Jasper's, who maligns him every day ? " After the disappearance, Jasper shews that he is, in truth, a trifle apprehensive of Helena by his question to Grewgious io6 THE MURDER OF " Have you seen " — not Neville, but — " his sister ? " to learn in answer that she is defiant of all suspicion and has unbounded faith in her brother. Her sustained confidence in Neville and the truth is such that after Neville himself is cowed and broken by the better sort of people averting their eyes and silently giving him too much room to pass when he meets them in the streets of Rochester, Helena passes along those self same streets boldly and as high in the general respect as any one who treads them. She proves herself a truly brave woman whom nothing can subdue. Nothing ! To meet a man whom you know to be a murderer and to meet him unarmed and alone requires great courage. To meet him at night more courage. But to meet him alone, unarmed, at dead of night, in the tomb of his murdered victim and to be yourself dressed hke the victim is to meet him under circumstances bound (one would think), to be terrifying to anyone — let alone an unprotected girl. Under these circumstances of terror Helena meets Jasper and is undaunted. She stands alone in the tomb awaiting him. Her role is Edwdn Drood. Wearing her brother's clothes she hopes in the darkness of the tomb to seem^ to Jasper a second Edwin. What can have brought this pair of enemies at this strange hour in this strange guise to this strange place ? What is Jasper seeking here ? Why does Helena await him thus ? " Father and Son." Those words had baffled Tartar and the rest. Turning them over and over in her mind as she travelled down to Rochester, Helena EDWIN DROOD 107 had hit upon their meaning. Edwin was the son. Had Edwin's parents long been dead before his disappearance, she asks the Minor Canon ? Mr. Crisparkle answered that he had never known Edwin's mother. His father died some years before him and was buried at Rochester. " Father and son together ! " Helena sees it in a flash ! Her first inclination is to tell the Minor Canon her sus- picions and to have the grave of the elder Drood ex- amined. But then it occurs to her that even if they do discover the body of Edwin in that tomb and the ring as well, still they will have no proof that Jasper was the murderer. The wretch may even maintain his threat to Neville. Should Jasper be caught there visiting the spot might he not (in a Court of Law) evade the inference that would hang him ? Suppose he boldly asserted that he came there seeking evidence — as a detective ? It is well known that he pretends to be tracking down the murderer. Nothing but a full confession, Helena thinks, will really hang him or save her brother. Led by her reasoning to this difficult conclusion, Helena is non- plussed at first. At last she has it ! Supernatural dread may extort from the villain's conscience a con- fession. In her troubled childhood, more than once, Helena has dressed herself in her brother's clothing. She will do so again and in the darkness of the tomb, and the guiltiness of Jasper's conscience, she will seem to him like the murdered Edwin. The plan once formed, nothing will turn Helena from it. She knows full well, however, that on no account would the Minor Canon allow it, therefore, saying nothing to him of her resolve, she acts alone and secretly. EPISODE XL FLIGHT AND PURSUIT. no THE MURDER OF EPISODE XL FLIGHT AND PURSUIT. MIDNIGHT is echoing under Jasper's vaulted gateway. The postern door opens. Cau- tiously Jasper himself comes out. He glances round him suspiciously, but all is silent in the High Street and the Cathedral Precincts are empty. Has- tening to the churchyard with quick but stealthy tread, he unlocks the Drood sarcophagus, and, once within it, shuts the door and lights his lantern. Stepping through an unlocked inner door holding the lantern high above his head, its feeble rays fall sharply on the slim and youthful figure of a man. This can't be real ! Jasper must be dreaming. Edwin come to life ! Is it a ghost that stands before him motionless and silent its left hand in the breast of the long top coat as if seeking some object in the pocket ? A ghost — pshaw ! A mental fancy. Suddenly the hand shoots out holding in its palm a ring ! The action betrays the figure and Jasper now knows it for no fancy and no ghost. Glaring along the feeble candle rays he thinks he knows the face and figure — yes and the clothing ! Neville Landless ! Jasper your chance is come. Your enemy is deUvered into the grip of your strong fingers. The lamp is shattered in the first fierce onset, and the struggle goes on in darkness and in silence save for the gasps for breath and cracking joints and shuffling feet. The EDWIN DROOD iii outcome of it all is obvious from the start. With the last choking breath a feeble cry escapes the victim. A female cry, the voice of a woman ! Relaxing, too late, his iron grip Jasper learns the truth. His second victim is a woman. Neville lives still to be the avenger of his murdered sister. The limp body of the murdered girl collapses to the floor while Jasper dazed and reeling gropes in the darkness for the outer door and stumbles forth from the tomb into the night air — straight into the arms of Neville Landless. This new situation requires a word of explanation. When Jasper issued from his gatehouse door at mid- night, and looked around suspiciously for watchers, he little thought how near they were to him. No light shone through the ground floor window of Mr. Dat- chery's lodging, but there he sat behind the darkened window still guarding the archway door hke a cat guards mousehole. With him are Landless and Lobley, silently awaiting his signal. The signal is given as soon as Jasper has gone on towards the Cathedral, and the three con- spirators come out and follow him. Triumphant they mark him select and enter the Drood sarcophagus and close the door. Unknown to one another, the Precincts were alive that night with many hiding figures. We have seen Helena inside the tomb awaiting Jasper. Behind the North door of the crypt Crisparkle and Durdles lie in hiding. The Imp too, we may be sure, is lurking somewhere near. But to return to the three con- spirators awaiting Jasper's exit from the tomb, all unsus- pecting of the tragic struggle going on within it. They hope to arrest him with the ring upon him issuing from 112 THE MURDER OF the unsuspected hiding place of Edwin's body. They anticipate a stealthy hurried exit. Instead of which Jasper bursts upon them heedless of anything, and in a state approaching frenzy. As Neville, who is nearest, seizes him, he does not struggle, but shouts aloud " her brother," in a voice of terror. " She is dead, dead, dead. In there," . . . and points. Without a syllable in answer, Neville loosing Jasper hurries within the open tomb. Datchery follows him and Lobley. Jasper makes no move, attempts no escape but does not enter. They carry Helena forth and lay her body down outside. Then with a dire and bitter cry for vengence Neville springs at Jasper who turns and flees, his undirected steps carrying him among the graves towards the Cathedral. Brought forth by the cry, Durdles and Crisparkle issue from the crypt and join in the pursuit of Jasper. Doubling back Jasper darts in at the crypt door left open and up the Great Tower's winding stair- case. Up and up the twisting stairs ^ two steps at a time close after Jasper comes Neville ; then Datchery, Lobley, Crisparkle 2 and heavy Durdles last. Anon they turn into narrower and steeper staircases and the night air begins to blow upon them and frightened rooks fly out and wheel around. When they gain the open, 1 up the Twisting Stairs. See the note upon the cover. {Appendix V). 2 Datchery, Lobley, Crisparkle. This is my reading of the cover. The top figure has Datchery's wig and Tartar's agility ; the bottom one has clothes of a clerical cut ; the centre one has a lot of hair and ill- suits any of the better-known characters ; there is nothing inconsis- tent, however, with his being " the dead image of the sun in old wood- cuts, his hair and whiskers answering for rays all round him," or " a jolly favoured man with tawny hair and whiskers." EDWIN DROOD 113 top Neville the hunter is hard on Jasper. As stag at bay turns on the hounds, Jasper turns on Neville. The roles are now reversed, and the pursued hunts his pursuer round the narrow passage at the Tower top ; but not for long. Exhausted, Neville stumbles, a push from Jasper and — look down, look down, you see what lies at the bottom there ! The appalling death yell rings in the ears of the fellow huntsmen as they too reach the fresh night air. Was it Jasper ? Fear tells their hearts it was not. Left alone upon the tower top, the murderer is nerved by desperation to a feat else never attempted. No less than to seek escape by climbing down the tower side to gain the leads over the cathedral roofing. Tartar gains the open top only to find it empty. Lobley next joins him there, then Crisparkle. The rim of moon that is yet to come, has not risen. They can make out nothing. All three listen. Yes ! The scrambling sounds, the labouring breath, the falling pieces, must mean that. Someone is climbing in the darkness down the tower face. Appalled they look towards one another. The cry was Neville's. This scrambling maniac is a triple murderer. Crisparkle is prostrated by the tragedies. Tartar, accustomed to emergencies takes command. Lobley he despatches for two bell-ropes from the belfry. Durdles he sends back to the ground to find the body and collect assistance ; some to watch the tower base, others to join them at the top. Lobley returning with the ropes, the Minor Canon regains his self command and assists the two to fasten the ^opes to a stanchion which Tartar has found there. Tartar 114 THE MURDER OF then prepares to make the descent. He and Lobley test the ropes and then, whilst Crisparkle assists above, the pair shde down ^ them. Crisparkle himself follows the sailors when other help has reached him on the tower top. Not to prolong the agony, Jasper between them all is cornered and encircled and brought to solid ground a handcuffed prisoner. Helena, meanwhile, they have carried to Minor Canon Corner, and to the joyful sur- prise of all she is found to be still living. The China Shepherdess setting aside the keen anxiety for " her Sept," she feels, soothingly tends Helena with heated blankets and with cordials from the wondrous closet.^ Slowly her persistent tending is rewarded with signs of returning life and consciousness in the patient. Helena returns to life. Poor Neville's crushed remains are carried to the still open tomb — as to a mortuary — there to await the morning. No trace of Edwin has been found within. So ends the ■ tragic night with the mystery still unsolved. For where is Edwin ? 3 Slide Down. This portion about the Tower top is not inserted for the mere sake of melodrama. There is more than one hint of some such conclusion. " Landless who was himself, I think, to have perished in assisting Tartar to unmask and seize the murderer." Forster, Life, etc. Compare also the climbing scenes at Neville's chambers and the scattered references to the agihty of the Minor Canon. 4 The Wondevous Closet. This was a personal recollection of Charles Dickens himself. The closet entry in the manuscript reads : — " The closet, I remem.ber, there as a child, " not " remember there is a child." 9 EDWIN DROOD 115 THE MANUSCRIPT ENDS. ii6 THE MURDER OF THE MANUSCRIPT ENDS. WHAT more have I to tell ? That I have been tried for my crimes, found guilty and sentenced. That I have not the courage to anticipate my doom or to bear up manfully against it. That I have no compassion, no consolation, no hope, no friend. That I am alone in this stone dungeon with my evil spirit, and that I die to-morrow. To-morrow ? The dawn has broken. I die to-da3^ Postscript in Another Hand. THIS book of death was found in the condemned cell of Maidstone Gaol, in 1844, addressed simply "To Rosa." Remaining unclaimed, it found its way at last into the Gaol Museum of ghastly relics. Had the writer not chanced upon it there, the story might have remained unread until the Day on which all things secret shall be revealed. On a small stone slab in the prison cemetery is cut " JOHN JASPER, 1843." It happens that the writer knew some of the persons mentioned in the murderer's tale (all long since dead), and so can add a fact or two to round their history off. The Mystery was solved by means of Durdles' curious gift (or skill as he preferred to call it) of sounding sepulchres. His sounding of the elder Drood's sarco- phagus led to the discovery of lime within the cavity of which he had spoken to Jasper. When this was EDWIN DROOD 117 opened up, a ring — a rose of diamonds and rubies delicately set in gold — flashed brightly back the rays of lantern light. The lasting beauty of those stones was almost cruel. The lime was analysed, and mixed with it was found sufficient trace of mortal remains of human origin to permit the jury at the trial to " find " a body. Nay, more — to find the body of Edwin Drood, foully murdered by the prisoner in the dock, John Jasper. Among the mighty store of wonderful chains that are for ever forging day and night in the vast ironworks of time and circumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that small conclusion (which Edwin reached to let the jewels lie unspoken of in his breast), which was riveted to the foundations of heaven and earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold and drag. That chain, riveted by the ring to the earth's foundations, and linked by eternal justice to the heavens, held Jasper fast and dragged him to the gallows. But for that small conclusion Jasper might not have been convicted even of Neville's murder, which might have been an accident, for no one saw him given the fatal push. Helena did not die. Thanks (as the China Shep- herdess to her dying day declared), to the magic of the marvellous closet and its cordials she soon, and quite recovered. Indeed she lived to call the Minor Canon (then the Dean) " her " Sept and the China Shepherdess " Mamma." Rosa never received a third proposal. Man proposes but . . . Rosa was disposed of to Lieutenant Tartar on the day when, crossing the wide street of Holborn, on the sailor's arm, and happening to raise ii8 THE MURDER OF her eyes to his far-seeing blue ones looking, she thought, as if they had been used to watch danger afar off, and to watch it without flinching drawing nearer and nearer, her dark eyes saw with sudden embarrass- ment, that he too seemed to be thinking something about them. This a little confused Rosebud, and may account for her never afterwards quite knowing how, formally, he became the Lord High Admiral, and she became His Lady, the First Fairy of the Sea. The ring he put upon her finger was a plain gold circle. The tragic ring of dia- monds and rubies returned undimmed to Mr. Grewgious' keeping. Who has it now, I wonder ? EDWIN DROOD 119 APPENDICES. 120 THE MURDER OF APPENDIX I. EXTRINSIC EVIDENCE. We know from Charles Dickens himself, from his son, and from his biographer, that Jasper did murder Edwin Drood. We know from his illustrator how he murdered him. (i) Dickens' Manuscript Notes. In his own handwriting, and for his own eye alone, Dickens wrote {a) " Murder very far oS," and {b) " Lay the ground for the manner of the murder to come out at last." (2) " Mr. Charles Dickens informed me . . . that Edwin Drood was dead. His (Mr. Dickens') father told him so himself." W. R. Hughes : A Week's Tramp in Dickens Land. (3) "The story . . was to be that of the miirder of a nephew by his uncle ; discovery by the murderer of the utter needlessness of the murder for its object was to follow hard upon commission of the deed." Forster : Life of Charles Dickens. (4) We know from Sir Luke Fildes exactly how Jasper murdered Edwin. " I must have the double necktie ! It is necessary, for Jasper strangles Edwin Drood with it." This was the answer Dickens gave when his attention was called to the change he had made in Jasper's dress from a little black tie once round the neck to a large black scarf of strong close woven silk, slung loosely round it. (See the artist's very important and interesting letter to The Times on this subject in October, 1905). APPENDIX II. THE DATE OF THE STORY. The murder took place precisely at midnight, 24-25 December, 1842. The reader is no doubt astonished at this confident assertion. So was the author to discover the evidence on which he bases it. Speaking approximately, the book itself proves the disappearance to have been on a Christmas Eve which was a Saturday. If any precise year was intended, therefore, it must have been one in which Christmas Day fell upon a Sunday. We can narrow the choice of year still further. In those days there was no railway to Cloisterham, and Mr. Sapsea said there never would be. Some remote fragment of main line to somewhere else, there was. Now Christmas fell upon a Sunday in 1836, in 1842 and in 1853. In 1836 no remote fragment of line to EDWIN DROOD 121 anywhere else approached near Rochester.. .By 1853 the line to Strood was built. The line to Strood cannot have been the " fragment " referred to. It was not remote. It was not a fragment of main line to anywhere else. It could not have so unsettled Rochester traffic that the traffic deserting the high road, came sneaking in from an unprece- dented part of the country by a back stable way. If any precise year was intended therefore, it can only have been 1842. But was it ? In the year of the book (if it had a year), no neighbouring archi- tecture of lofty proportions had arisen to overshadow Staple Inn. The Westering sun bestowed bright glances on it and the South-west wind blew into it unimpeded. By 1853, this was no longer so. The lofty building which is now the Patent Office standing in what was once the garden of the Inn was planned in 1843, and built soon after. Later the Birkbeck Buildings shut out the Western sun. Six months or so after the murder, Mr. Crisparkle and Neville dined together in London and then parted at the yet unfinished and un- developed railway station ; Mr. Crisparkle to get home to Rochester. The British Almanac for the previous year, 1842, contains this entry : " The great station at London Bridge, for the joint use of the Brighton, South Eastern and Croydon companies, and the works connected with it, are in rapid progress, but any description of them must be deferred until their completion." Finally. By 1842, a fragment of the Main Line to Maidstone had been completed and was in use as far as a station then called " Maid- stone Road," which will be seen from the map to be the point on that line nearest to Rochester. " I lost ye last, where that omnibus you got into nigh your journey's end phed betwixt the station and the place," the opium woman apostrophises Jasper. Maidstone Road was " the station," and Rochester " the place." The omnibus containing Jasper came sneaking in to Rochester from this unprecedented part of the country (the new railway station) by a back stable way which was then Crow or Crau Lane, but is now the Maidstone Road. The year 1842, then, is a probable year ; it is the only possible year ; and it is a year which accords in a quite remarkable fashion with a number of hints contained in the book. In fact the assertion is justified that 1842 was the year intended by Dickens. APPENDIX III. THE DATCHERY ASSUMPTION. Datchery, like Mr. Nadgett the investigator in " Martin Chuzzle- wit," is " a man of mystery." Not that there is any doubt about his occupation. The idle man is busy watching Jasper. The buffer of an easy temper is playing the detective. His reason for this busy 122 THE MURDER OF idleness is what requires an explanation — that, and who he is himself. He might be Bazzard, but in character he is that gloomy self-centred clerk's antithesis. He might be Edwin were not Edwin dead. He might be Helena, were she not a woman. He may be quite a stranger to the story. But the author is convinced that Datchery is Tartar. If Datchery is not Tartar, we have perforce, another mystery with which to battle. Why did Tartar — who was in love with Rosa, and with whom Rosa was in love, and who was to marry Rosa, and whose chambers were within ten minutes' walk of Rosa's lodgings, and who was daily and hourly anticipated there by Rosa — never call on Rosa at the Billickin's ? If Tartar is not Datchery, again, why is there nothing inconsistent in the personal descriptions of the two men ? Why in drawing one of them is it possible to describe the pair ? Why are their tastes odd and identical ? Why do these two characters employ closely similar phrases of polite apology ten times and all the other characters that Dickens drew not even once ? In a word why are their personalities so similar that a critic who (for other reasons) believed their identification to be impossible yet could write " Datchery's speech and bearing have a distinct individuahty resembling that of no other person in the story except Tartar ? " The Tartar theory has had one, and only one, serious objection brought against it. That objection is the sequence of the chapters. Chapter XVII. Tartar introduces himself to Landless and to us. Datchery appears at Cloisterham. Jasper proposes to Rosa who faints in going upstairs. Rosa flees to Staple Inn and confides in Mr. Grewgious. Rosa and Tartar meet for the first time and fall in love. The explanation of the difficulty seems to be that Dickens inten- tionally departed from strict chronology in the marshaUing of his Chapters. He jumps from place to place and not from time to time. Authors often do. Chronologically everything hinges on the opening words of the Chapter that introduces Datchery to Cloisterham. " At about this time a stranger appeared in Cloisterham." At about what time ? When the words were written the Chapter followed Rosa's fainting fit. They were not altered when the Chapter (for some reason possibly connected with the monthly issues) was put earher. At about the time of Rosa's fainting, then, Datchery appeared in Rochester. Why not ? Rosa fainted on Monday, July 3rd. On Tuesday, she rnet Tartar. On Wednesday, he vanished from the story as London-Tartar, and her gritty stage began. On this same Chapter XVIII, Chapter XIX. Chapter XX. Chapter XXI. EDWIN DROOD 123 Wednesday, he became the man of mystery at Rochester. Does not an event on Wednesday occur " at about the time " of one on Monday ? For a somewhat more detailed presentation of " The Case for Tartar " the author refers the reader to the pages of The Dickensian. In them will be found articles in January 1906, by Mr. G. F. Gadd, and in October, 1919, by the present author. APPENDIX IV. DURDLES^ YARD. So far as the author's researches have extended, no one yet has identified the site of Durdles' house. Durdles, it will be remembered, was a stonemason, chiefly in the gravestone, tomb, and monument way, who lived in a little antiquated hole of a house that was never finished, and was supposed to be built so far of stones stolen from the City wall. To this abode there was an approach ankle deep in stone chips, and resembling a petrified grove of tomb stones, urns, draperies and broken columns in all stages of sculp- ture. By the yard gate there lay, on the night of the unaccountable expedition, a mound of quick-lime, " Quick enough to eat your boots, with a little handy stirring, quick enough to eat your bones." Now, according to Forster, " by means of a gold ring which had resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which he had thrown the body, not only the person murdered was to be identified, but the locality of the crime, and the man who had committed it." How, then, came the lime from Durdles' Yard into the place of sepulture ? In Procter's opinion, " either then, while Durdles slept " (in the crypt on the night of the unaccountable expedition) " or on the night of the murder, Jasper procured some of this quick-lime and put it in Mrs. Sapsea's tomb." This opinion the present author shares. By the majority, of recent students of the Mystery, however, this hypothesis has been scouted on the grounds thus forcefully stated by Professor Henry Jackson in his invaluable study " About Edwin Drood." " I demur altogether to the hypothesis which Mr. Lang shares with Mr. Procter, that Jasper brought quick-lime in a wheel barrow from one end of Cloisterham to the other. Anyone who is acquainted with Rochester will perceive that the route through the Monk's Vineyard would have dangers as great as those of the route along the High Street though no doubt of a different kind." The author recalls the tale of a logic lecturer at an Oxford College, who (by way of illustrating the many means of escape from a logical dilemma), notionally blocked the doors and windows of the Hall in which he was lecturing with armed murderers, and then lighted an 124 THE MURDER OF inextinguishable fire within. Having convinced his audience that he had left himself no means of escape, he next touched a secret spring in the oak panneliing behind him and concluded his lecture by dis- appearing from the room. It is even so with the dilemma with which Dickens has puzzled Professor Jackson and the rest. From the graveyard there are but two orthodox approaches to Durdles' hole-in-the-wall — the one via the Vines, the other through the High Street. Both routes are im- possible for the secret carriage of quick-lime. But a third and hidden route offers every facility. For in truth Durdles' unfinished house which actually abuts on the Precincts, may be described in a sense as " over-looking the churchyard." Dickens so described it himself in his manuscript, but deleted the description before printing the number, perhaps from the fear that it gave too much away at that stage. A glance at the plan of Rochester will shew the route taken by Jasper in carrying the lime to the grave which he intended for Edwin's occupation. The way is short, secret and easy, and leads through that " stillest part which the Cathedral overshadows," to which Jasper paid such unaccountable attention. Furthermore the lime explains why it was necessary for Jasper to arrange that Durdles should be away from home on that night, and also why he apprised the Dean (whose entrance drive he would have to use) of his intention to engage in these nocturnal prowlings. The whole device is redolent of the genius of simplicity. The author places Durdles' Yard next to what is called " the Old Deanery." There used to be a builder's yard here, and in a painting in the Nun's house, it is indicated as such. The Old Deanery, which is well worth a visit for its own sake, is nowll bookshop, and appears to be in the hands of a proprietor who takes a genuine interest in its architec- ture and associations. The entrance gate to the yard opens out on to the High Street, as that of Durdles' yard must have done. For when Jasper and he, on their way back via the Vines, came under the victorious fire of Deputy who was standing outside the Tra,vellers' Twopenny, Jasper " turns the corner into safety and takes Jasper home." This corner was the junction of Crau Lane, with the High Street and after Durdles had stumbled up his stony yard to bed, Jasper returned to his Gatehouse "by another way," which was clearly the High Street also. APPENDIX V. THE COVER. In a suggestive article in The Dickensian for January, Mr. Willoughby Matchett lays it down that " the true explanation of the cover lies less in the actual — that bee in the bonnet of all other solvers — than in the emblematical." Is Mr. Matchett right in this ? Are the EDWIN DROOD 125 vignettes on the cover of purely emblematical significance or were they actual scenes in the story to be written ? Mr. Matchett adds " Actual scenes were not the Dickens' custom." But in this he is wrong. Amongst much emblematical matter woven into the decorative covers of Dickens' earlier books, several actual scenes are found. The reader can verify this statement by consulting Mr. Matz Memorial Edition of Forster's " Life of Charles Dickens." The covers are most con- veniently collected there. The truth is that the Drood cover is both emblematical and actual. The author's reading of it is as follows : — Of the corner pieces, the top two are pure emblems ; the bottom pair are characters in the story — a trifle idealized perhaps. At the top, the spirit of happiness and roses is opposed by the sinister fury with a dagger. At the bottom, while the Princess Puffer smokes her pipe in one corner, Jack-Chinaman-t'other-side-the-court enjoys his in the other. On its sinister side, the cover is thorny and male ; on its dexter side it is rosy and predominantly female. Centrally, beneath the title, is Durdles dinner bundle surmounted by crossed key and spade. The rest of the cover is occupied by actual scenes of which there are five. (i) In the Nave of the Cathedral coming out from service with the choir, Jasper scrutinizes Rosa and Edwin walking arm-in-arm not over- lovingly. Jasper's gaze is fixed on Rosa who looks away from him. (2) A girl is studying a placard headed " LOST." The author does not understand this scene, unless it is Rosa looking at one of Jasper's advertisements of Edwin's disappearance. (3) A kneehng figure with moustache kisses the hand of a girl in a garden ; she, meanwhile, toys with a streamer from her hat in apparent embarrassment or boredom. This is Neville proposing to Rosa in the garden of Staple Inn. {4) A dark place in which a door has just been opened, admitting Jasper holding on high a lantern. In the midst stands a statuesque figure dressed in a man's hat and a long coat and bearing some resem- blance to the picture of Edwin higher on the cover. Jasper seeking the ring finds Helena awaiting him there, in the tomb, dressed to resemble Edwin in Neville's garb. (5) Three figures chmb a winding staircase two steps at a time pointing upwards as they go. They are Crisparkle, Lobley and Datchery (Tartar), pursuing Jasper up the staircase of the Tower. :: :: DAINTY GIFT BOOKS :: :: THE CHARLES DICKENS XMAS BOOKLETS Illustrated in colour and black and white By DORIS JNI. PALMER. F'cap, 8vo, 1/6 net. A unique series of booklets, eminently suitable as substitutes for Xmas Cards, of the less famiUar short stories by CHARLES DICKENS. 1. The Seven Poor Travellers. 2. A Christmas Tree, and What Christmas is as we grow older, 3. Holiday Romance. 4. A Child's Dream of a Star, and Holly Tree. THE CHARLES DICKENS CALENDAR A quotation from the Works of Charles Dickens for every day in the year, compiled by B. W. MATZ, Editor of " The Dickensian." Dainty decorative cover and portrait of Charles Dickens. F'cap, 8vo, 2/- net. CECIL PALMER, Oakley House, 14/18 Bloomsbury Street, LONDON, W.C.I. 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