From "Papers of the Manchester Literary Club", Vol. XXXI, 1905

Ever since the far-off days when mankind set itself to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, the pursuit of mystery has proved its almost irresistible power to allure, to absorb. No matter that the path is dark, the labyrinthine passages bewildering; no matter that mystery begets mystery, and that the offspring, too, must be tracked down lest the final state of the wayfarer be worse than that of his setting forth. The black-hooded figure gliding onward like the ghost of Christmas yet to come, must be pursued at all hazards, even though scarcely the fringe of that sable mantle comes within the fevered grasp of the follower.

Among other literary enigmas, the "Mystery of Edwin Drood" stands prominent as a peculiarly baffling example. Mr. Montague Tigg, discoursing on the riddle of life, was of opinion that, like the celebrated conundrum, "Why's a man in jail like a man out of jail," there's no answer to it. So think many readers of "Edwin Drood," with regard to the Mystery. Dickens, they say, carefully guarded the secret in his life-time, and it must rest with him in the grave. Other admirers of Boz view the matter differently. A considerable section assert that the mystery bubble was pricked by John Forster in the well-known biography.

Still another class, believing that the author changed his plans, aver that the solution is only to be found by a diligent perusal of the incomplete novel itself, and each student is firmly of opinion that the particular solution he favours is fully confirmed by this internal evidence. That the secret is to be discovered within the pages of the work, is an axiom adopted by all the writers whose efforts it will now be our task to pass in review; but the diversity of results arrived at will at once convince the reader that Dickens has hidden the key most cunningly.

No sooner had the public rallied from the first shock of the novelist's death, than rumours were spread abroad that his novel was to be concluded by some other hand. The names of Wilkie Collins and the younger Charles Dickens were freely bandied about in this connection, both as sole authors and as collaborators, and these apparently unsubstantial rumours at length grew so persistent that the publishers of the novelist, Messrs. Chapman and Hall, felt called upon to make a public denial.

Through the medium of The Times they informed all and sundry that the three numbers of "Edwin Drood" still in hand would be published in due course, and that the fragment would so remain. "No other writer," they added, "could be permitted by us to complete the work which Mr. Dickens left." The same firm, thirty years later, made a similar statement in a pamphlet, published by themselves, entitled "Charles Dickens, some notes on his life and writings." Where there is smoke we look to find a fire, and that there was some foundation for these obstinate reports in 1871 will hereafter be made clear.

Apart from the novel itself, Dickens left surprisingly little material for the remaining links of the chain he had partly constructed. "Nothing," says John Forster, the biographer, in his exhaustive work, "had been written of the main parts of the design excepting what is found in the published numbers. There was no hint or preparation for the sequel in any notes of stray chapters in advance." But for one detached MS., discovered by accident, all would have been a blank. This cramped, interlined and blotted piece of writing proved to be a scene in which Sapsea, the pompous auctioneer, is introduced, as founder of a club (the "Eight Club"), amongst a small group of new characters. The great man is pictured as indignantly resenting the condemnation of a certain obsequious individual, newly arrived in Cloisterham, who has pretended to mistake the inflated Sapsea for a dignitary of the Church. It will be remembered that Mr. Datchery, the mysterious stranger of the novel, also pays exaggerated deference to the auctioneer, and it therefore bears somewhat upon the solution of the mystery to note what is said in the stray fragment concerning Mr. Poker,' the flatterer, for that character is, very evidently, a study for Datchery himself.

It is instructive also to keep in mind the correspondence of Dickens concerning his last work. The first idea of the novelist involved a boy and girl betrothal, such as took shape in the manner well known, but otherwise that idea bears no resemblance to the final development placed before the public.

"I laid aside the fancy I told you of," writes Dickens to Foster, in August, 1869, "and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work."

Forster tells us that he learnt the story immediately afterward; that it was to deal with the murder of a nephew by his uncle, and that an original feature was to be the review of the murderer's career, by himself, at the close of . the book. Hard upon the crime was to follow the discovery that the deed was needless for its object, and all disclosure of the murder was to be baffled till near the end, when, by means of a gold ring, which, had resisted the action of the lime into which the body had been thrown, victim, criminal and the locality of the crime were all to be identified.

So far as it goes, this explanation of Dickens's intentions regarding the story of Edwin Drood may well be the correct one, though some critics assume a change of plan to fit their theories. Certainly this plot conforms fully to the published part of the story, wherein due preparation is made for the catastrophe referred to, as witness the disappearance, the destructive lime, and the incriminating ring, not to mention the revelation made to Jasper by Mr. Grewgious, that Edwin Drood had never really loved Rosa, a revelation which, truly, followed "hard upon commission of the deed."

We need not, however, suppose that the so-called "un- communicable idea" was disclosed at all, for Förster does not attempt to dispel the mist surrounding Mr. Datchery. Dickens himself gives a clue of some importance which appears to have been overlooked by most of the solvers. "Writing to Mr. J. T. Fields in January, of 1870, the novelist thus refers to his new work: — "There is a curious interest steadily working up to Number five, which requires a great deal of art and self denial." Here is a statement which directly bears out the confidential disclosure to Forster. A very strong idea "difficult to work."

Again in the same letter, the author says, "So I hope, at Numbers five and six, the story will turn upon an interest suspended until the end." Vivid signals these for the alert seeker; but sufficient is said concerning them as matter of history.

In addition to these indications we have the very significant drawings which appeared on the covers of the original monthly parts of "Edwin Drood." It is much to be regretted that these illustrations, designed by Charles Collins, the son-in-law of Dickens, were not published by Chapman and Hall when the work was issued in book form, for they were drawn in accordance with the novelist's instructions, and some of the scenes are foreshadows of events or situations belonging to the never-written. There is a small design showing a spade and a key crossed above a workman's bundle, all without doubt the accompaniments of "Stony Durdles." There is a double sketch of a love scene and of a female figure gazing at a displayed bill, upon which latter appears the word "lost." This probably represents, on the one hand, Jasper paying mad court to Rosa, and, on the other, a suggestion of the missing Drood. There is also a drawing depicting three characters — one very probably Crisparkle, another the shock-headed Datchery — climbing a spiral staircase of stone, no doubt that leading to the top of the Cathedral tower. The lowest figure looks downwards to further characters supposed to be below, and points significantly upwards, as though indicating some object of which all are in pursuit. Finally, we have the most striking scene of all. Jasper — there can be no doubt it is he — has pushed open the door of some small chamber or vault, and, holding aloft a powerful lantern, gazes horror-stricken at the spectral figure of a young man, which, with hand on breast, returns his look with one of stem reproach.

With these drawings we reach the end of the little stock of material which is available, outside the story, for the working up of connecting links to complete the broken chain. A brief glance at the work of the various artificers who have essayed the difficult task will form the next and concluding portion of this little history of a mystery.

We have spoken of rumours mysteriously afloat immediately after the death of Dickens. Whence did they arise? Was there any foundation for the report that "Edwin Drood" was to be completed?

In the sense conveyed by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the whisperings were unreliable, but it is none the less true that in 1871 a book entitled "John Jasper's Secret: A Narrative of Certain Events following and explaining the Mystery of Edwin Drood" was actually bidding for public favour; and, be it observed, this was the third form in which the continuation had been presented to the world.

The original appearance of the work was made in a periodical called "The Chimney Comer," and a second publication, in monthly parts, was in progress at the time the complete volume was brought out. These monthly parts — of which there were eight — were got up in close imitation of the corresponding issue of Edwin Drood. In size, in colour, and in general appearance, they were very like their originals, the adoption of cover illustrations and wood-cut drawings serving to complete the resemblance.

The volume referred to was issued without author's name, by Peterson Brothers, of Philadelphia, and copies are now so rare that they have been sold at the almost incredible price (considering the intrinsic merit of the work) of thirty-five shillings.

Another edition has more recently been published in New York, without illustrations, and under a slightly modified title, but with the addition of an extraordinary claim to authorship which appears to be either a reflection or the original light of those flashing rumours to which we have referred. We quote from the title-page: —

"John Jasper's Secret.

"A sequel to Charles Dickens's 'Mystery of Edwin Drood.'

By Charles Dickens the younger, and Wilkie Collins."

It has long been known to those who made enquiry, that neither Wilkie Collins nor the younger Charles ever attempted to finish "Edwin Drood." The former writer has expressed himself on the subject most emphatically: —

"I was asked to finish' the story soon after Dickens's death, and positively refused. Any assertion or newspaper report which associates me in any way with any attempted completion of the story is absolutely false."

The true authors of "John Jasper's Secret" were a New York journalist, Henry Morford, and his wife, who came over to England in 1871 in order to gather material for the project they had devised. The couple spent much time at the London libraries, where they pursued their study of the novel, and prosecuted a search after such stray hints as might be obtained from newspaper reports or other published announcements. lu intervals of rest from this work they devoted attention to the necessary local colouring by repairing to Staple Inn or by journeys to Rochester and neighbourhood to view the Old Gatehouse, the Cathedral, Minor Canon Corner, Eastgate House, and other prominent landmarks of the real Cloisterham district. As the result of so much labour and enthusiasm on the part of two pilgrims from a distant land, " John Jasper's Secret," the earliest recorded attempt to continue "Edwin Drood," does not bear the stamp of approval which might have been confidently expected. It has been branded by unsympathetic critics as "trash" and as "catchpenny literature," and its devoted authors have been dismissed contemptuously as "hack-writers." Milder objections are taken to the title, which suggests a commonplace story; to the style, which is redundant; and to the solution, which is unconvincing. For ourselves we refrain from comment on the literary quality of the work, our purpose being more directly concerned with the manner in which the writers have followed up the clues provided for them in the original novel.

A favourite theme with solutionists, and one which probably originates in the title chosen by Dickens, is that Edwin Drood was not, after all, done to death by Jasper, his murderous relative. If Drood be killed, as the story openly suggests, what becomes of the mystery? That his body has entirely disappeared is too common an incident in criminal annals to constitute a situation of an exceptionally mysterious nature such as Dickens led his readers to expect. So thought the authors of "John Jasper's Secret," who wrote before the more enlightened days which followed the publication of Forster's biography. In this sequel Edwin re-appears upon the scene in the character of one Philpits, and is stated to be acting in collusion with Mr. Datchery, who, as most readers think on making their first acquaintance with the unfinished novel, is Mr. Bazzard, clerk to Grewgious, and writer of a tragedy which never " came out." Drood has been rescued by Durdles from a space between inner and outer walls of the Cathedral, where he was thrown by Jasper after being half strangled with the celebrated black scarf. He withdraws for a time from Cloisterham, leaving Datchery to carry out the details of a scheme which can scarcely have been concocted merely for the purpose of frightening Jasper, but which appears to have no other object, unless it be the still more ridiculous one of arousing the villain's suspicions as to the success of his crime. Tartar, the Navy man, and Helena, sister of Neville Landless, pursue an independent vendetta by way of the opium den, Jasper being compelled to babble his secret through the agency of a powerful opium mixture specially procured from a certain Doctor Chippercoyne, expert in Eastern drugs.

In the end Jasper perishes from an overdose of this preparation, and thus escapes the more ignominious doom designed for him by his author, according to the biography.

The betrothal ring, concerning which so much is disclosed by both Dickens and Forster, scarcely enters into the calculations of the writers of "John Jasper's Secret."

In the recesses of Massachusetts, there lurked, in the early days following Dickens's demise, an aspiring genius of name obscure, who was blessed with visions from the Borderland. Specially selected by the shade of Boz, for some occult reason, he was impelled to divulge to the world the only true and authentic solution of the Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Stormy weather interfered strangely with the progress of this disclosure, but, under more favourable meteorological circumstances, he wrote folio after folio of matter as it was dictated by the author, throwing his slips to the floor, there to lie until he, awakening from his subconscious condition, was sufficiently in touch with law and order to sort them out.

In this manner was the mystery authentically solved; in this manner, too, was the world informed that the succeeding dictation should inaugurate a new work, to be called "The Life and Adventures of Bockley Nickel- heep." The world, however, is still waiting for this further effort of genius, and for the present must be content with the solution, which has been published under title as follows:

"The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Part the Second.

By the Spirit Pen of Charles Dickens, through a medium:

embracing also that part of the work which was published prior to the termination of the Author's Earth-Life."

The enterprising Americans who launched this fantastic effort upon a confiding public call attention to the style of the writing, which, they say, is English and not American. If this statement be true, speaking generally, we must assume that on one or two occasions the author momentarily lost touch with his amanuensis, for to remark that "coals were not plenty in that neighbourhood," and that "Mr. Peckcraft spends the intervening time at his store in Chancery Lane" is to convey an impression that the vaunted English style has been more or less Americanised in transmission.

Humour is a quality comparatively lacking in "Edwin Drood," but that does not appear to be the reason why Mr. Orpheus C. Kerr perpetrated " The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood," an adaptation of the Dickens novel to the surroundings and characteristic of American life. The last work — particularly the unfinished work — of a great writer must ever be invested with a pathos which is rudely disturbed by the intrusion of the jester; but, this objection overlooked, Orpheus C. Kerr — or, more correctly speaking, Mr. R. H. Newell, — has done very well with his comic paraphrase, the boisterous humour of which cannot be denied.

Jasper, the opium slave, is transformed into John Bumstead, the bibulous organist of St. Cows, in Bumsteadville, and the key-note of the suggested solution of the Mystery (for the book is also a continuation of a kind) is to be found in a very suggestive paragraph of the third chapter of " Edwin Drood," where Dickens, in reference to the dual nature of human consciousness, makes use of the following illustration: —

"Thus, if I hide my watch when I am drunk, I must be drunk again before I can remember where."

Similarly, when in a more than usually helpless condition of inebriety, Mr. Bumstead is supposed to have hidden his nephew somewhere, along with a still more highly valued umbrella, it becomes the inspiration of Mr. Tracey Clews — the comic representative of Datchery — to observe narrowly the victim of aggravated alcoholism when the same degree of intoxication is again reached, and thus to discover the retreat to which the missing relative has been removed.

Throughout this extravagant work the parallel with the original is maintained with considerable skill, and many of the situations of Edwin Drood are distorted in a manner provocative of much harmless mirth.

The extraordinary scene between Mr. Grewgious and Jasper, after Drood has vanished, is burlesqued like all the rest, and opens thus : —

"This is a strange disappearance," said Mr. Dibble. And it was as good as new," groaned the organist, with but one eye open.

"Almost new! — what was?"

"Th' umbrella." ....

"Such an open, spring-like character," apostrophised the lawyer.

"Always open when it rained, and closing with a spring," said Mr. Bumstead, in soft abstraction lost.

The cover illustration of the spectral figure appearing to Jasper was no doubt in the adapter's mind when he caused Edwin Drood to startle Mr. Bumstead, as that gentleman groped in a cellar for his lost property.

There advanced from a far corner — O woeful man! O thrice unhappy uncle! — the spectral figure of the missing Edwin Drood.

After a moment's inspection of the apparition, which paused terribly before him with hand hidden in breast, Mr. Bumstead placed his lantern upon a step of the ladder, drew and profoundly labiated his antique black bottle, staring stonily the while, and thus addressed the youthful shade:

"Where's th' umbrella?"

The foregoing attempts, on the part of American writers, do not complete the list of so-called solutions of the Mystery which has become historical. On this side of the Atlantic the subject has given rise to much wild speculation and keen analytical enquiry.

A lady, not unknown in North of England literary circles, adopting the pseudonym of Gillan Yase, essayed a continuation under the emphatic title of "A Great Mystery Solved," a work commenced in a small way for very limited and private circulation, but eventually urged forward by growing enthusiasm until it assumed considerable dimensions, and was offered to the public at large. This effort met with much maltreatment at the hands of critics, and is now traced with difficulty, but it remains as probably the only example of an English solution in the fictional style.

An anonymous contributor to the " Cornhill Magazine " in the year 1884 presented a solution, which at least has the merit of simplicity. In adopting the statement now familiarised to readers of Forster's biography the writer of the article considered that all difficulty was obviated. He admitted no mystery beyond the disappearance of Drood, and that is cleared up by the suggestion of the betrothal ring whose stones withstand the action of the deadly lime. Datchery did not trouble him at all; that strange personage, burrowing about in a palpable disguise, he dismisses as a detective employed by Grewgious to track down Jasper, a creature quite unimportant in the matter of concealed identity, and a figure which, if the assumption be credited, shows Dickens as one of the poorest of artists in a work which is otherwise rich in evidence of power.

Deeper insight was shown by the writer who signed himself "Thomas Foster" in the pages of the Belgravia Magazine in 1878, and who asserted not only that Drood was not dead, but that he had actually been before the reader again, and was in fact the same Mr. Datchery intent upon a scheme of vengeance. This startling suggestion was supported in the article referred to by a series of very able arguments and a keen analysis of certain parts of Dickens's work was presented in further proof.

Five or six years later, the subject was resumed in the pages of the scientific periodical Knowledge^ the same signature appearing, though it afterwards transpired that the author was, in reality, Mr. Richard Proctor, the well- known essayist on popular astronomy, and editor of the magazine named. The substance of all these articles, with additions, formed, at a still later date, a small volume called "Watched by the Dead," a sensational intruder among the more severe productions of the same pen.

The first point of value to be noted in this work has reference to Jasper's examination of the keys shown to him by Durdles at Mr. Sapsea's. " Take care o' the wards Mr. Jasper," cries the stone-mason, as the keys are clinked together; but Jasper is using his musical ear in order that he may distinguish one particular key in the dark.

Deputy's apparently meaningless jargon " I ketches 'im out arter ten," shows that it is Durdles' habit to stay out late, and that something important will arise out of the habit.

The astronomical writer is in his element when he infers, from a moonlight excursion and an overheard remark, that Jasper had carefully laid his plans so that the crime should take place on a night when there was no moon. The tempest of that fatal Christmas eve favoured the schemer, but could not have been foreseen by him.

So keen an analyst does not omit to take note of Jasper's curious reception of Durdles' story about the strange cries of the previous Christmas; nor of the same dark villain's observation of his companion as the drugged spirit takes effect, nor of his fury when, as the two emerge from the cathedral, they find Deputy in waiting, witness of the fact that Jasper's recent mysterious movements have by no means been confined to the interior of the edifice.

Attention is called by the theorist to the very significant heading to the fourteenth chapter of the novel: —

"When shall these three meet again?"

This is a point of great importance and one which lends much force to the case for Drood's re-appearance. It does not, of course, follow, logically, that the three are to meet again, but such a method of foreshadowing an intention would not be far out of Dickens's usual manner.

The belief of the solutionist is supported by other evidence which he does not forget to adduce. The touch of the novelist on Edwin, he asserts, is of too light a character to mark him for lost. The plot of the story suggests trouble for the youth, but he is not to die.

The demeanour of Grewgious after the disappearance, is one of the strongest props of the theory advanced. Remembering the angular old man's naturally gentle disposition, and the enormous value, in his eyes, of the ring given to Drood, it is strange indeed that the lawyer is not heard of for nearly three days after the fateful dinner at the gate-house; stranger still that he makes his first appearance before Jasper with an abrupt and even cruel manner towards the stricken man; strangest of all that he speaks, not of the ring, not of the disappearance, but of the dissolved betrothal, a matter of small moment it would seem in face of the supposed catastrophe, but evidently the most startling news, in the opinion of Mr. Grewgious, which can be imparted to Jasper. Rosa's guardian, it is argued, must be more than suspicious. He is certain of Jasper's guilt, and can only have heard the truth from Edwin Drood himself.

The suggested identity of Drood and Datchery is drawn from a variety of sources, notably from a comparison of certain passages in the book relating to Drood's last moments on the scene, with the description of Datchery's manner in the interview with the opium woman. The solver also relies to a great extent upon Dickens's partiality for a certain dramatic situation, namely, the existence of danger in a totally unexpected and in most cases despised quarter, and he cites instances from " Barnaby Rudge," " Nickleby," " Chuzzlewit," " Hunted Down," and 'other works. "We are not to wonder, he says, that the culminating horror referred to in the last scene of Jonas Chuzzlewit — a dead man rising from the tomb to confront the villain — was to be actually wrought into the plot of " Edwin Drood."

So soon as the injured young man and Mr. Grewgious knew that Jasper's object in removing Drood's jewellery after the supposed murder was to avoid leaving evidence in the tomb, their power to inflict a terrible punishment was manifest. Mr. Grewgious would supplement his startling disclosure by confiding to the wretched criminal the secret of the ring. Horrified to find that he had after all his care left a fatal witness in the tomb, Jasper feels his sense of security shaken. He dreads, but is compelled to take the only course. He is forced to the tomb itself, there to grope in terror for the damning evidence. Almost overcome, he opens the door of the tomb and raises his lantern on high, recoiling in an agony of horror when he sees what he supposes to be the wraith of his victim. With a shriek of fear he turns and flies. As he rushes forth he is faced by two men, and to escape them climbs up the winding staircase of the Cathedral tower. Seized by Landless at the top, he turns and struggles fiercely with him. Neville receives his death-wound, and Jasper is cast into prison, knowing that while he supposed himself safe, every movement had been watched by the one he had thought dead and entirely destroyed.

This termination is, without doubt, the most sensational ever devised for the completion of the Mystery of Edwin Drood. We are, in fact, disposed to think it too sensational to be an approximate guess at Dickens's plan, notwithstanding the inexplicable cover-illustrations, for we cannot ignore the fact that this culminating horror is the climax to a diabolical scheme of vengeance, apart from retribution, carried out by the simple-minded Edwin, and the chivalrous old lawyer of Staple Inn; and if we could think that such a motive were indeed the " new idea " spoken of by Dickens as difficult to work," we should be constrained to wish that it had never been conceived by the author of that story of the soldier who "secretly forgave his enemy in the name of the Divine Forgiver of Injuries."