TO MY DEAREST MOTHER

IN MEMORY OF OUR MANY PLEASANT FIRESIDE READINGS OF DICKENS

Notwithstanding the lapse of time since Dickens' death, and the many painstaking efforts made to solve the mysterious plot of his great unfinished work, it will be generally admitted that no very happy elucidation of that always fascinating problem has hitherto been offered to the public. It now remains to be seen whether the attempt set forth in the following pages shall be consigned to oblivion as unsatisfactory with its many predecessors, or shall be so fortunate as to carry off, by general consent, the palm of victory, as being the true solution at last.

The theory advanced some years ago—that Edwin Drood was actually killed by Jasper, and that Datchery is none other than Helena Landless in robust disguise, must appear to every sympathetic student of Dickens as untenable as it is un plea sing. The great master never fails of chivalrous delicacy in his treatment of beautiful and interesting young womanhood, but he must be admitted to have fallen very far below his ordinary level in this respect if the stately Helena be indeed one with the "idle dog" and "single buffer" who disposes of a pint of sherry for his dinner, and is presented to us " buttoned up in a tightish blue surtout, with a buff waistcoat and grey trousers." No: Datchery is distinctly uncompromisingly masculine. Whatever else he may be hiding or assuming there is no masquerade of sex.

The weight of evidence is greatly in favour of Edwin's escape. A really incontestable proof of it, in the writer's opinion, is afforded by the picture drawn for the cover of the book, which represents Edwin confronting his enemy in the vault; this picture, being one of a series of vignettes designed by Collins under Dickens' own supervision. And as the late Mr. Andrew Lang very justly pointed out, Jasper's "dazes" have no significance upon any other hypothesis. He was subject to be taken with one of these peculiar seizures always after an opium bout; and he had had a strong dose of the drug the night before Christmas Eve. This we gather from his state of exaltation during the whole of that day, and from the fact of his having been tracked by the "Princess Puffer" from her opium den back to Cloisterham. The "daze" was therefore bound to follow, and was destined without doubt to be Edwin's salvation on that fateful night. Jasper's own dissatisfaction with his work, the haunting suspicion of failure which pursues him through his dreams in the opium den, is another striking indication of the breakdown of his scheme.

Again, Datchery is aware of circumstances which could be known only to Edwin Drood. He is obviously interested in the Sapsea Monument, as though he quite understood its connection with the Jasper crime; and he knows of Edwin's encounter with the Princess Puffer on Christmas Eve night.

But while it is sufficiently clear that Drood is still living, it is not equally clear that Datchery is Drood. The latter, for example, was familiar with Cloisterham, and with Tope's house in particular, yet Datchery blunders, and goes astray in looking for that very house; not purposely, as one acting a part, but at a time when there is no one present to observe him, and be deceived by his apparent ignorance of the locality. He crimsons too with sudden excitement on hearing from the old opium woman (whom Drood would hardly have failed to recognize) of her meeting, on Christmas Eve night, with a young man named Edwin; and he shows an irrepressible interest in discovering where Jasper lives. It is not necessary to the role he has adopted, rather it is indiscreet if anything to betray such feeling.

Not the least forcible argument in favour of Edwin's reappearance upon the scene, is that Dickens' sympathies are invariably enlisted on the side of his hero; and that he would be all the less likely to deliver him to a tragic fate, when such a sacrifice would mean the betrayal of innocence and the triumph of guilt. His antipathies are as strong as his partialities: he detests the evil beings of his creation quite as heartily as he loves the good; and he never drew a villain more thoroughly black-hearted than Jasper, or a hero more deserving and lovable than Edwin Drood.

On the other hand there is this difficulty to be considered: if it is uncharacteristic of Dickens to sacrifice Edwin to Jasper, it would be equally uncharacteristic of him— supposing Edwin restored to life—to set about compensating him for the misfortunes of the past, and yet to omit from his destiny the crowning happiness of a romantic attachment— to leave him in the heyday of youth and prosperity unloving and unloved! Impossible as such ungenerous treatment appears, this is what Mr. Lang believed to have been the author's intention; and in truth it does seem upon a first consideration as if there could be no escaping that conclusion. If Edwin had not cared for Rosa the difficulty might have been got over satisfactorily enough, by a new heroine brought upon the scene even at the eleventh hour; but as matters stand a very pretty budding romance is to all appearance hopelessly spoiled. It is plain, in a book otherwise bristling with puzzles that Edwin and Rosa were really attached to one another, and were merely held back from a knowledge of their own hearts by the circumstance of their having been affianced in childhood by their parents, and so denied the privilege of free choice.

"Isn't it unsatisfactory," says Edwin to Jasper, "to be cut off from choice in such a matter? There, Jack! If I could choose, I would choose Pussy from all the pretty girls in the world."

The unsatisfactory state of their feelings was more her fault than his. He required only a little encouragement to be over head and ears in love with her, and was considerably piqued by her seeming scorn and indifference. Rosa, however, felt even more bitterly than he the injustice of their having been "married by anticipation," as Edwin expressed it.

"We should both of us have done better," she says, "if 'What is to be' had been left 'What might have been.'"

That was the grievance, that their destiny had been arranged without their having been consulted in the matter. When at length, it comes to the final parting, Rosa having broken off the engagement, Edwin's feelings are both dissatisfied with her discision and very tender towards herself.

"Something of deeper moment than he had thought had gone out of his life, and in the silence of his own chamber he wept for it last night. Though the image of Miss Landless still hovers in the background of his mind, the pretty little affectionate creature, so much firmer and wiser than he had supposed, occupies its stronghold."

There is no avoiding a wish that the lovers should come to a better understanding, and be happily re-united at last; and accordingly we feel cheated when Tartar appears upon the scene, and appropriates Rosa. He may be a very good sort of fellow, but he is a stranger to us; and we have neither time nor opportunity to cultivate a friendly interest in him, when we find him thrust upon us as Rosa's lover. The consequence is that we are perversely disinclined to like him from the first.

This is all decidedly inartistic. It is besides an outrage upon sentiment, difficult to reconcile with the highly sentimental author.

Now as a matter of fact this disconcerting development is capable of an explanation which not only saves the love interest, but gives it just the most desirable and delightful turn; which is quite in accord with Dickens' usual methods, and much more worthy of his genius than any hitherto brought forward. To begin with: Edwin's escape, assuming that he did escape, must have been so effected as to place him immediately and completely beyond the possibility of communicating with his friends, and of hearing what occurred in Cloisterham upon his disappearance. It is clear that if he were lying concealed, not to say in the vicinity of Cloisterham, but even in the farthest part of England, or were known to be living by Mr Grewgious, Durdles, or any other friend or acquaintance, Neville Landless could not have fallen a victim to the relentless enmity of Jasper. Edwin indeed, having been drugged, might afterwards remember very little of what had befallen him; but he ought at least to have recollected all that occurred up to the time when he became insensible; and part of that was his bidding good-bye to Neville at Mr. Crisparkle's door. His evidence however confused, or the evidence of his rescuer, would have pointed suspicion in the right direction, and destroyed the testimony of the watch and chain found in the weir. In any case, even if Neville were not entirely cleared, his life would no longer be shadowed by the fear of being brought to trial for murder. It is true he was never actually arrested; but so keenly did he feel the peril and ignominy of his position that his nerve and his health gave way; he shrank from being seen in the streets by daylight; he was hastening fast to an untimely grave, yet neither Mr. Grewgious nor Mr. Crisparkle had any comfort to bestow.

"'You must expect no miracle to help you, Neville,' said Mr. Crisparkle compassionately.

'No, Sir, I know that. The ordinary fullness of time and circumstances is all I have to trust to.'"

Where then did Edwin go? And how did he cut himself away so entirely from the knowledge of his friends, and from all hearing of news from Cloisterham? It may be suggested that he fell ill as an effect of the drug, and of the shock he had sustained, and that he lay for some time unconscious in the care of strangers. But then he could not have been hors de combat for so long a time as six months, unless he suffered from a very serious mental derangement indeed. No: an explanation of the mystery is only to be found in the circumstance that Cloisterham was a seaport town (it stands for Rochester, which is within a short distance of Chatham docks) and that Edwin got taken out to sea, either by his own devices, or by being smuggled on board with the help of others. "The Travellers' Twopenny" was probably frequented by sailors; and the Princess Puffer, who had a large nautical acquaintance, and who moreover liked Edwin, and suspected Jasper's designs against him, was stopping there on Christmas Eve night. The inference is clear: Edwin was taken out to sea, and had to rough it on board ship for four or five months. What more natural then, than that he should return to England in the character of a sailor? And what more likely than that Lieutenant Tartar and Edwin Drood are identical?

It appears impossible no doubt at first, yet there is no great reason why it should, unless it be inconceivable that a Minor Canon could be found guilty of a falsehood. Dickens' approved and estimable characters, however, do not scruple to have recourse to subterfuge when a worthy object is to be gained by it. Old Martin Chuzzlewit carries out his designs for the discomfiture and overthrow of Mr. Pecksniff with a duplicity fully equal to that gentleman's own. Mr. Boffin pursues a similar policy of deception with Silas Wegg, and John Harmon with Mr. Boffin. The immortal works arc full of disguises and concealments of one kind or another, and Dickens is said to have confided to someone that an unexpected and sensational dénouement might be looked for in Edwin Drood.

The scene with Mr. Crisparkle is so ingeniously worked up that it puts the reader off the trail at the outset. Yet in reality it is not difficult to explain. Edwin's disguise was of course assumed with the object of over-reaching and entrapping his enemy. He had in all probability no thought of how it might be made to serve him with Rosa, till Jasper's importunity drove her up to London, and put her within his reach. He would then naturally feel that an ideal chance had come in his way of winning her affections in the ordinary and accepted manner both had felt to be so desirable. To meet and recommend himself to her as a stranger might well be to undo the mischief wrought by their well-meaning but too officious parents. The conditions, it will be noted, are exactly such as are needed to bring the love story to its full bloom and fruitage.

On the night of Rosa's arrival in London Mr. Grewgious, having settled her comfortably in the hotel at Furnival's inn, walks up and down before her door for some hours, probably till he thinks he may safely communicate with Edwin. He suspects that his chambers are being watched, and wishes either to give the impression of intending to remain away all night, or to weary out any possible spy upon his movements; or he may be waiting to be joined by Edwin, who as his lodgings are opposite his own, may be already cognizant of Rosa's arrival. However it happens, we will suppose that the two at length come into communication, and that the young man whose affection, it may be imagined, has been strengthened by his long absence, and by the dangers and hardships to which he has been exposed, is all impatience to be brought in contact again with the pretty object of his affections. There is, however, a difficulty in the way: she has known him intimately from childhood, and it is greatly to be feared she will recognize him in spite of his disguise. This consideration taxes their ingenuity till at length they hit upon a little plan for throwing her off the scent, which is to be carried out with the aid of Mr. Crisparkle. It is agreed that Mr. Grewgious shall write immediately, to the latter, and summon him to London.

But Mr. Crisparkle saves him the trouble by walking in upon him opportunely the following morning. He is then informed for the first time of Edwin's return, and instructed in the rôle he is to play, as soon as opportunity offers. Mr. Grewgious makes no immediate attempt to bring about a meeting between the two men. He fears to direct suspicion upon Tartar by being himself seen in communication with him, in the dangerous neighborhood of Staple Inn. The interview at an end, he and Mr. Crisparkle set out together to visit Rosa. On their way they pass Tartar who is smoking under the trees; and Mr. Grewgious points him out to his companion as the returned Edwin Drood. No word of greeting is spoken, no sign of recognition given. But the caution considered advisable in Staple Inn is not equally necessary elsewhere: Tartar being satisfied that Mr. Crisparkle has received his instructions hurries after them to the hotel, and is presently face to face with the good Minor Canon. The latter is bewildered by his disguise, and profoundly moved by the sense of his presence. He is naturally somewhat startled when "Tartar" demands frankly: "Who am I?"

He replies with some caution: "You are the gentleman I saw smoking under the trees at Staple Inn a few minutes ago!

"True, there I saw you Who else am I?"

But Mr. Crisparkle is not ready. He is staring with a strained gaze at the dark, bronzed, manly-looking young fellow before him, whom, apart from his disguise, suffering and hardship have rapidly transformed from boy to man, endeavoring to trace out a likeness: "And the ghost of some departed boy seemed to rise gradually and dimly in the room."

He is so confused and preoccupied that the other has to jog his memory of the little farce to be enacted between them.

"'What will you have for breakfast this morning? You are out of jam.' 'Wait a moment!' cried Mr. Crisparkle raising his right hand,' Give me another instant! Tartar!'"

The two shook hands with the greatest heartiness and went the surprising length for Englishmen of laying their hands on each other's shoulders and looking into each other's faces.

"'My old fag!' said Mr. Crisparkle.

"'My old master!' said Mr. Tartar.

"'You saved me from drowning,' said Mr. Crisparkle.

"'After which you took to swimming, you know,' said Mr. Tartar.

"'God bless my soul!' said Mr. Crisparkle.

"'Amen!' said Mr. Tartar."

The cordiality of the meeting and the joy of it are real, not assumed, and the piece of acting passes off all the better for the genuine feeling which underlies it. The drowning story is necessary, in order to account both to Rosa and the reader for the unreserved confidence to be presently reposed in the young sailor. It is also thrown out as a bait to attract Rosa's interest and admiration at the very outset. There is an undercurrent of playfulness in it too, owing to the fact that Mr. Crisparkle is a great powerful fellow, and an expert swimmer in the bargain.

"Imagine" exclaimed Mr. Crisparkle, with glistening eyes..." Imagine Mr. Tartar when he was the smallest of juniors, diving for me, catching me, a great heavy senior, by the hair of the head, and striking out for the shore like a water giant!"

Tartar's worth and reliability are thus securely established, and the way is paved for taking him into confidence without arousing suspicion of his identity. The little fiction is so benevolently conceived that even a Minor Canon might be excused for being a party to it; and the result is all that had been anticipated. Rosa is quite thrown off the scent, and to the great delight of Mr. Grewgious obviously conquered too t The latter gentleman, who nearly suffocates with suppressed emotion, makes haste to send away the pair together, partly in order that Rosa may visit Helena Landless, but more truly that she and Tartar may be thrown together for the enjoyment of a few hours of one another's society.

As they cross the street she sighs and murmurs " Poor, poor Eddy!" Why? Is she apologizing to the memory of the lost Edwin for her sudden interest in Tartar? That is scarcely the explanation. A heroine of the modest and shrinking type like Rosa, all blushes and tremors, would never have admitted to herself thus freely, and while in his company too, the nature of the emotion with which this stranger has inspired her. She is merely thinking: "If poor Eddy had had this man's opportunities he might have been such as he." There is something about him which recalls Edwin, but the expression of the face is changed. The terrible treachery of Jasper, whom he had honestly and simply loved and trusted, has altered the light-hearted careless boy into a sober and earnest man. He has looked forward too during these months of his absence, to the struggle now about to take place: "And his far-seeing blue eyes looked as if they had been used to watch danger afar off, and to watch it without flinching drawing nearer and nearer." He is like Edwin, and yet different; but she loves him simply because he is Edwin, with the old barrier between them removed at last!

Tartar is of course disguised. There is no description given, purposely no doubt, of Edwin Drood's appearance; but his pictures represent him as remarkably fair. And now a dark brown wig, worn in a new style of hair-dressing for him, covers his blond wavy locks, and together with eyebrows to match gives an unfamiliar look to the forehead and eyes; a moustache, also false, for Edwin's pictures reveal him as clean-shaven, conceals the mouth, and makes a further change of aspect. The handsome features remain unaltered; but the general expression of the face is bolder, graver, more responsible. He is very much sunburnt, with the exception of a little bit of the forehead and throat, where the extreme whiteness of his skin makes almost ludicrous contrast with the rest of his complexion. "A handsome gentleman, with a young face, but an older figure, in its robustness and breadth of shoulder." Five months of roughing it at sea have greatly developed a figure, which, for all we know to the contrary, may have been particularly susceptible to such development. Add to all this, that his walk and bearing, his accent, and manner of speaking would now, or might if he pleased, reflect the sailor and you have a disguise which it would not be at all easy to penetrate. It is, I suppose, a novelist's licence to assume a finished seaman in five months' time; but Edwin was intended to be of a bold, practical, enterprising nature such as would take easily and kindly to a life at sea. For example: he likes the idea of going abroad "to wake up Egypt" he "hates to be moddley coddleyed," and he evidently despises sedentary pursuits, for when Neville Landless asks him if he is reading: "'Reading,' returns Edwin somewhat contemptuously. 'No. Doing, working, engineering.'"

The pictures on the cover designed by Collins for the book entirely bear oat the idea that Tartar is Edwin Drood. On the left-hand top corner a dark young man wearing a moustache is seen kneeling by Rosa at a garden seat. She has yielded her hand to him, willingly, if a little timidly, and he is raising it to his lips. An allegorical figure representing Joy is placed hovering right over them. The scene is evidently meant to depict a successful love-suit, and the fortunate wooer must consequently be Tartar. Opposite this picture, on the right-hand side of the page, the same young man is seen bounding up the stairs of the Cathedral tower, in hot pursuit of some one. He is the same, except in one little but significant particular, namely that he does not wear a moustache! This inconsistency is accounted for by certain tokens which show him to be identical not only with the young man who is making love to Rosa, but also with the returned Edwin Drood who is confronting Jasper in the vault at the bottom of the page! For instance, he is first in the line of that gentleman's pursuers, as he would naturally be if he rushed out of the vault immediately after him; his hair is disarranged (he has thrown aside the hat, and put on his wig again) and he has on a long coat reaching nearly to the knees, like that worn by the young man in the vault!

By the time of Edwin Drood's return Mr. Grewgious has important evidence in hand against Jasper, and a hope of clearing young Landless more effectually than would be possible through the medium of Edwin's confused recollections. For this reason the old lawyer proceed; warily, and Edwin delays to reveal himself, and lies hidden at Staple Inn.

But why does he not make himself known at least to the unfortunate accused, whom his safety so vitally concerns? The reason is purely for Neville's own sake. They have never yet ventured to trust him with their suspicions of Jasper's guilt. Helena has feared too much the homicidal tendency he confessed to Mr. Crisparkle; and she feers it still more now that suspicion has ripened into certainty, and that Jasper seems bent on pursuing her brother at close quarters. Should the two ever come into contact, then, supposing Neville possessed of the truth, his weak will and ungovernable temper might precipitate him into conduct which would be the best testimony against himself, and which might even render him guilty of the very crime of which he was now happily innocent. If he knew of Edwin's return he would of course require also an explanation of his disappearance, and all would have to be told.

Edwin Drood is not sorry for the enforced delay. He blames his own unfriendly conduct in the past, for all Neville's misfortunes. He wishes to gain his esteem and affection, and he knows there will be the better chance of this should they meet as strangers, and Neville be thus enabled to admit his advances with an open and unbiased mind. Ed win, however, is disappointed in being able to strike up a friendship as soon as he had expected with young Landless. The latter is quite a recluse: he ventures out of doors only under cover of the darkness; and to meet and accost him then would be only to excite his suspicions. Besides, he does not perhaps at first think it safe to be openly in communication with him. Hence the expedient of the runner beans, and the flowers. It may have been suggested to Edwin by the finding of some boxes of flowers left in his rooms by a former tenant; or he may have been in the habit of decorating his lodgings in this way, before his disappearance.

These too may have been the very lodgings he occupied then; which circumstance would account for his somewhat gratuitous observations to Neville, "I came here some nine months before you. I had had a crop before you came." They were but attic rooms it is true, but there is nothing to show that Edwin was at that time in particularly flourishing circumstances.

Much of the author's success in the working up of Tartar is due to the simple device of omitting much information concerning Edwin Drood. As already pointed out, no attempt is made to describe his personal appearance. Neither are any details furnished as to his habits, tastes or disposition; nor any reference made to the situation of his lodgings in London. An excellent opportunity occurs of throwing light on this latter point, in that chapter where Edwin visits Mr. Grewgious before going down to Cloisterham for Christmas. The marked attention drawn to the young man's acute sufferings from fog on that occasion, and to the circumstance of his being particularly well wrapped up, would even seem the natural prelude to a remark respecting the position of the locality whence he had come, in relation to Staple Inn. But the atmosphere of fog, the greatcoat and neck shawl are a blind, intended to convey an erroneous impression of considerable distance between Edwin's lodgings and Mr. Grewgious' Chambers; there being in reality nothing to show that he came straight from his lodgings at all. It seems more probable indeed, that having spent the day at his office he called in upon Mr. Grewgious the last thing before dining, and turning in to his own rooms.

Tartar informs Neville that he has been adopted by an uncle, who is a retired naval officer. Again we do not know how true this may be. There is no uncle but Jasper previously mentioned; but it is clear that Edwin has received financial assistance at this juncture, since he is able to return to England a month before midsummer, the time when his coming of age will make him legally independent of Jasper, who until then is his guardian. He appears to be particularly prosperous and well set up. His rooms are furnished with various expensive luxuries; he has a boat on the river, and a man servant, Lobley. Tartar winds up his interview with Landless by attempting to explain why he, a sailor, used to a free and roaming life from boyhood, should coop himself up in attic rooms the first thing on coming in for a fortune! He speaks in a tone of "merry earnestness" intended to convey that while he thoroughly enjoys his hobby, he is at the same time quite capable of seeing the ridiculous side of it. His explanation is, however, on the face of it, pure nonsense. If he is not Edwin Drood, there is no escaping the conclusion that he is an eccentric; and while the pages of Dickens teem with eccentrics I cannot recall an instance where the hero who marries the heroine is of that description.

So far the mystery of Edwin. We come now to Jasper.

In the background of the story there is a semi-Eastern romance, the first scenes of which were doubtless enacted long before the story opens. So many of the characters are connected with the East, that it is impossible to doubt that they are all likewise connected with one another, through circumstances and events belonging to a past perhaps remote. There is the Princess Puffer with her opium den, her Chinamen and Lascars; there are the Droods, engineers, who have business dealings with the East; there are Neville and Helena Landless, of dark complexion and mysterious parentage from Ceylon, and lastly there is Jasper, dark- complexioned too, with restless blood and terrible passions, who raves in his drugged slumbers of Eastern scenes, shows a knowledge of Eastern languages, and has the craving for opium in his blood.

If there be one thing more than another that starts out from between the lines concerning Jasper it is that he not only lived at one time in the East, but that he is partly of Eastern extraction. There is no information given as to where the Jaspers came from. They were in all likelihood an English family living in the East. It would have been a mere detail of Mr. Drood's connection with that part of the world, that he should have married a wife out there. But Edwin Drood's mother, who was Miss Jasper, must have been altogether English, if we are to judge by her son, who is a true English boy of the best type, simple, honest, merry-hearted, with Saxon hair and complexion. Jasper is dark; he smokes opium; he understands the mutterings of the Chinaman and Lascar in the opium den; his temper is fierce, his passions uncontrolled. Everything points him out as an Eurasian; yet he is evidently posing as a full-blooded Englishman, and full brother to Mrs. Drood. He is looked upon in this light by his particular friend, the stupid Sapsea, whose one motive for disliking Neville Landless is that his complexion is "un-English." "And when Mr. Sapsea has once declared anything to be un-English, he considers that thing everlastingly sunk in the bottomless pit." There is but one conclusion to be drawn from all this: Jasper is an impostor; and is appropriating another man's name and place. The author is plainly poking fun at the pompous auctioneer when he makes him boast to his swarthy friend of his world-wide knowledge of men and things:

"'If I have not gone to foreign countries, young man, foreign countries have come to me. They have come to me in the way of business, and I have improved upon my opportunities. Put it that I take an inventory, or make a catalogue, I see a French clock. I never saw him before in my life, but I instantly lay my finger on him, and say ' Paris.' I see some cups and saucers of Chinese make, equally strangers to me personally: I put my finger on them then and there, and I say ' Pekin, Nankin, and Canton.' It is the same with Japan, with Egypt, and with bamboo and sandal-wood from the East Indies; I put my finger on them all...."'

But he cannot put his finger on his wily flatterer, and locate him! There is a sad mortification in store for poor Mr. Sapsea.

Not so easily hoodwinked is Helena Landless! She takes particular notice of Mr. Jasper on the occasion of their first meeting. Straight from the East herself she recognizes the Eurasian type; and hearing, as she easily might from Rosa, that the Jaspers were all English, she has this important clue to put into the hands of Mr. Grewgious upon Edwin's disappearance. It will be remembered that when the old lawyer visits Jasper on the afternoon of that Christmas Day, he acknowledges to having just had an interview with Miss Landless; and he shows on that occasion his conviction of the villainy of Edwin's uncle, for the first time. "Let those whom it most concerned look well to it."

The Princess Puffer too shows a marked scorn for Jasper's pretentions to gentility: "My gentleman from Cloisterham," as she sarcastically dubs him.

Assuming then that he is an impostor, the question immediately suggests itself: What became of the real John Jasper whom he is personating, and whom all Mrs. Drood's friends and relations believe him to be?

It may be inferred, I think, that Jasper's attempted murder of Edwin was not his first crime. There is something to that effect indicated, it seems to me, by the ghostly cries heard by Durdles in the Cathedral precincts. "The Ghost of one terrific shriek, followed by the ghost of the howl of a dog: the long dismal woeful howl such as a dog gives when a person's dead." It was Mr. Lang's opinion that these sounds were premonitory only. But why then was Jasper startled on hearing them described? What significance could the dog's howl have had for him? Edwin did not so far as we know possess a dog. Besides, the great final scene of the capture on the tower must have had reference to something more serious than attempted murder, something that would avail to rid a long-suffering community of Jasper for good. The ghostly sounds were doubtless echoes of a past crime. And occurring in connection with the contemplated murder of Edwin, were obviously intended to point out some association existing actually, or in Jasper's imagination, between his real and his intended victim. This association would be easily established upon the supposition that the murdered man was Edwin's uncle the true John Jasper.

The impostor would need to have an intimate knowledge of his victim's family and affairs in order to personate him successfully. He was too young when the crime was committed to have gained such knowledge in any confidential employment, or position of trust. It is a more likely supposition that he was related to the Jasper family, and on familiar terms with some of its members. The Asiatic strain in him is suggestive of illegitimacy. If he were an elder brother with this stain upon him, this disqualification for the rights and privileges otherwise attaching to his seniority, then, violent and unprincipled as he was, there would have been sufficient inducement for his crime. The circumstance of such a relationship would give a deeper significance to his appropriation of the other's name and position; and would account moreover for his singular youthfulness as a criminal. He is but twenty-six when the story opens, and is already a good while in Cloisterham. Or rather he is said to be twenty-six, because this would have been the age of the genuine John Jasper, but he looks older, and may be so by a few years.

Dickens has more than once endeavored to portray the jealous antipathy which a man of sullen and ungenerous temper may entertain towards a brother whom he feels to be more fortunate, or at least more popular and deserving of good fortune than himself. Ralph Nickleby's dislike of his nephew was partly due to the circumstance that Nicholas resembled his father, of whom Ralph had been jealous. In "A Murderer's Confession," in Master Humphrey's Clock the criminal relates how the envy he had always felt for his brother, because of his happier temper and greater popularity, developed at length into a morbid passion, and became the first cause of his after-guilt.

Jasper must have disposed of his younger brother upon an occasion when the latter was being sent to England for some purpose, probably for the benefit of his education. Mr. Drood is said to have been early left a widower. We may suppose therefore that his wife was removed from the scene by this time, and that he had himself never seen the younger members of her family. I have already hinted at a possible connection in Jasper's mind between the boy whom he had murdered and Edwin Drood. During his dreams in the opium den he is actually confusing the two identities. He comes, as he tells the old woman, to go on a certain journey, with a certain fellow-traveler. There is but a single journey in view, and a single fellow-traveler; yet he passes in imagination through the scenes of his two different crimes; and they follow each ether in orderly succession, the older one being re-enacted at the beginning, and that more recently committed, at the end of his dream.

"'It was a journey,' he says, 'a difficult and dangerous journey, that was the subject on my mind. A hazardous and perilous journey, over abysses where a slip would be destruction. Look down! look down! You see what lies at the bottom there.'

"He has darted forward to say it, and to point at the ground at some imaginary object far beneath."

This object was probably the mangled body of his victim.

Now all this bears reference, as I believe, to his first crime. Mr. Lang indeed supposed it to be Jasper's intention at first to kill Edwin by pushing him from the summit of the tower; but this I do not think. The phantom cries heard in its vicinity by Durdles show the tower associated in Jasper's imagination solely with his former crime; for since the dog's howl had, as already pointed out, no significance in relation to Edwin, so neither had the shriek which preceded, and was connected with it as part of the same happening. Just such a "terrific shriek" would a man give on being precipitated to his death from a height, and this was doubtless the fate of John Jasper. The fascination then which the tower had for the murderer lay in the circumstance that being so high and steep it aided his fevered imagination to re-enact that bygone deed in a gloriously exaggerated form; for I do not doubt that his opium-sodden mind was engaged by day as by night in the pursuit of his "journey."

He goes on: "I did it so often and through such vast expanses of time that when it was really done it seemed not worth the doing, it was done so soon." Jasper as an Eastern believes in re-incarnation, and he is here picturing uncle and nephew as one man, whom he is pursuing through" vast expanses of time "through two imaginary phases of being, now one phase being present to his consciousness, now another; and as thus it seems to him that the murdered man was restored to life in Edwin, so he feels that the deed was not "really done "till the latter was disposed of; yet his mind misgives him with regard to this second attempt also. Hatred of course becomes intensified with indulgence and new provocation, and Jasper would therefore seek a more dire revenge the second time, and one better calculated to rid him of his enemy for good. I imagine that his object in using the quicklime was not only to secure himself against detection by the most effectual means, but to annihilate as nearly as possible his detested enemy, to dispose of him as absolutely as it lay in his power to do.

Now the Princess Puffer knows the method by which he tried to murder Edwin, and so she is puzzled by the downward pointing finger, and the words which accompany it. She tries for an explanation:

"I'll warrant that you made the journey in a many ways when you made it so often."

But no: it is always one long journey in two stages, and Jasper has never made it otherwise. He answers her, "No: always in one way." After some further talk he lapses into silence for a while and then the dream proceeds to a finish. He is now occupied only with the last stage of the journey.

"What? I told you so. When it comes to be real at last it seems unreal for the first time. Hark! ... Time and place are both at hand." And later: "Hush! The journey's made. It's over."

Dickens is said to have declared that a remarkable confession by the murderer was to close the story. I believe that the germ of the idea to be there brought to maturity may be found in the little sketch I have already referred to entitled "A Murderer's Confession." The subject is that of a child who so resembles his dead mother in feature and expression that it seems to the wretch who has feared and detested her almost as if she had returned to life again, and resumed her old task of tormenting his guilty conscience in the person of her son. And the child falls a victim at length to the insane fancy that "his mother's ghost was looking from his eyes." There is a similar delusion at the bottom of the extraordinary fascination which Edwin exercises over Jasper.

"Once for all a look of intentness and intensity—a look of hungry, exacting, watchful and yet devoted affection— is always now and ever afterwards on the Jasper face, whenever the Jasper face is addressed in this direction. And whenever it is so addressed, it is never, on this occasion, or on any other, dividedly addressed; it is always concentrated."

Edwin, we may suppose, resembles the murdered boy; and to the guilty imagination of the murderer the soul of the dead looks out of the eyes of the living till the hatred still felt for the one becomes gradually transferred to the other.

It is his mad passion for Rosa which in this second instance brings the feeling to a climax. Hate and love equally extravagant, chain him to Cloisterham, though he dislikes the place, and his occupation in it. Partly to find relief from the monotony of his existence, partly to indulge his feverish dreams of revenge he cultivates the opium habit; and under the influence of the drug, the connection already established between John Jasper and Edwin Drood becomes intensified, till, imbued as he is with Eastern superstitions, the nephew becomes to him verily a reincarnation of the uncle. The diseased state of Jasper's imagination would account from a scientific point of view for the shriek and dog's howl, heard by Durdles. Yet there is a suggestion about these sounds of something sinister and weird. In that terrible storm which wrenches the hands off the tower clock, and displaces the stones upon its summit, we feel the presence of some vindictive exultant spirit of evil, which foresees, and revels by anticipation in the struggle and the capture destined to take place there a year hence. Like all phenomena of that order these ghostly cries would be due to occur three consecutive times; and are doubtless repeated the night of the storm and heard, it may be, by Jasper himself.

The latter would seem to have over-reached himself with Edwin, through the sheer excess of his animosity. A swift and easy death for his victim was evidently no part of his design. "No struggle, no consciousness of peril, no entreaty." he wails in the opium den. Did he then expect such demonstrations from a drugged and insensible man? No, his object was to drug his victim just enough to keep him quiet for an hour or so; then to rob him of his watch chain and other effects, to bind him hand and foot, and perhaps to cover him up to the neck with the quicklime, after the manner of burying alive in the East. The "dear boy" once safely secured, and rendered helpless, was to recover consciousness, to be overwhelmed with the pent-up wrath of years, mercilessly gloated over, and finally strangled with the long black scarf, upon which so much stress is laid.

This fiendish procedure is well upon its way when Jasper begins to feel faint and dazed. The first symptom of the fit was according to Mr. Tope "a remarkable shortness of breath." This would oblige him in the first place to desist from his work, and would then constrain him to leave the close air of the vault for the purer atmosphere overhead, in the desperate hope of staving off failure, and discovery. Accordingly he rushes out into the storm, wanders some distance from the monument, and then drops unconscious to the ground. Edwin's rescuers would be prevented from searching for him by the darkness and still more by the great wind. When at length in the early dawn, he comes to himself, his mind is a partial blank with regard to the events of the night before. He has enjoyed the deed so often in anticipation, that he cannot now separate the dream from the reality. The locked door of the monument, and the key and lantern lying beside it, testify to a completed work, as do also the watch and chain, and other things in his possession, and for the time being he is satisfied.

"When it comes to be real at last it seems unreal for the first time.... Wait a little. This is a vision. I shall sleep it off. It's been too short and easy, I must have a better vision than this."

He cannot believe in the reality of the unsatisfactory termination of his journey. He tells himself it is but a vision, and false.

"' —and yet I never saw that before '—with a start.... ' Look at it! look what a poor, mean miserable thing it is! That must be real. It's over!"'

What is it he sees now, that he has never seen before? Why the break and the failure, the coming on of that sudden seizure to which he knows himself subject. It is only the Princess Puffer's mixing of the drug that enables him to enjoy a clear vision of his evil deed; and this is the first time since its accomplishment that he has come to her.

Jasper's animus against Neville Landless arose from the fact that he looked upon Neville's love for Rosa as a contemplated robbery of himself. Rosa was his lawful spoil, the fruit of his victory over a life-long foe; and that another should seek to snatch her from him in the moment of his triumph, was an "inexpiable offence" in his eyes. He had then a twofold object in robbing Edwin of his personal effects; firstly to remove everything which the quicklime could not destroy, and secondly to obtain means of incriminating Landless. There is some emphasis laid upon an attested copy of Rosa's father's will, which at her request was sent to Edwin a few days previous to his disappearance; and which, owing to his unbusiness-like habits, which are specially mentioned in that connection, he probably continued to carry about his person. Jasper would gladly have possessed himself of this; and, the watch and chain having failed of their object, would seek to make it of use against Neville. The best way to do this would be to secrete it in his rooms, and then cause a search to be made. Upon the testimony of such a paper found in his possession the unfortunate Landless would be arrested, tried, and almost certainly condemned. Jasper's object in prowling around the neighborhood of Staple Inn may have been connected with the carrying out of this project. I have an idea that at this juncture Helena saves her brother from the distress of discovering himself to be the object of Jasper's pursuit, by persuading him to remove for his health to a safe distance, and by herself remaining behind to personate him, and act as a shield between him and Jasper. This would be the significance of their extraordinary likeness to one another, and of the admission she made to Mr. Crisparkle that she would sometimes, in play, assume Neville's clothes, and pass herself off for him.

Mr. Grewgious' first proceeding on hearing from Helena of her suspicions concerning Jasper, would be to hunt up evidence against him in the East, and to endeavor to find out if any member of the Jasper family were still living. He may have dispatched Bazzard on some such errand. We have already had a hint of an uncle of Edwin's in the background. Let us suppose him to be an elder brother of Mr. Drood's, and of the young John Jasper's. He has come across Edwin during the latter's wanderings abroad; and now Mr. Grewgious comes in touch with him: uncle and nephew return to England; and it may be that while Edwin conceals himself in London the uncle becomes Mr. Datchery. He is described as having a military air and is taken by Sapsea for a retired naval or army officer. He has assumed a disguise lest Jasper should recognize him; or if we like it better he is not in disguise at all. The author's manifest anxiety to make it appear as if he were may be merely with the object of diverting suspicion from Tartar and leading the reader on a false scent after Edwin Drood. As Dickens is much given to evolving relationships, I have a notion moreover that this uncle of Edwin's is also the father of Neville and Helena. That they are in some way connected with the Droods and Jaspers is almost a certainty; and that the connection is an honorable one may be safely determined from the circumstance that Helena is destined to marry Mr. Crisparkle, and to prove an acceptable daughter-in-law to the somewhat narrow-minded "China Shepherdess."

Judging from the dark complexions of the twins their father had contracted what would be considered a discreditable marriage with an Eurasian. And we can conceive a motive on the side of his father or other relations, for putting the children out of the way, supposing the mother to have died in giving them birth, during one of his absences at sea.

The Princess Puffer is perhaps a former nurse or servant of the Jasper family, and it is through her that "Datchery" is led to the discovery of his children. As Neville is intended to die in the end, Edwin Drood would not be a loser by this new-found relationship, but would remain still his uncle's heir.

When all is ready at length for Jasper's exposure and overthrow, a dramatic climax is prepared. He is frightened and lured back to the scene of his crime by means of Mr. Grewgious' ring, which has been all the while in Edwin's possession. In fear and trembling he re-enters the vault; and there newly risen from the dead, and confronting him triumphantly beside his open grave stands his murdered enemy! With a frightful scream he rushes to the tower, the sailors, Mr. Crisparkle, and others in hot pursuit. The presence of so many stalwart men mean but one thing, that he is captured, and then and there accused of the murder of John Jasper. All the iniquity of his life meets and overwhelms him here. No wonder then for so many reasons that the old grey tower of the English Cathedral is mixed up with his visions of Eastern scenes, and is not to be separated from them.

We may all imagine as we like best that happy concluding Christmas Day, when all secrets are made known, and all wrongs set right; when Mr. Grewgious and the new-found father and uncle shake hands again and again; when Edwin places on Rosa's finger that ring he had never given back to Mr. Grewgious; when Neville though dying now is happy in his restored reputation and in the affection of his relatives; when Helena rejoices in a father, a fortune, and an honorable parentage, to say nothing of two very dear cousins, and perhaps best of all a chivalrous lover in Mr. Crisparkle. We may picture them set on the high road to happiness and prosperity, in the good old style, and in Dickens' own best manner.

The mystery of Edwin Drood would have been free from the unrelieved gloom and dreariness which make Bleak House and Little Dorrit such dismal reading. The lights would have been as brilliant as the shade was deep. It is a mistake to assume that because Dickens was sometimes careless of construction the plot of Edwin Drood must be full of weaknesses and inconsistencies. Here, perhaps for the first time, construction was his principal object. He was challenging comparison with books like the Moonstone and was most unlikely therefore to risk failure by carelessness of the general machinery of his plan, or want of attention to detail. The story, had he lived to complete it, would have been a finer work from an artistic point of view than Wilkie Collins' masterpiece; and the fact that he undertook to write it, chapter by chapter, without aid from notes or rough copy, is enough of itself to show that he was indeed a past master in the art of construction.