If spirits in other worlds can look down upon this terrestrial sphere and take due note of what is going on here, a great deal of amusement must have been extracted from this pastime by one spirit which, in its earthly incarnation, was known as Charles Dickens. Its ghostly sides must have shaken often with shadowy mirth; now and then a nebulous laugh must have issued from its disembodied throat, all because of the numerous and often fantastic attempts which have been made ever since Charles Dickens quit this earth to solve the problem of how he would have finished his last book, " The Mystery of Edwin Drood," had death not snatched him away when the story was in full swing and the dénouement of its intricate plot completely hidden from readers.

Around "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" a whole literature has grown up. Famous men have racked their brains to answer the puzzle which Dickens left behind him when he died. Every word of the uncompleted story has been minutely studied.

Tremendous significance has been attached to erasures and interlineations discovered in Dickens's own manuscript of "Edwin Drood." Chance annotations, casual remarks dropped by Dickens to acquaintances, have been dissected eagerly by. "Droodists"; sage theories have been built upon them, each of which unravels the mystery to the entire satisfaction of its propounder. Several of the characters introduced by Dickens in the pages of "Edwin Drood" have been fastened upon as the murderer of the hero of the unfinished book. Half a dozen of the characters, including Edwin Drood himself, have been singled out as the individual posing as Datchery, the mysterious man who snoops around the cathedral town of Cloisterham, apparently collecting evidence regarding the disappearance of Edwin.

Andrew Lang has knit his brows over the great Dickensian mystery. So has Gilbert K. Chesterton, now lecturing in our midst of other things. So has Sir W. Robertson Nicoll. So have quite a little squad of additional eminent personages. They have ridiculed one another's theories, called one another rough names, and (doubtless) lost many a good night's sleep wondering how Dickens would have unraveled the only really tangled plot which he ever evolved. All of which, it is to be hoped, is productive of ghostly chuckles and cachinations to Charles Dickens disembodied in spirit.

If so, more of such ebullitions of mirth are due, for still another "Droodist" has had the intrepidity to enter the lists, in the person of Percy T. Carden, with still another "solution" with evidence which (it seems to him) sheds light on points in the mystery never before cleared up even by the most rabid investigators. Like others before him, Mr. Carden has ferreted out the original Dickens manuscript from its hiding place on the shelves of the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London, and subjected it to painstaking inspection. Unlike the other literary detectives who have delved around the mystery, this latest volunteer Sherlock Holmes has sought to strengthen his arguments by maps of Rochester (the town which Dickens, in the story, calls Cloisterham), taken by an airman-photographer from an airplane. Quite a new and daring departure in Droodism! About the only thing which the next investigator of the mystery can do to overshadow Mr. Carden's "stunt" is to secure an interview on Edwin Drood from the ghost of Charles Dickens himself!

All who know "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" will recall that it concerns the fortunes of a youth of that name who lived in the old English cathedral town of Cloisterham with his uncle, John Jasper. Edwin is to marry Rosa Bud, a sprightly young pupil at the highly correct school of Miss Twinkleton, by the express wish of their parents. To Cloisterham come two other young people, Neville Landless and his sister, Helena. Neville falls in love with Rosa and, as he resents Edwin's seeming indifference to her and lordly air of proprietorship, the two youths quarrel. Following a dinner of reconciliation between them at Jasper's house, Edwin Drood walks out into the Cloisterham streets in the midst of a violent storm and completely disappears. The last person to be seen with him is Neville Landless, with whom he had just quarreled — his rival for the affections of Rosa Bud. Damning evidence against Neville is produced by Jasper and Neville is arrested on suspicion of murder. But he is released from custody, owing to the absence of any real clue to his guilt. Jasper proposes to Rosa, who spurns him.

All this Dickens sets forth in the fragment of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" which he completed, portraying the abovenamed characters and several others in true Dickensian fashion, dropping stray hints here and there which have been snapped up by some investigators as proofs of their theories regarding the disappearance of Edwin Drood and ridiculed by others holding conflicting theories as mere "blinds" ingeniously introduced by the author to catch just such unwary persons. Among the minor characters none has been the subject of such minute study as Datchery, the man of mystery who suddenly settles in Cloisterham after Edwin Drood's disappearance. Some think he is Helena Landless, disguised as a man in on endeavor to clear her brother from the suspicion of murder hanging over him. Others see in him Mr. Bazzard, the eccentric clerk of the eccentric Mr. Grewgious, Edwin's guardian. Mr. Carden now comes forward with the claim (advanced before, though seldom) that Datchery is Lieutenant Tartar, a naval officer, who comes in after Edwin Drood has vanished from the narrative.

Mr. Carden agrees with the bulk of "Droodists" in believing that Edwin was murdered by Jasper, his uncle, on account of the latter's passion for Rosa Bud, Edwin's betrothed. Jasper committed the murder, he thinks, while ignorant of the fact that Edwin and Rosa had broken off their engagement. As evidence of this he calls special attention to Jasper's horror, culminating in a swoon, when he learns this, after Edwin's disappearance, from Mr. Grewgious, Edwin's guardian.

Mr. Carden claims to have established one point which (he says) has eluded all other delvers into the Drood mystery, viz., the location of the house of Durdles, the dram-loving stone mason, who provider so much of the typically Dickensian local color to the unfinished mystery yarn. Mr. Carden went to Rochester to see it with his own eyes, and he has marked it on a map and caused his aid, the airman-photographer, to snap a picture of that part of the town where he located it. All of which, as any Droodist will admit (unless his theory is quite different), is most important in view of the incident of the quicklime and the spooky nocturnal visit of Jasper and Durdles to the crypt, to say nothing of its extremely important bearing (apparent at once to every Droodist, unless he has an ontirely dissimilar idea) on the question of the grave of Mrs. Sapsea and the behavior of the moonbeams on the fateful night.

The other point which, according to Mr. Carden, he has cleared refers to that man with the mustache who is depicted on the cover of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" as it appeared serially until Dickens's death abruptly terminated the instalments. Now, that cover has been from the first one of the principal bone of contention in the great game of trying to find out what Dickens would have done had he lived to finish the story of Edwin Drood. Friendships have been shuttered to pieces against that cover; "Droodists" have turned gray, they have gone mad, poring over the pictures upon it.

Mr. Carden may not have turned gray and probably didn't go mad im studying the said cover (though possibly all Droodism might in itself be considered a mild form of harmless insanity), hut, anyhow, he has studied it long enough to decide that the chap with the mustaches is Neville Landless. How did be know that Neville had mustaches? How, indeed, when no other investigator had established this fact; when Dickens (they thought) had died without divulging whether Neville's face was or was not thus adorned? Ha!—there is where the fine hand of your true Droodist gets in his work. Let us hear Mr. Carden's mustache theory:

It has been suggested that the kneeling figure kissing Rosa's hand is Jasper or else Tartar. But each of these is shown elsewhere upon the cover and neither is the kneeling figure. The only certain clue to the identity of the latter is his mustache. What character, if any, had a mustache? The answer seems at first to be that no mustache is mentioned. But the schoolgirls at the Nuns' House knew better. "Nothing escapes their notice, sir." Recall the quarrel scene enacted by Neville and Edwln 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 surretitiously clapping on a paper mustache at dinner time and going through the motions of aiming a water bottle at Miss Giggles who drew a table spoon in self-defense." On Miss Ferdinand's evidence we shall be safe in saying that Neville wore mustaches. Clearly then it is he who kneels at Rosa's feet, kissing her hand upon the cover.

As to the impressive figure with the long coat and folded arms at the foot of the cover, Mr. Carden surmises it to be Helena Landless. In her man's disguise, shown in the crypt, whither she had gone, according to his theory, to give Jasper an awful scare when he went there to get the ring. (What! Don't you know about the ring? Shame on you, yon are no Droodist!) Pursuing his theory, Mr. Carden surmises the three figures climbing the winding stair to be Crisparkle, Lobley and Datchery (Tartar), chasing the murderer, Jasper, up to the top of the Cathedral Tower, whence, according to Mr. Garden, Dickens intended to make Jasper try to scramble downward over the rough surface of the tower face, but in vain, he being captured and handcuffed by his pursuers. To make all come out as should be, with due retribution for the wicked murderer, Mr. Carden shows Jasper in his cell, on the night before he is to be hanged, writing a full confession of his crime.

Mr. Carden takes no special credit unto himself for having solved the mystery beyond cavil. In fact, he is quite modest about the whole matter, unlike some of the other players of the Edwin Drood game. His attitude toward the whole thing is charmingly summed up by him when he says in his preface: "The greatest danger is lest the game should have an end in a complete solution."