First published in The United Methodist, Jan.-Feb.. 1913

Any proposal to turn over once again the fascinating riddle of Edwin Drood compels some apology. It might be found in Sir W. Robertson Nicoll’s recent return to this subject, except that for this latest examination it is claimed that it is also the last, and that it finally and effectively closes the question. Indeed, the reviews oi Mr. Cuming Walters and others seem to set up a sort of papal finality claim for it, and such wretched Galileos as remain associated with other views are assumed to have recanted in white. If so, some of them on rising from their submission must have muttered, “But it won’t work after all!” or words to that effect. For this ex cathedra utterance is hailed by such hysterical praise pitched in an accent of such sharp suspicion of all non-contents that one naturally concludes that the types are hot somewhere with another final.

Dr. Nicoll’s work is admittedly careful and thorough, and he must be acquitted of complicity in the infallibility claim: caution and modesty alike provide that. In. all the 200 pp. through which the examination extends, or is distended rather—for the margins are very broad and the letterpress very loose set—there is very little indeed that is new.

We must assume the reader’s familiarity with the details of the story, for indeed, as Dr. Nicoll points out, no one can possibly attack the problem who has not read the book over and over again, and Dr. Nicoll rightly claims that external evidence seems to tell strongly in favour of an accomplished murder of Drood. Forster says Dickens told him the story was to be of a nephew murdered by an uncle. Charles Dickens, jun., is admitted to evidence, not on affidavit, but on the report of Mrs. Perugini and on the strength of a play written in. collaboration with Joseph Hatton which presents a conclusion that, so far as I know, satisfies nobody. Sir Luke Fildes indignantly demands that we choose between accepting this evidence as conclusive or reflecting on the beloved writer’s personal honour. Dr. Nicoll apparently seconds this demand and seeks to fix us on one horn or other of this ruthless dilemma.

The Dilemma Theory

The alternative is much too sharp and hasty. The dilemma has not yet been absolutely classified with the two-horned beasts, and the horns here are so far apart and so blunt that really escape seems possible. The employers of the dilemma argument are themselves our best authority for refusing it; for after declaring that it quite closes the question they proceed to discuss it very fully and very circumstantially. It is true that when in difficulties they fall back consistently enough to the shelter of their dilemma, but that isn’t cricket. If it doesn’t close their discussion it cannot close ours.

If a murder is intended, is attempted, is believed by the murderer to be accomplished, the moral and legal and romantic value of that deed is murder. And where such is the case, and where the escape forms part of a subtle and intricate plot, and forms part of a mystery, the author of such a story would find the utmost difficulty in conveying another impression than that which Forster and Charles Dickens, jun., received, without exploding the mystery and so destroying for them the value of the whole work.

Note further: we have nowhere the language in which Dickens conveyed the impression. The evidence is entirely a remembrance of a conversation, and yet, in the absence of verifiable terms, on the authority of one man’s memory of another’s verbal utterance, we are asked to give it the value of an original declaration in terms. Most respectfully we so far decline as to claim that such an account shall stand only so far as the story, which is documentary evidence, will allow it. And in so doing we claim as tender a regard for the writer’s honour as anyone else possesses.

A Bit of Contrary Evidence

Curiously enough, Mrs. Perugini includes in her statement a bit of contrary evidence—a conversation so brief and direct as to bring it much more reasonably into the scope of accurate remembrance than Forster’s long and detailed report. To Miss Hogarth, who said to Dickens, “I hope you haven’t really killed poor Edwin Drood,” the master gravely replied, “ I call my book the Mystery, not the History of Edwin Drood.” This clearly shows two things: Incidentally it proves that Drood is so sympathetic a character as to raise a pitiful interest in a kind heart; whereas one great contention of Dr. Nicoll and Mr. Walters is that there is no such quality about Drood, but that he is a vapid colourless character, a superfluity in the development of the book, with no hold on the reader and no further place in the history. But, mainly, this evidence shows the author's conscious right to withhold the key of supreme interest even from “the best and truest, friend ever man had" as he describes Miss Hogarth in his Will, and neither Forster nor any other can claim a consideration higher than that.

External Evidence

External evidence against the death of Drood is admittedly little in bulk, but, as some of us think, weighty in character. Set out these titles, all of them found in Dickens’s own hand among the notes for the novel : “James’ Disappearance,” “Flight and Pursuit,” “The Loss of Edwin Drood,” “Flight of Edwin Drood,” “Edwin Drood in Hiding,” “Disappearance of Edwin Drood” “Mystery of Edwin Drood,” “Dead? or Alive?” Remember these are the thoughts of the author himself on his title. Take now the incomplete book as we have it, and your own knowledge of the natural history of novels; remember the natural sympathy of the reading public a la Miss Hogarth, and see if you can dissipate the thought that Edwin Drood is alive. Commenting on Dr. James’s subjective impression to this effect, Dr. Nicoll says, “It is hard to argue against an impression.” So it is. It is harder to dissolve it. It is hardest of all to disappoint it.

Dr. Nicoll is convinced that the real strength of the disappearance theory is to be found in the bottom picture of the original green wrapper. Personally I did not know of the existence of the picture, nor had I read any of the suggested solutions when I conceived this impression very strongly; but one cannot but note the amount of clever urgency with which it is sought to explain away the fact that the picture is there, that it is agreed that the likeness is intentional; that it is either Drood redivivus or one personating Drood, or a phantom Drood born of the murderer’s brain. In this last case be it noted the “ghost” is solid enough to cast a shadow.

The Internal Evidences

Turning now to the internal evidences, it is profusely and plainly hinted that Edwin Drood has the “marks of death” on him, but when we press for definition of these marks the hints arc much less plain. It is quite true that his queer engagement to Rosa fails to demand a sequel of union. We should be very sorry if it had that sequel. But surely a young man must not be condemned to death because he does not marry the lady artificially betrothed to him. And Dickens clearly indicates that Drood is more or less in love with the wild beauty, Helena. But, more significant yet, Edwin has a career before him, a career in which he is keenly interested. A lawful, healthy ambition for engineering doesn’t mark a man for death. If Drood is killed these forward hints are as meaningless in the body romantic as is the appendix vermiform in the body physical, and to break them off is bad art.

But it is said, “Isn’t there a quotation from the tragedy of “Macbeth?” Well, yes; there is. And if a novelist quotes “Hamlet” is that a proof he intends his hero to go mad? Let us look at that quotation. “When shall these three meet again?” is put as heading to the chapter which tells of the Christmas Eve meeting of Jasper, Neville and Drood in Jasper’s rooms. And it is taken, strange to say, to signify that these three never will meet again. This brilliant reading is the contribution of that acute thinker, Mr. Hall Caine, no less. Dr. Nicoll doesn’t tell us this: can it be that for some reason the name is not an authority he is proud of? But the glory of it and the quality of it are there; and they are Mr. Hall Caine’s. And he says the three referred to in Shakespeare’s line are Macbeth, Duncan, and Duncan’s sons. Mr. Hall Caine’s arithmetic is a little weak, but his imagination is compensatingly strong. Our readers will hardly need to be reminded that the "three" are not the murderer, his victim, and his victim’s sons at all, but the three witches; and that these three do actually and truly and really meet again—

“When the hurlyburly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.”

So that, to revise Cap’n Cuttle himself, “The value of that ’ere observation lies in the misapplication thereof.”

If by that headline Dickens' meant to suggest that tragedy, and murderous tragedy, is in the air it is excellent and it is impressive, for tragedy indeed is threatened in the heart of that brigand beast, Jasper; but Mr. Hall Caine’s rendering ranks with schoolboy howlers.

Some Leading Questions

Marks of death! It would seem to us that Drood is rather marked for escape! Take this. “Threatened men live long,” he says to the opium hag, Warned men live longer, and there is abundant proof that the warning has made a dark and deep impression upon his thoughts as he .paces the precincts of Jasper’s gatehouse before he goes up the postern stairs.

Take this again: Jasper’s own account of the deed in his opium ravings is, “When it was really done, it seemed not worth the doing, it was done so soon. And when it comes to be real at last, it is so short that it seems unreal for the first time.”

Take this also: one clearly-defined result of Jasper’s opium debauch is a liability to a strange seizure or daze under strong excitement in which all power and consciousness depart. One such is recorded in Ch. I., another in Ch. II., and a third when Grewgious communicates the breach of the engagement, showing to Jasper, as it were, the needlessness of the crime.

We know that on December 23rd Jasper gave way to another opium indulgence as though to prepare us for something of this result: On Christmas Eve the murder was attempted—did the daze supervene on that terrible excitement, also making the doing of it unreal in fact as well as in experience? I know these are leading questions, but they arise out of the actual material, and I for one find it exceedingly difficult to avoid the lead.

Again, there are two night-owls, the Deputy and Durdles, both having bitter cause to suspect and dislike Jasper, both designed undoubtedly to be witnesses in some sort of the strange happenings in Cathedral precincts on that Christmas Eve. All the theorists agree in that. Then why their silence? If they have seen anything—even anything suspicious—why have they not come forward when the air is full of inquiries and rewards are offered for information. One cause only suggests itself, that they have been silenced for the time, that the conviction of Jasper may be the more effectually worked out through his own actions.

A Strange and Unnoticed Silence

Yet again. I want to point out a strange silence and absence on the part of Mr. Grewgious which no one seems to have noticed. Those familiar with the book will remember that Grewgious had promised to come to Rosa at Christmas. Yet there are three whole days just then when, though all Cloisterham was full of the excitement of the search for Drood’s body, Mr. Grewgious is absolutely unheard of, much as he is needed then. Where was he? Is it possible that he, too, was busy, not seeking the dead Drood but helping the escaped and probably still prostrate man into effective concealment? On any other hypothesis that absence and silence is a rock in the sky, either a terrible blunder or a blind enigma.

Now mark the strangeness and the strange result of his re-entry. He comes to Jasper’s room on the 27th. His manner is saturated with contemptuous suspicion, aye, and more than suspicion. He refuses to break bread with him. He tortures him and tests him with the cunning of an inquisitor, springing on him the news of the broken engagement, cleverly suggesting it, though he does not say where he has learned this secret (known up to Drood’s disappearance only to the two betrothed), by saying “I have just left Miss Landless.” The communication throws Jasper into a fit, and Grewgious looks down at him, a heap of torn and miry clothes, and opens and closes his hands with a strange movement as he warms them at the gatehouse fire. And thereafter one feels in every word and action his personal certainty, not suspicion, of Jasper’s guilt; and yet (strange combination!) there is a contemptuous levity in his allusions to the choirmaster as “our local friend,” etc., which is unthinkable if he also believed the hellish purpose to have had its tragic accomplishment, though it consorts well with the possession of a belief or knowledge that it had failed.

The Answer of Opponents

Now the opponents of the escape theory throw great stress on the terrible cruelty involved in supposing the innocent Neville to lie under the agony of suspicion when Drood’s appearance could have freed him. But, strange to say, Neville seems never to have, rested under actual suspicion in the mind of anyone with whom he was nearly concerned. Certainly neither Rosa nor Helena, Crisparkle nor Grewgious, ever entertained the idea for a single moment, or else they behaved with the utmost callousness and hypocrisy.

Apart from the solemn jackass Sapsea' no named figure in the group but believed in him. Cloisterham looked askance, and his proud spirit suffered keenly, but Cloisterham was speedily left for London. True, while Drood was lost he could not be openly cleared. But there are the best of reasons why Drood should remain hid even at that expense; Jasper must continue to think his victim dead, must be lured to the scene of his crime, for self-conviction, since, as we suppose, the drugged and half strangled Drood was neither able nor willing to fasten absolutely the guilt upon his uncle whom he had idolized.

Again, the broken engagement renders it more than desirable that neither Drood nor Rosa shall be embarrassed with the other’s presence; and the exigencies of the book nowhere demand that Neville was denied the knowledge that cleared him: only that his public justification should be deferred—for something less than a year, and in novels people endure this and more for the good of the case.

I have not exhausted my notes on the indications of Drood’s escape, only selected them—but I am so confident of the reasonableness of the case that I am content to leave the main question there and turn to the minor, but to me vastly more interesting, question, Who was Datchery?

II.—WHO WAS DATCHERY?

Sir W. Robertson Nicoll’s theory, following Mr. Cuming Walters’, is that Helena was Datchery. And it is important to recognize that order in weighing up Mr. Walters’s enthusiastic review. The simplest and, as Dr. Nicoll confesses, the most fatal rejoinder is Mr. Andrew Lang’s, “It may be true that Helena is Datchery, but it is not the less certain that she ought not to be.”

Mr. Walters, commenting on another theory which we shall examine later, says it stands condemned because it rests on a single sentence in the book. We believe we can disprove that statement of the theory he speaks of, but no one can disprove or ever has disproved that but for one sentence—the one that tells us Helena had several times in her childhood assumed a boy’s dress and removed her hair for disguise—the Helena theory never would and never could have been born. And that sentence is just the wide-open hint that a novelist would use as a “blind,” and it has evidently served its purpose. Remove that sentence and the Helena theory is gone: there is no easy fitting anywhere. Surely that is a conclusive quality of a “blind.”

Successful Impersonation

Dr. Nicoll writes interestingly about “mystifications” of this sort and shows us that Dickens was acquainted both in romance and in real life with successful impersonations of men by women. Especial prominence is given to a sort of “turn” in which Lady Bancroft gave an uproariously clever and successful rendering of a boy’s part in “The Maid and the Magpie.” Indeed this case seems to be a sort of tour de force. Now, says he, why should not Dickens use this startling and possible means? Let us see how Dickens regarded that performance. It impressed him immensely in its rollicking abandon. So completely boy-like that, as he says, “It is a thing you cannot imagine a woman’s doing it at all, and yet the levity, impulse, and spirit of it are so exactly like a boy that you cannot think of anything like her sex in association with it.”

Now consider: if, with all the accessories of the green room, the cleverest woman he had ever seen on the stage doing that burlesque turn filled him with amazement as a thing almost unthinkable of a woman at all, was he, with his high thoughts of woman, likely to set the superb Helena Landless creature doing the Datchery dance through half a novel in the daylight under the eye of a landlady, in the streets of Cloisterham where Helena was known and in the presence of the criminal who was also a music master, talking, talking, talking, chaffing Sapsea, sparring with Winks, without reserve or restraint?

Dr. James is, we think, right in his judgement of the idea as a vulgar burlesque, which a writer of a sixpenny tale would reject; and yet they who put forth the theory claim to be tender about the master’s fair fame!

Objections to Dr. Nicoll’s View

I object to the theory in general, and in these particulars. First, it is certain she could not have carried out such a project without consent of some guiding minds in the group. Would Mr. Grewgious consent, that perfect Don Quixote in worship of high womanhood? Would the Minor Canon consent, who loves Helena with a strong worthy love? Would Neville consent to his sister’s masquerade, he remaining inactive in London, a thousand times more suitable to do it if it must be done? Would Rosa consent, or Miss Twinkleton? Yet it could not be done without connivance of some of these. It needs but to try it against the hard facts of the case and it breaks.

But, again, suppose this difficulty overcome—a woman may put on a man’s dress, she may by rare gift and abandon imitate a man’s voice and assume masculine airs and, if she is exceedingly clever, may succeed with stage aids for an hour. But let a woman of high breeding undertake to impersonate a rather vulgar and very loquacious man, day after day, before the eyes of those who have known her .... ! The examples Dr. Nicoll quotes are beside the mark: there is no parallel outside the area of the playhouse.

Trifling Instincts of Sex which are Inimitable

The thousand trifling instincts of sex become inimitable. Take this: put a man at ease in a room and in nine cases out of ten he unconsciously drifts to the fireplace and stands with his back to it. A woman might, if she were observant, go so far as to imitate even this: but what woman would think to reproduce this force of habit as Datchery does, going to stand with his back to a fireless grate?

The first description of Datchery’s dress is well-nigh fatal. No disguised woman would or could run the risk of going about “buttoned up in a tightish blue surtout”; no womanly figure could be disguised so. And Datchery’s appearance suggests a semi-military proportion and carriage. Mrs. Bancroft may pose as a boy, but it would take a perfect giant of a woman easily to convey the military frame; and the lithe, slim Helena, even by taking thought, could not add the necessary cubits to her stature.

Take next the hair. Helena’s is not scant nor short. “Her wild black hair,” we are told, “fell down protectingly over Rosa’s form.” Now a whole chapter might be written on “Wigs, their Limits and Limitations,” but it will suffice to say that since the full peruke went out there has never been a male wig made that would disguise such a luxuriant woman’s glory as Helena possessed. When we are told of Datchery’s dog-like shaking of his white locks we sec the last hope of such a disguise shaken away. No pins or paste in all the world could save her hair from coming down upon such treatment. Ask any who has had even a little experience of theatricals to pronounce on such a disguise—and I willingly stake my case upon the answer.

We might stay on the voice, but will not, not because it is unimportant, but because again, to my judgement, the difficulty is inveterate on the merest statement of it. Helena had met Jasper, had spoken to him and to others in his presence; Jasper is a voice-trainer, expert in falsettos, and yet we are asked to think that Helena seeks his company, chaffs and babbles, and babbles and chaffs in a man’s voice, and escapes detection.

Datchery’s Hands

Now we come to an important and significant subject, to which Dr. Nicoll calls our close attention, and his handling of it is one of the most curious parts of his book. Pointing out the extraordinary difficulty of a woman’s hands escaping betrayal; and being impressed by it, he goes into the matter and makes, he thinks, a remarkable discovery. He says he finds that Datchery uses all sorts of clever means to keep his hands out of sight; for, once seen, they expose him. Dr. Nicoll notes that as he walks Datchery conceals his hands behind him. Did no one walk behind Datchery in Cloisterham, then?

Datchery refuses to take his hat from the waiter’s hand at the "Crozier.” But by all appearance, and in the nature of things, Mr. Datchery’s meal is assisted by the waiter, and I have wondered how he managed to consume it, or any part of it, without leaving his hands visible.

He holds a shilling before the ferret eyes of the Deputy, even saying, “See here!” and bargaining for service in exchange. We can only suppose he held it in his (or her) hand since the author does not say he held it in his mouth. He hands his card to Mrs. Tope to secure the interview with Jasper. He claps his hand to his head when reminded by Sapsea of his hat. He whips out his pocket book, and would have transcribed the epitaph in the mayoral presence on the spot only Durdies interrupts. Did he begin to write with his feet then, since he always concealed his hands? And the many ceremonies with which he parts from the Mayor could not include the most natural and ordinary, one of shaking hands, for the same reason.

Stranger still, the favourite occupation of this elderly buffer is to sit writing (concealing his hands, of course) in the light of the open doorway, beholding and beheld by the passers-by. And, lastly, he counts three and sixpence over very slowly before the avaricious gaze of the opium hag, and, feigning a mistake, counts it over again, her eyes being fixed on his hands meanwhile. This is too much for the doctor’s theory; so he conceives the idea that at last he (or she) purposely shows his hands to give the old woman a hint. But whatever the hint was or how it could be so given, is not clear; whatever it was it is abundantly clear that no hint was taken —having watched those hands greedily for quite a time the old woman shows no sign that anything whatever, except the three and six, had been conveyed to her.

But now, how stupid Datchery and his or her creator were, according to these theorists, with the difficulty of hiding a woman’s hands. The most perfect escape from the difficulty is also the easiest, and they labour through pages of special pleading and quaint fancies first to invent the difficulty (which does not exist) and then invent a solution. If the difficulty had existed at all it would surely have been overcome by an expedient any child would think of. Datchery would have worn gloves.

Masculine Diet and Language

As to Datchery’s very masculine diet, it is quite soundly argued that a disguised woman would choose such things as part of her disguise. But what about the very masculine quantities? Would Helena order—and consume a pint of sherry? And ale to supper is not absolutely necessary as a masculine disguise. It looks very very much like a masculine taste and a little vulgar at that.

I am afraid that we must conclude that only a man is here, and a man actually familiar with the ways of inns quite beyond the old method of inn-scoring by tally strokes. Helena might manage the fried sole and even fancy a veal cutlet, but a pint of sherry and ale to supper is too too solidly masculine for the needs of the case.

Shall we speak of. Datchery’s language? Helena was an Anglo-Cingalese, and in her brief English experience, while doubtless speaking the language correctly, yet to have acquired easy use of English slang and sporting phrases would be absolutely impossible to her. Take the Buffer’s charting evasion of Sapsea’s speculations as to his former profession. To Army or Navy guess: “His Honour the Mayor does me too much credit.” To his “diplomacy” guess: “There, I confess, His Honour the Mayor is too much for me; even a diplomatic bird must fall to such a gun.” Apt, easy, fitting, natural, nothing more so, say, for the son of a Norfolk farmer, this ready allusion smacking of the English sporting countryside, but to Helena with a life history in Ceylon and her six months in England! No, Mr. Datchery is too many for Helena : he does her disguise too much credit; far too much.

A Conclusive Argument

I come now to the most conclusive of all arguments against the Helena theory, and since I have not seen this put forward, it is, so far, a fresh contribution. It relates to the ascertainable part and place Helena, as Helena, takes in the book.

In one or two places Sir Robertson Nicoll and all others of the Helena-Datchery School feel the chronology of the book as Dickens left it is against them. Dr. Jackson coolly proposes to re-arrange the chapters, putting xviii. after xx. and Dr. Nicoll approves. Surely that is an unwarrantable liberty to take with a dead author’s chapter-plan, which all acknowledge had been by himself revised in an opposite direction. To do that in the interests of any theory accomplishes little save to discredit the theory. We must take the story or leave it as the author left it. Happily the theory we most incline to is independent of any order of chapters, though we prefer the author’s own order to anyone else’s.

About midsummer Datchery appears in Cloisterham, declares his intention, and evidently fulfils it, to stay there, watching events. The Helena-theory then must remove Helena’s presence and activity from the book during that period. But right up to the break up of the boarding school, which would happen probably a few days after Midsummer Day, Rosa and Helena had been together. She had been, says the book, Helena’s stay and comfort during the whole time.

Now, by all indications, Crisparkle visits Neville a few days before the school breaks up, and he says, “Next week you will cease to be alone, and will have a devoted companion”—referring to a perfectly mutual and open understanding that Helena is coming to live there and be his stay. Neville laments this, because the surroundings are so dull and unwomanly, and because Helena will have no friend or society there. Incidentally, one thinks of what Neville would have to say of the unwomanliness of the Datchery task for his sister (though dullness would not mark that) ; but that by the way. Well then, we have a definite time mark. A few days before the holidays—and “next week” Helena is to take up her abode not at Mrs. Tope’s but in Staple Inn.

The school does break up, and as soon as the coast is clear (the indications seem to point almost to the first day of the holidays) Jasper comes to see Rosa. That same evening Rosa flies to Grewgious. That same night Mr. Grewgious points across the dark Inn Square saying, “Look! there is where they (Neville and Helena) live.” Next morning Rosa actually interviews Helena at her brother’s rooms. But by any conceivable use of the order of chapters Datchery has already made progress in his investigations at Cloisterham.

An Exploded Idea

It is true a fatuous fancy has been founded on Mr. Grewgious’ reply to Rosa’s wish to see Helena on the morrow: “I should like to sleep on that proposal.” The inference is that Helena is not producible and that Grewgious must send to Cloisterham and procure a transformation of Datchery to satisfy the request. This idea is utterly exploded when Mr. Grewgious explains his hesitancy by saying that he even then cannot make up his mind whether it is prudent to hold open communication under present circumstances, since he has reason to known that “our local friend” (Jasper) is watching Neville’s rooms. But by the good fortune of romance communication is opened that very morning through an adjoining house, where Mr. Tartar has rooms, and Helena is there: and Mr. Grewgious' movements are so closely traceable between the request and the meeting that it is certain no such summons was needed or possible.

Well, the communications are opened and are to be continued through Mr. Tartar with Helena, and a plan is formed for a month, at least, on this basis. Meanwhile on any order of chapters Mr. Datchery is busy elsewhere. We are not quite in the fortunate position Sir Frank Lockwood once described to a judge who complimented him on a particularly neat and sufficient alibi: “Yes, my lud, I had seven alibis offered and I flatter myself I chose the best! ” We have only one but ’tis enough, ’twill serve. Helena could not be Datchery because we can trace her elsewhere while he is as busy at Cloisterham as an idle buffer can be.

III.—DATCHERY IS BAZZARD

The mind of Mr. Cuming Walters is evidently not in a judicial frame when he treats of this theory; his contempt is almost violent and argues a grave want of caution. He tells us, for instance, that it is founded on a single sentence. So far from true is this that we will, if you please, defer any reference to that sentence until we have otherwise completed the case, which should show it to be rather the topstone than the foundation of the theory.

We do not know much about Mr. Bazzard by the light of the half-book left to us; he is most certainly a dark horse; Mr. Walters would say ass, but we object! What we do know is very curious and very interesting, and of just that quality that seems to demand further development.

He is the son of a Norfolk farmer, but so little of the farmer's boy as to be possessed by a sort of combined stage fever and pen fever. In a word, he has written a tragedy. True, it is a bad tragedy and has failed to come out, but most tragedies are bad; some even that do come out. To pursue his genius under his father’s eye would mean danger from the flail or pitch fork or any other agricultural implement of assault; and not being formed for starvation he accepts service as Mr. Grewgious’ clerk, but feels the position so acutely as a degradation that Grewgious on all occasions tries to blunt the edge of his humiliation by all sorts of apologetic considerations for the mind which could at least produce a tragedy.

Mr. Bazzard carries his feud with the world on the ground of that slight with the most gloomy resentment, with much curtness and parsimony of speech wears his injury uniform-wise and includes his kind Chief in his hostile contempt of the world that has been base enough to refuse his masterpiece. That he is not a solitary maniac is evident, for he has entry into the fellowship of dramatic writers, and has even had a play dedicated to him—doubtless a bad one also that will not come out.

Now Mr. Bazzard and his rejected tragedy, all must admit, are brought into strangely high relief. We learn as a great secret that it is called “The Thorn of Anxiety,” and Grewgious placates him with the whimsical toast, “To the ‘Thorn of Anxiety,’ and may it come out at last! ”

The Materials to Hand

Note the materials to hand! A man convinced he has a dramatic soul has conceived a tragedy : but it won’t come out; and he burns to show the world what powers it has neglected. He is about the humdrum law, wears its yoke gallingly, and, whether he be Datchery or not, a more likely expression could not be well devised than Datchery’s, “His Honour reminds me of the nature of the law. Immoral. How true!”; if, on the other hand, Mr. Datchery had been a Norfolk farmer’s son, instead of an Anglo-Indian girl, the phrase about the diplomatic bird falling to such a gun would have come so much more easily; but that is, of course, beneath contempt, as Mr. Walters says.

Well now, it happens on our theory, that a tragedy falls into Bazzard’s hands—a real one—if only he could bring it out! The buried dramatist with such a chance is a war-horse smelling the battle afar off. Could he bring this tragedy out? Could he?

Mr. Grewgious somewhere hints at a quite true instance, an anecdote in point, showing that when one is in a difficulty a way may chance to open and should be taken. That anecdote, strange to say, is not told. But we make a shrewd guess at the difficulty Mr. Grewgious was in one morning with respect to a real tragedy, really difficult to bring out, when Mr. Bazzard came into the office. Could Mr. Bazzard bring it out? Could he?

The Much-Discussed Wrapper

Since beginning to write these notes I have looked again at the much-discussed wrapper. Not very keenly, for I am willing to accept its merely relative importance, but a thing struck my eyes, a little thing, which I verily believe for all the microscopes that have been used upon it has escaped notice till now. A little thing, a straw, may show the way of the wind or water. Now this thing is not a straw, but it is a thorn. Where can we have heard of a Thorn? Mr. Bazzard’s luckless tragedy. Surely that has not thrust into the wrapper. Yet there it is unmistakably, a whole wreath and festoon of it, with the symbol of Dramatic Tragedy above it. A most strange ornament, calling for some explanation. On that Thorn hangs a tale, depend on it! I know some will think it merely the poetic complement of the rose wreath opposite. But the rose wreath bears its own thorns. There’s a Rosa Bud in the book and hence the roses—there’s a phantom tragedy by a man named Bazzard, and, curiously enough, that phantom can only become conspicuous by that man’s prominence. The book wholly turns on a tragedy which admittedly is to be brought out by a detective unknown. Really it is not surprising that some folk see reasons and reasons to suppose that the tragedy maker and the tragedy tracer may both love their love with a B.

All agree that the detective must be one of the already known characters of the book in disguise. Obviously, Grewgious and Crisparkle should be out of the question. The wild idea that Drood himself may be Datchery deserves no consideration and has received none. There remain three possibles—Helena, Tartar and Bazzard. Against Helena not only improbability but an alibi has been proved.

The Tartar-Datchery Theory

The Tartar-Datchery theory is presented very interestingly by Mr. Gadd, and every way such solution is preferable to the Helena Landless identity. Mr. Gadd’s case favourably impresses. The freedom from the bristling difficulties and indignity of the Helena theory is a great relief, anyhow. Tartar has certainly a versatility of speech and a neatness of action, which go far to fit him, but even a Sapsea would discern the gait of a trained navy man in less than three guesses.

Two conclusive reasons, however, decide us against the identity. First, Tartar is too gentlemanly and too neat. For, soothly, even beyond the smell of plenteous sherry and supper ale our idle Buffer is rather vulgar in mien and address. Second, and more decisive : we have an alibi in this case also. He knows nothing of the matter at the time Datchery appears in Cloisterham, if chapter order have any weight whatever; and even after that Mr. Tartar’s place and task seem very fully marked out; and the scene is Staple Inn, W.C. True, Datchery watches the light of Jasper’s window with a good deal of the mariner’s manner, but that watch in itself is a figure apt and general of the stern and steady onlook to the haven of terrible success and has no force to cancel the unsuitability of manner and the excluding force of another task and quest for Tartar otherwhere.

The Prejudice Against Bazzard

Those prejudiced (as Mr. Walters candidly confesses he is) against Bazzard say he’s a dull man, wooden, having no conversation. Something of this seems borne out by the jerky remarks and manners which characterise his early appearance. Let it also be noted that he has a dogged and inveterate habit of noting and following. But is it forgotten that the man is in sullen revolt against his fate; that he is out of his element, and deliberately shows it by churlish taciturnity? But let one talk stage or plots, wigs or murders to Bazzard, would he be dull still? With even a drop of the Billickin blood in him, charge not that tongue with impotence. Disguises! did ever man revel in disguise as Datchery does. His semi-military coat, buttoned up in midsummer, and his streaming white wig are so obvious as to be well-nigh ridiculous. Somebody says Bazzard would need no disguise in Cloisterham, since no one knew him there. It is not impossible—it has quite a Dickensian flavour, reminiscent of Mr. Micawber and family dressed and provided with all necessaries for life afloat and life in the Australian bush in anticipation—that Mr. Bazzard in his zealous loyalty to the stage may have overdone his disguise. It is at the same time possible that Mr. Bazzard’s figure might not be unknown to Mr. Jasper who had taken to spying in Staple Inn, and therefore some disguise might be desirable.

Where is He?

By process of selection we search the possibles again. Grewgious, Crisparkle, Neville, Edwin, ruled out. Of the rest, Helena has been with Rosa every hour to that midsummer break-up : thereafter she is to be with Neville and is with him, visibly handling a truly courageous and truly womanly task of nerving her brother and keeping in touch with Rosa through Tartar.

Tartar up to and beyond that break-up of Miss Twinkleton’s Academy is, as touching this history, unknown and unknowing; and after his entry undertakes a definite constant service to prowl about Neville’s house and invite approach from “our local friend" and lure him to declare his purpose against the boy whom he seeks to incriminate.

Each character has his or her place, before, during, and for some time after that midsummer week when Daitchery appears in Cloisterham.

All did we say? All but one. And of that one, Grewgious, who most peculiarly insists on “talking of Bazzard ” at the very moment when he prays to confound the knavish tricks of Jasper and to damn him again—Grewgious says, “Mr. Bazzard is off duty here (at Staple Inn) altogether, just at present.” Where is he? The echoing cloisters of the Cathedral give us the only sufficient answer.