1. The identification of Lobley

Do you remember Lobley, who was Lieutenant Tartar’s man? He barely makes his appearance in the story and doesn’t utter a single word. Dickens describes him as follows:

"He was a jolly-favoured man, with tawny hair and whiskers, and a big red face. He was the dead image of the sun in old woodcuts, his hair and whiskers answering for rays all around him. Resplendent in the bow of the boat, he was a shining sight, with a man-of-war’s man’s shirt on—or off, according to opinion—and his arms and breast tattooed all sorts of patterns."

That description is quite figurative for such an insignificant character, isn’t it? It looks like Dickens based it on a real person, but who is that person?

The surname Lobley originates on Isle of Man. That isle which is situated between Great Britain and Ireland is exactly where his origin is and even today the largest number of bearers of that surname resides on that island. Moreover, if you search for ‘Isle of Man Sailor 1840’ on Google you will unexpectedly find that very same ginger-bearded sailor, but in a shape of a jolly teapot!

Funny, isn’t it? Dickens created Tartar’s man in a similar fashion to which God created Adam from dust. Dickens created his character from a porcelain teapot, which he most probably had seen in some dining-room.

2. You are out of jam!

Jolly Lieutenant Tartar utters a certain phrase from their shared childhood in his squeaky voice (in order to bring back childhood memories) during his first meeting with Canon Crisparkle:

‘What will you have for breakfast this morning? You are out of jam!’

Wendy Jacobson clears that statement up in The Companion to the Mystery of Edwin Drood. In English schools of that period, junior students traditionally were obliged to serve their seniors. It was supposed to improve discipline and foster obedience. We may interpret it as follows—Tartar, a junior student was obliged to serve his senior Crisparkle breakfast in bed, and since the latter used to linger in bed, the jam would be consumed by other jam-lovers by the time he woke up and the only thing left for him was a couple of dry toasts. Not a very inspiring scene, don’t you think? Master Crisparkle orders the poor fag about, nonetheless twenty years later, this Tartar claims that Master Crisparkle has been kinder to him than all other students and teachers combined! In fact, he is so grateful, that when Crisparkle starts to drown, Tartar is determined that it would be better to drown with him, than to lose his Master.

The actual meaning of the phrase ‘You are out of jam!’ is different. The latin word iam (often written and pronounced as jam) means ‘at this time’, but only in the future and past tense. While the word nunc, which means ‘now’ is used in the present. ‘Jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today’ is a pun mnemonic for remembering the usage of these Latin words. This changes the situation completely, instead of a capricious and demanding character waiting for his jam to be served, we get a totally different selfless Chrisparkle, the one who teaches his fag friend the nuances of Latin grammar. Now this explains why Tartar felt so grateful. And thus, it was Canon’s own words, which Tartar utters in his squeaky voice, so he would remember his younger self from twenty years afore.

3. Poor, mean and miserable!

The chapter XXIII describes the questioning of Jasper in his opium intoxication. Having had a fever dream about his criminal journey, Jasper gets a vision, a vision of something he hasn’t seen before. ‘Look at it!’ he says to Puffer, ‘ Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing it is! That must be real. It's over!’ What might it be?

In order to find it out we need to reconstruct Jasper’s original plan for the crime as well as identify what changes Jasper had to make to that plan. Jasper draws a plan to murder his own nephew in the beginning of 1842, more than six months earlier than the events of Chapter I. Christmas Eve is the most convenient time for that crime for some reasons and the wearness of waiting is driving Jasper mad. In order to get distracted from the unpleasant thoughts he starts to smoke opium, but even during his fever dreams he keeps envisioning the imaginary crime he has planned over and over again. It is hard to tell what the original plan was, but it’s obvious that Jasper takes a different path starting from Chapter IV from what he has initially planned. Note, it is during this very period of time that he gives up on opium from the den (the type of high quality opium which would cause his vivid dreams), and uses impure raw opium, which he probably buys from a chemist’s (it is very unlikely for chemist’s shops to purchase opium from the den, well, because ‘business is slack’). This type of homemade opium is only capable of soothing one’s yearning, but it never causes any dreams or visions, otherwise, what is the reason of visiting an opium den in the first place?

Thus, we learn from the very beginning that Jasper couldn’t have intended Mrs Sapsea’s monument as the crime scene. The idea only comes to him in Chapter IV as he realises an opportunity of obtaining the key to the monument. Similarly Jasper does not count on Neville Landless’s help in his initial plan, since he doesn’t know about his existence yet. He determines to straighten the path with the help of Neville only in Chapter X. The moonlight expedition isn’t planned either, it is a result of his decision to use Mrs Sapsea’s monument as a crime scene, which required a key. Nor did he plan to use quicklime, let’s not forget, Jasper comes across quicklime only by chance, and it is by chance that he learns about its chemical qualities of decomposition. He commits an impromptu crime, he is forced to change the course of originally planned actions being influenced by the recent circumstances. To conclude, Jasper has been smoking raw opium at home, and that’s how we know he hasn’t been to the opium den for a while. Considering such a change we might conclude that he could not possibly have had fever dreams about things that were not a part of his original plan.

Jasper could not had thought about re-arranging the dead body’s face with the help of quicklime making it impossible to identify before he actually learns about quicklime. But what forces him to reconsider his original plan? I couldn’t think of anything other than his brief encounter with the boy Deputy in Chapter XII. Having substituted the key, he exits the Cathedral just to test the key, to make sure he can safely lock and unlock the crypt with that key. Has Deputy seen him? The little scoundrel assures him that he has just arrived and hasn’t been spying on anybody, but can you really trust him? There is no way to find out. And so, Jasper leaves the place, lost in his sullen reverie, realising that despite his crafty manoeuvres with those keys there is still a risk of Edwin’s body being found. The discovery of the corpse is not the part of Jasper’s plan, Edwin as we know, is supposed to be considered drowned and missing, and for that reason, Jasper planned on throwing his nephews expensive coat into the river for it to be found later.

It is after his scuffle with Deputy that Jasper comes to a conclusion to use quicklime on Edwin’s dead body to impede his identification, just in case Deputy has seen something and the body is to be discovered. To further impede the identification of his nephew, he removes all the unique items which belong to Edwin, in other words, the watch with the letters E.D. engraved and a shirt-pin. Thus, the removal of the watch and a shirt-pin is improvised too, and caused by the circumstances (the accidental encounter with the curious little Deputy).

The rest of the crime goes according to Jasper’s original plan, which he rewinds in his mind multiple times during his fever dreams. Jasper presents a new scarf to his nephew on a set date, then he finds an excuse to send him outside, so that he could trap him near the graveyard in the dark of the night and strangle him with his own present. Jasper then removes Edwin’s coat and drops it into the river, planning on finding it later on. He envisions all of the above in his fever dreams, including Edwin’s body lying dead in front of him, and none of it is new to Jasper.

However, the initial plan was to be changed—Jasper had to remove the watch and a shirt-pin from the dead body as well as cover his nephew’s face with quicklime. Those are the things he has never dreamed about. It appears that the new element of his fever dreams, that ‘poor, mean and miserable’ thing could only be the watch and a shit-pin, the only things that remained of the dead man, Jasper’s only profit, the choirmaster’s inheritance. In other words, Jasper does not inherit any wealth or money from his nephew other than the watch and a shirt-pin.

One can imagine clearly how Jasper returns to his room after murdering Edwin and starts looking carefully at the trophies, which could be easily placed on his open palm. ‘Have I just killed a man because of this, this poor, mean and miserable wealth?’ he might think. But that is the reality. It has been done, and cannot be undone.

4. The Crozier Hotel

As soon as Datchery arrives in Cloisterham, he does not immediately heads for Mrs Tope’s residence. As Dickens informs us, he books a room at The Crozier Hotel for the first couple of days. Then, having calculated his expenses carefully, he realises that it will be much cheaper if he stays in an apartment close to the suspect and pays his rent monthly (and somehow he already knows where Mr Jasper resides). So, he goes searching for a more appropriate dwelling. But which Rochester Hotel was a real-life prototype of the Dickens’s Crozier? That is a rather curious question.

Taking into consideration the similarity between the word Crozier and Mitre, both of which are Catholic attributes, we might rightfully assume that Mitre Inn and Clarence Hotel in Chatham (neighbouring town of Rochester) is the prototype of Crozier. Dickens was quite familiar with the Hotel, which was unfortunately knocked down in 1934, thanks to the close relationship between his parents and Mr John Tribe, the proprietor of the Hotel. Moreover, Charles Dickens himself used to participate in the hotel parties amusing guests with his sailor songs, which he performed being perched on a table by his parents. John Tribe, who purchased the Hotel in 1828, was besides a constable of the Magistrates’ Court of the town of Chatham.

Mitre Inn is also famous for the fact that Admiral Nelson himself has spent a night in that hotel—it was during his service trip. The room in which he stayed received a commemorative plaque, which reads ‘Nelson’s Cabin’. The hotel took its second name from The Duke of Clarence, the son of King George III, who also once happened to stay there on his visits to Chatham. The Duke is said to be amazed by the beauty of the garden which belongs to the hotel, ‘a surprise and delight to the stranger’, he called it.

Why does Mr Datchery decide to stay in that particular hotel? The answer is simple—Mitre was the last station for passengers of a five-hour trip from London, who came by a coach with a fancy name ‘Blue-eyed Virgin’. However, after the opening of Paddock Wood railway station, passenger destinations changed and many travellers began to prefer the faster and cheaper means of transport, so the coach station was moved from Chatham to Rochester-Cloisterham, which in turn resulted in the loss of popularity for Mitre Inn and the beginning of its gradual downfall. Note, that Mr Datchery finds himself the only guest in the hotel in August 1843, where he doesn’t spend more than a single night.

John Tribe was desperate to get customers, so he built a Bowling space in the rear premises in order to attract customers to the tavern at least, if not the hotel, and even established ‘The Chatham Bowling Club’. It seemed the right thing to do. Every evening brought many visitors to the tavern, business was slack no more, as a matter of fact it was so good, that reconstruction was made adding a stone façade, gas lighting and other facilities to the building. Unfortunately, The Chatham Bowling Club moved to a more comfortable and spacious place at Palmerston road not long after Mr Tribe’s death, which affected the future of Mitre Tavern in the most dramatic way. The tavern barely survived till 1934 when finally the decision to shut it down was made.

Chatham’s main street, which Mitre Inn was located in was an extension of Rochester-Cloisterham’s main street and followed a curve parallel to the river bank. The curve was sort of a sine wave, which only allowed the road to be visible for no more than quarter a mile on both ends. Mr Datchery had to follow the road without turning for about a mile and a quarter in order to get from the hotel to Jasper’s house near the Cathedral—and undoubtedly that what the waiter’s precise directions given to Datchery were. However, being new to Cloisaterham Datchery gets lost, instead of fully relying on the waiter’s explanation he gets distracted by The Cathedral Tower, and as a result goes astray, or as Dickens put it, ‘soon became bewildered, and went boggling about…’

Mr Datchery meets Deputy wandering about, not far from Travellers’ Twopenny, which makes sense, since it’s early morning and it is his out of service time. According to the novel, they meet next to a fragment of a burial ground, however on the wrong side of the road opposite to where Topes dwell. Note, there were no graveyards to the South of the Cathedral during that time, but only lawns scarcely covered with solitary burial stones remaining from the times when there was a Female Convent in Rochester-Cloisterham. It surely was likely for a sheep to be tied on one of such lawns, the one which hideous boy Deputy was targeting and stoning.

5. Cloisterham Police

Cloisterham Police should interest us, simply because it’s completely missing from the novel. The police is only mentioned once in the entire novel—constables chase a bunch of vagabonds in Chapter XIX. The policemen with clubs and helmets on the draft cover were strangely replaced by particularly looking gentlemen climbing spiral stairs. Moreover, the police plays no role in the capture of Neville Landless the night after the murder; the poor lad first serves the house arrest at Canon Crisparkle’s, then the Minor Canon escorts him to Mayor Sapsea, the Head of Cloisterham Police, after which Neville gets arrested for the second time, although we don’t know where he is put. Neville gets released, then arrested, then released again, however the police does not take any part in this. Don’t you wonder what the reason for such oddity might be?

It turns out, that Rochester police was having a very hard time in 1842 and barely even existed other than on paper. The police of Rochester was founded just like the rest of England’s police in 1837 and presented a very powerful force. Initially, there were 22 constables under 2 inspectors and one superintendent Thomas Cork in Rochester. They had their own building on Castle Hill street right at the foot of Rochester Castle and, which is very important, no more than three hundred yards away from the old stone gatehouse, where the murderer and a criminal John Jasper lived. The crime scene, in other words that part of the Cemetery with Mrs Sapsea’s monument was even closer to the police department, to be more precise, it was at a stone’s throw. The windows of the police office opened right into the crime scene intended by Dickens. Not a single villain, not even such cynical and self-assured person as John Jasper would ever risk attempting something illegal right in front of the police.

It was a scandal of 1842 that changed everything—superintendent Thomas Cork was caught being bribed in the market by a leather merchant. An interesting fact was discovered during the investigation—superintendent Cork has been collecting bribes in order to compensate for the Rochester budget, which he, being a hard drunkard squandered on drinks to the last penny. The new Mayor of Rochester tried to reform the police and of course he started by firing the violator along with the half of the total number of constables. After November 21^st 1842 there were only three constables in charge of the security of Rochester during daytime and ten during the night, while Mr John Tuff the new superintendent was banned from leaving the police department during working hours. The department was even kept locked during the night.

The outbreak of criminal activity (mainly thefts and debauchery) was quick to follow. It’s fair to say that the situation in Cloisterham does reflect the actual situation in Rochester, that is to say, Jasper was pretty safe to commit a homicide even in front of the police department, especially on The Christmas Eve of 1842.

Here is an aerial photograph of the Cloisterham Cathedral and its vincinity, which shows the exact location of the Rochester police department. See that huge building in the top left corner of the photograph?

6. Datchery and his Alias

As I, and many researchers before me, have already mentioned, that all of the Dickens’s characters in that novel have aptronyms, i.e. descriptive surnames, which underline their main personal qualities: Bazzard, who is fond of buzzing, a devoted Christian Chrisparkle (Christ + Sparkle = The Sparkle of Christ), Twinkleton who is a tweener by nature and so on. There is only one surname, which doesn’t belong in this sequence and that is Dick (Richard) Datchery, an amateur detective.

That is how we know that the name Datchery is an alias! Let’s consider the peculiarity of the introduction he gives to a waiter in a hotel. Instead of introducing himself directly, he asks the waiter to grab his hat off the hook and read the name written on the lining.

“The waiter read: ‘Datchery.’ ‘Now you know my name,’ said the gentleman; ‘Dick Datchery.’ “

Why complicate things? Couldn’t he just say his name, in case his real intention is to introduce himself, because why would he want to introduce himself to a waiter in the first place?

It all arouses a suspicion, that Datchery is not a real name, but an alias, and the silver-haired gentleman simply has a hard time remembering the alias he has chosen and used for the hotel registration (in that period of time, it was not common to ask guest for their real names). If our suspicion was correct, Mr Datchery would not take a descriptive name for himself, since his intention is to hide his identity, as opposed to sharing information about his personality. All characters got their names from Charles Dickens, except for Mr Datchery, who “himself” chooses his last name. He does it in a way most Englishmen of that period did, when they wanted to choose an alias for themselves—he creates an anagram of his name.

Mr Datchery’s real surname remains unknown, however his Christian name is Richard or Rytchard, which is a medieval spelling of that name characteristic of the XVIII century. The anagram of that name would be Datchary, which used to be a relative popular surname, so Charles Dickens decided to change one vowel of that name out of fear of defamation. This is how the character got his unique name Datchery, which is a name exclusive to his novel alone.

7. The identification of Princess Puffer (take two)

Previously, I have suggested that, that the mistress of the opium den, portrayed as Princess Puffer, is actually Hannah Johnson, who was Ah Sing’s wife, and Sing Chinaman being an opium dealer known by the Christian name Jack. There is a couple of hints supporting that theory, the first one being the book-cover, and the second an unambiguous line in the novel, ‘And ye'll remember that nobody but me (and Jack Chinaman t'other side the court; but he can't do it as well as me) has the true secret of mixing it?’ I really believed that Puffer was Jack’s wife and the owner of a branch of his opium chain. Another proof to support that claim is the fact that the real Jack Chinaman cast his wife away because of her alcohol addiction (not only did she ruin the tavern, but she even squandered her wedding gift on drink, a Chinese silk shawl), and as we know the Puffer from the book has been drinking for sixteen years non-stop, — ‘I got Heavens-hard drunk for sixteen year afore I took to this.’ Thus I dare assume that after breaking up with her husband Jack Chinaman and having gained enough experience in that trade, she simply settles across the street and opens her own opium facility.

However, it seems that my calculations were wrong, and Hannah Johnson has nothing to do with the story, since she was running an opium den only because of her husband and the breakup did not happen till after Dickens’s death, which proves the population census report of 1883, in which their status is shown as married. There have been a bunch of other English women who actually lived and owned an opium den on Victoria street of The East End in 1860s. Barry Milligan lists the following aliases in her article called ‘The Opium den in Victorian London’:

• Mother Abdallah,
• Mrs Mohammed,
• China Emma,
• Calcutta Louisa,
• Lascar Sally.

The last one, the so-called Lascar Sally is widely claimed to be the prototype of Princess Puffer because of the similarity between her enormous French bed, where she would put her clients with the one described by Charles Dickens as an opium den. Furthermore, there is a popular opinion, that it was Sally whom Gustave Doré portrayed in one of his engravings, which is considered an illustration to The Mystery of Edwin Drood, although it was not intended as such. Unfortunately, Lascar Sally does not fit in for a number of reasons. First of all, she was too young.Inspector Fields claims her to be no older than 28. Second of all, Sally had a child of her own, which she never parted with, and who was also trained as a professional beggar. And last, but not least, Sally was an opium addict herself of an excessive kind, who would smoke about five shillings’ worth of opium in a day (that’s about two dozen smoking pipes, four pence each). In other words, this is totally the opposite of the sober and calculated type who watches over Jasper in Cloisterham.

Calcutta Louisa had an Indian fellow for a husband, a chunky dark-skinned man with a black manly moustache. She was fluent in Hindi and Hindustani, and fair of skin, not having any resemblance with an Asian lady. Louisa, just like Mrs Johnson, used to be a hard drinker, but gave it up for opium, which by the way is a great way to quit alcohol. She would smoke about 2 grams of opium per day, which is rather mild. She also considered opium a preventative measure against cholera, which resonates with Princess Puffer’s beliefs that opium is the best medicine. Indeed, opium can be used in treating certain bowel conditions when consumed.

China Emma was a young and handsome lass, who had a young Chinaman for a husband. She worked in an opium den serving clients and collecting their money, while her Asian husband was in charge of preparing smoking pipes. She was obviously ignorant of any mysteries concerning opium mixing.

It was not possible to collect any information regarding Mrs Mohammed, except that she was overweight and lived together with other women opposite Jack Chinaman’s windows, but Mother Abdallah is a different cup of tea…

As Joseph Parkinson states in his book Places and People, Being Studies from Life:

"Mother Abdallah is a London lady, who, from long association with Orientals, has mastered their habits and acquired their tongue. Cheeny (China) Emma and Lascar Sal, her neighbours, are both from home this evening, but Mother Abdallah does the honours for her male friends within much grace and propriety - a pallid wrinkled woman of forty, who prepares and sells opium in another of the two-roomed hovels in the court: she confesses to smoking it too for company's sake, or if a friend asks her to, as yer may say, and stoutly maintains the healthiness of the habit."

She frequently used certain phrases, such as ‘bless ye’, just like Princess Puffer, and certain passages with her description as if we ripped off Parkinson’s book by Dickens. Here for example, she discusses the quality of opium: ‘These men come from all parts o' London to smoke Yahee's opium. Some on 'em sweep crossins; some has situations in tea-shops; some hawks; some cadges; some begs; some is well off, some is ill off; but they all likes opium, and they all knows there's no opium like Yahee's. No; there ain't no difference in the quality; but you can't smoke it as you buy it, you see, and Yahee has his own way o' preparin' it, which he won't tell nobody.’ The brawl which involved the Chinaman, who 'performing the knife-trick for the delectation of the British public,' and whom Mother Abdallah tried to calm down, is also taken from Parkinson’s book. Lastly, Princess Puffer herself gives a hint of being The Mother in the following passage, ‘Well, there's land customers, and there's water customers. I'm a mother to both.’

Ray Dubberke reminds us that the mistress of the opium den in the Dickens’s original manuscript was named Mother Puffer and was changed from Mother to Princess only in the later edition, probably to avoid explicit allusion to the real person.

Thus, it would be safe to claim that it was none other, but Mother Abdallah who served as a prototype for Princess Puffer, the character description, which Dickens took from J. Parkinon’s book published in 1869. As for the origin of her last name, as an anonymous reporter wrote in one of the issues of Brooklin Daily Eagle of 1867, —‘Whether [Mr] Abdallah yet exist, or what are or were her relations with him, I do not know.’

01.11.2017