The Mystery in the Drood Family - Forgotten Books · fyin g Datc hery with Edwin, he had di...

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PRINTED B Y JOHN CLAY, M.A.

AT THE UNIVER SITY PRESS

PREFA CE

T needs a considerable amount of assuranceto add yet another book to the compara

tively long list of those which have beenwritten upon the subject of Dickens’ s u n

fini shed story, and it is n o sufficient j u stification to assert that the writer is sin cerelyconvinced that his contribution to the disc u s s ion will afford some assistance in thesolution of the problem ,

seeing that practicallyeveryone wh o has ventilated his ideas uponthe subj ect has expressed a similar conviction .

Proctor,for instance

,who was the fir st to

examine Edwin Drood in a quasi- s c ientifi cway, was absolutely satisfied that in identifying Datc h ery with Edwin, he had di scoveredthe mystery which Dickens had takensuch pains to hide, and s o strongly di d he feelthat h is solution was correct

,that he exhibited

considerable impatience with those who failedto swallow it whole . Mr J. Guming Walters ,again

,the originator of the highl y ingenious

P refa ce

Helena-Datc h ery theory, is equally convincedthat he has unearthed Dickens’ s secret

,and

,

like Proctor, he has supported his views bymeans of numerous arguments drawn from thetext

,which

,if they do not carry conviction

to every mind, are nevertheless sufficientlyweighty to call for very carefu l examination

,

m ore particu l arly as they have succeeded insecuring as adherents of th e theory two suchacute critics and eminent scholars as Dr HenryJackson and Sir W. R . Nicoll. In thesecircumstances the present writer considersthat it wou l d be presumption on his part toexpress any definite opinion as to the accuracyof his own conclusions, and he feels that someapology is needed for the dogmatism which

,

upon a re -reading of this little essay,seems

to him at times to be only too apparent .His excuse m ust be, that when an idea takespossession of the mind so completely as tobecome almost an obsession, it is liable towarp the judgment to such an extent thateven the possibil ity of any other view beingreasonably entertained seems too remote torequire serious consideration

,and as this book

was written red-hot under the influence of

P r efa ce ix

such an idea , it is inevitable that it must betainted with the fau l t of over-assurance. Th e

same cause has also led him to criticise thework of other enquirers more freely than heotherwise wou l d have done, and certainlym ore confidently than his literary in experience warrants

,and accordingly he hastens to

assure those who may think it worth whileto examine and di ssect his own arguments

,

that he will not resent any strictu res, howeversevere

,that they may feel call ed upon to pass

on the views which he has enunciated ordeveloped. It is hardl y necessary for himto state that he is pa in qy aware of hisliterary short- comings

,and that he asserts no

pretensions to style,being satisfied if he h a s

succeeded in expressing h i s views clearly, andin bringing ou t the full force of the argumentswhich he believes can be adduced in theirsupport ; he trusts

,therefore

,that such

criticisms as may be expressed with referenceto his work

,will be addressed rather to the

matter than the form of it,and he will s in

c erely welcome criticism of this nature, a s

tending to test and evaluate the strength ofhis arguments and the validity of his various

x P r efa ce

theories . However confidently he may appearto have expressed the views which he hasadvanced

,he hopes that he has a sufficiently

open mind fully to appreciate the force of theobj ections which may be urged against them

,

and he is n ot so strongly wedded to anyparticular theory as to be desirous of s u p

porting it against the weight of evidence .

His sole desire is to discover, or to assist in

discovering,the true solution of Dickens’ s

puzzle, and if his own ideas are shown to beuntenable

,he will have no hesitation in

abandoning them .

If,however

,it should be considered that

he has been fortunate enough to have hit uponthe true solution of any of the numerousproblems which Edwin Drood presents , hewould point out that he h a s enjoyed theimmense advantage of being in a position toprofit by the work of prior investigators , bywhom the ground has been so thoroughlysurveyed and minutely examined as in severalcases almost to compel him

,by the mere

process of exhaustion,to adopt the conclu

sions at which he has arrived . As on e

instance of this may be cited the identification

P r efa ce xi

ofDatc h ery,and as another, his interpretation

of the enigmatic pictu r e forming the lowerpart of the original wrapper of the monthl yP arts , which h a s given rise to almost as manyreadi ngs as there have been commentators .

Th e suggestion now advanced with regard tothis pictur e is not, and, in the cir cum stances,cou l d not be, original, but in the opinion of

the writer it gains greater probabili ty bothfrom the fact that it is the logical outcomeof the main plot whi ch he has outlined, andfrom the circumstance that it explains andjustifies the much-debated title of Chapter ( IV .

In the same way, many of the argumentswhich he has employed to support his owntheories

,or to combat those of earlier en

qu irer s , have no doubt been presented before,and probably wi th far superior clarity andgreater cogency

,and he accordin gly hesitates

to advance a claim to originality in respectof any on e of them , but as hi s fir st-handacquaintance with the literatu r e upon thesubj ect does not extend beyond the magazinearticles of Proctor, and the works of Sir W. R .

Nic ol l and Dr Henry Jackson, he may perhapsbe acquitted of havin g consciously plagiarised

xii P r eface

the ideas of other writers . He desires, however

,to acknowledge his very great indebted

ness to Sir W. R . Nicoll , without the aid of

whose scholarly and exhaustive book thislittle essay could hardly have been wr itten

,

and although the conclusions at which hehas arrived are in most instances totally at

variance with those adopted by Sir William,

yet his obligations to that work are in nowise diminished on that account.

It is only due to the Dickens Fellowshipto state that this essay owes its origin to thefact that the writer’s attention was drawn tothe fascinating problem of the discovery of

Dickens’s secret by the press notices of themock trial of John Jasper for the murder ofEdwin Drood, which that society organisedin January last. While obviously it wouldnot be fair to try and shift on to othershoulders the responsibility which naturallydevolves upon a writer wh o is venturesomeenough to advance a new theory concerningDickens’s plot, it is impossible to dispute thefact that the society must be held accountablefor the interest in the problem which the trialaroused, and to that extent, therefore, it must

P r eface xiii

be prepared to accept responsibility for thenatur al consequences of its act .Lastly

,the author wishes to express his

gratitude to the Syndics of the CambridgeUniversity Press for having kindl y undertakenthe publication of this book.

M. S .

S ept. 1914 .

CONTENTS

CHAP TER I

DICKEN s’

s NEW IDEA

CHAP TER II

DATCHERY

CHAPTER III

WA S EDW IN MURDERED ?

CHAPTER IV

PR IN CES S PUFFER , AND OTHER S

CHAPTER V

MIN OR MATTER S

CHAPTER I

D i c xEN s’

s NEw IDEA

DICKENS’ S unfinished story presents u s notw ith one, but with m any m ysteries, none of

which,I believe, has yet been satisfactorily

solved. Efforts have, up to the present, beenprincipally directed to th e solution of th e

problems connected with the identity of

Datc h ery,the death or escape of Edwin

, and

the identity of the opium woman, and them ain idea of the book has been either c om

pletely overlooked, or treated as of secondaryimportance onl y ; logically, I think the process shou l d have been reversed, and that thetheme around which Dickens wove his ro

mance shou l d have received primary attention,

inasmuch as discovery of the leading motivemight possibly throw light upon the minormysteries , and accordingly I shall endeavourin the first place to ascertain whether thereis any material from which th e natu r e of th e

2 The Mystery in th e B r ood Fam ily

main theme can fairly be inferred,regarding

this,in fact, as the main mystery.

So far as regards external evidence,we find

Dickens writing to Forster I have a verycurious and new idea for m y new story nota communicable idea (or the interest of thebook would be gone) but a very strong one,though difficu l t to work. I lay some stressupon the word new,

”first, because Mr R . A .

Proctor, Wh o identifies Datc h ery with Edwin,considers the m ain theme of the story to bethe tracking of Jasper, the supposed murderer,by Edwin

,his supposed victim , an idea which

Dickens had admittedl y already used on

several previous occasions, and secondl y, b ecause

, a s Sir W. Robertson Nicoll points ou t,the idea of a young girl assuming a di sguisehad been used in N0 Nam e. I think, therefore

,that if Dickens had meant either of those

ideas to form his m ain plot,he would hardly

have qualified it as new,and for that reason

I suggest that neither Proctor’s norMr Cu m ing

Wa lter s’

s theory, even if c orrec t,wh ic h I doubt,woul d satisfactorily explain Dickens’s statement quoted above . Th e supporters of theHelena-Datc h ery view certainly partly avoid

D ickens’

s New Idea 3

this particular obj ection, as th e assum ptionby a youn g girl of the character of such a m an

as Datc h ery wa s , I think, n ew , so far asDickens was concerned ; but I hardl y thinkthat Dickens wou l d have said of an idea of

this nature that it was very curious or

that it wa s not a com m unicable idea or

a very strong on e , though difficult to work .

”

In the first place, I cannot s ee that the( interest of the book wou l d b e gone

,

” evenalthough we knew Helena to b e Datc h ery ;

in the second place, a craftsm an like Dickenswould hardl y have considered such an ideaas difficu l t to work,

” and lastly, I am c on

vin c ed that h e wou l d not have qualified it a svery strong.

”Th e diffi c u lt—to-work ob j ec

tion seems the gravest, as there wou l d seemto have been no great difficu l ty either ineffectually disguising Helena, had Dickens setou t with the intention of doing s o

,or in

locating her in Cloisterh am , instead of takingher up to London

,as he does , but both the

very curious and very strong expressions appear to me also to be quite in appl icable to the Helena-Datc h ery hypothesis .Neither of the theories of attempted

1—2

4 Th e Mystery in th e B road F am i ly

m u rder-and-escape, andmurder-and-discoveryb y

-the-ring, seem s to me in itself to meritDickens ’s description of very curious andnew

,incommunicable, very strong, di fficult to

work,” and I am consequently of opinion that

we must look elsewhere for the plan,as

Sir W. R . Nic oll puts it, which Dickenshad in h is mind, and half revealed and halfconcealed .

”Th e fir st likely suggestion that

we find in the story itself is in Chapter III,where animal m agnetism and two states of

consciousness are referred to, and this s u ggestion is somewhat strengthened by the scenea t the piano described in Chapter VII, b yCr isparkle

’

s m em orable night-walk, which wefind in Chapter XVI, and finally by the wholeof the conversation between Jasper and Rosa,set ou t in detail in Chapter XIX . It is not ata ll improbable that animal magnetism was insome way intended to be used by Dickens ;it wou l d certain ly be incommunicable

,or

the interest of the book would be gone,” but

I cannot s ay whether the idea would havebeen new at the time Edwin Drood was beingwritten, nor whether at that time it wouldhave been thought very curious .” At the

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6 Th e Mystery in th e B r ood Fam ily

wherein he has set ou t h is fears for Edwin atthe hands of Neville, and this, I take it, disposes of the note u nder Chapter XII. Th e

produ ction of the diary to Crisparkle at thispoint, is , in m y view, evidently intended toprepare th e reader for th e later production atth e end of Chapter XVI, so that it may thenappear natural, and n ot excite any particularattention ; if this supposition be correct,Dickens certainly succeeded in achieving h isobj ect. Under the notes for Chapter XVI,immediately after the words Jasper’s diary

,

”

we fin d, I devote m yself to h is destruction,and if we turn to the end of that chapter,where the quotation from th e diary appearsin fu l l, we see how this last phrase has beenexpanded : I now swear, and record th e

oath on this page, that I never m ore will discussthis mystery with any human creature untilI hold the clue to it in m y hand. That I willnever relax in m y secrecy or in my search .

That I will fasten the crime of the murder ofm y dear dead b oy upon the murderer ThatI will devote m yself to h is destruction .

Now , if Jasper were a murderer (or in

tended to be a m u rderer ) and des ired to put

D ickens’

s New I dea 7

Cr isparkle off the scent, the earlier production

of his diary to the latter, before Edwin’s

di sappearance, wou l d have sufficed to attainthi s obj ect ; from this point of vi ew, thecom m u nication at the end of Chapter XVI,m ade, a s Dickens states , without one spokenword

,

” really took the matter no further.This consideration, in conj unction withDickens’s notes, leads me to the belief that theentry in Jasper’s di ary last referred to

, wa s

quoted in order to convey something to thereader , if he cou l d only perceive it. Can wediscover what that something was Suppose

,

now, that Dickens meant every line and everyword of this entry to be read literally

,as

conveyin g the simple truth ; that he meantit to be fu l filled word for word, and letterfor letter and suppose also that Jasper wa s ,or thought himself to be (for it does not verymuch matter for this purpose which view weadopt) the mu r derer. We are forced, uponthese lines

,to a very curious and very strong

idea,diffit to work , and not communicable

wi thout endangering the interest of the story” ;namely, the idea of a murderer attemptingand intending to fasten h is crim e on to

8 Th e Mystery in th e Dr ood Fam i ly

another,but in reality trac king h im s elf, and

involuntarily putting the noose rou n d his ownneck ( So far as I am aware, such an ideawas entirely new, and in Dickens

’ s hands itwou l d have been highl y dramatic he wou l dhave seen and rej oiced in its possibil ities

,

although we can quite understand that hewould also have foreseen the difficul ties of itstreatment.

That Jasper was and had good reason forbeing at work endeavouring to fix the crimeupon Nevill e, is plainly to be gathered fromsubsequent passages . First, there is the interview with Hon eyth u nder , where the lattertells Crisparkle that he would be better employed in devoting him self to the discoveryand pun ishment of the murderer than inleaving that duty to be undertaken by alaym an, showing clear ly that Jasper had beenin com m uni cation with Hon eyth u nder on thissubject . (Dickens deleted this passage, for someunknown reason possibly desiring, a s Honeythunder was a character he intended to utilisefu r ther, not to disclose the presumably closerelations between him and Jasper. I think,by the way, that Hon eyth u nder wa s present

D ickens’

s New Idea 9

at Mr s Cr isparkle’

s dinner-party, in orderthat Jasper might make his acquaintancenaturally. ) Next, there is the conversationbetween Sapsea and Datc h ery (which Dickensalso deleted) in which Sapsea, Jasper

’ s tool,stated th at there were more than suspicions

,

all but certainties,of some on e . Thirdly, there

is Jasper’ s own declaration to Rosa : ( Mr Cr is

parkl e knows under my hand that I havedevoted myself to the murderer’s discoveryand destruction , b e he whom he m ight, and thatI determined to discuss the mystery with n o

on e until I Shou l d hold the clue in which toentangle the mu r derer a s in a net. I havesince worked patiently to wind and wind itround him ; and it i s s lowly winding a s I

sp eak. And lastly, there is the fact of

Jasper watching Neville, as Grewgious haddiscovered . Jasper the murderer, whether indeed or intention, Honeyth u nder the bully,Sapsea the j ackass , possibly also B a z z ard thefool, are all labourin g to convict Nevill e of

the crime, a task in which we have everyreason for believing that they di d not succeedwou ld it not be an excellent dén ou em en t ifJasper and h is allies in this nefarious plot

10 Th e Mystery in th e B road Fam ily

m erely succeeded in achieving the resultwhich Justice demands, nam ely, that of convic ting Jasper himself of the deed

‘

3

While there is not, and cannot be, anydirect evidence that this was the plot whichDickens had in his mind, nevertheless I thinkthat I am j ustified in saying that it fits inbetter wi th all the known facts than any of theother theories yet advanced. In particular

,

it satisfactorily explains Dickens’ s note toForster, in every detail, while it also suppliesa valid reason for the second production toCrisparkle of Jasper’s diary, a communicationwhich otherwise seems to me to be quite obj ectless . I think it likely that Rosa’s mother’sring would have been used by Dickens as themeans for bringing about the desired end

,

as I shall Show later on ; Jasper was to getto hear of it, designedly or by accident, and,m eaning to place it in Neville’s possessionsecretly, was to attempt to gain possession of

it ; in the act of doing so he would be surprised (at Mrs Sapsea

’

s tom b , possibly) bythe person knowing him to have the information, whereby Jasper

’s guilty knowledge wouldbe disclosed by h is own act. We have to give

D ickens’

s New Idea 11

due weight to the emphatic words in ChapterXIII , a chain . gifted with invincible forceto hold and dr ag,

” and although of cour sethese words fit in

,more or less well, wi th any

theory involving Jasper’s discovery of th e

existence and search for the ring, I hope tobe able to give them their true value . I onlywish to point out here that there is no othertheory, so far as I am aware

,than the one

I am advancing,which n eces s itates the re

moval of the ring by Jasper from its hidingplace for any specific pu rpose. He might, ofcourse, desire to abstract it so as to preventidentification of the remains, if and whendi scovered

,but it appears to m e that his

interest is really all the other way ; if hedesires to convict Neville otherwise than bytracing the ring to his possession

,it would

surely answer his purpose to allow the ringto remain on the body

,so that the identifi c a

tion may be certain when the corpse is di scovered . Proctor suggested that Jasper wasdriven to remove the ring from the tomb

,

because it was a fatal witness to his crime,and that Grewgious and Edwin meant topunish h im by forcing h im to go through the

12 The Mystery in theB road Fam i ly

terrible ordeal of groping in the dust of hisvictim to recover the ring. Against this Ithink I may fairly u rge that Jasper wou l dhave been satisfied that the chances of thecorpse being discovered or di sturbed were so

small,that he wou l d have taken the risk of

the simultaneous di scovery of the ring, ratherthan face such an ordeal ; at the same time,we must also not forget

,as has indeed been

frequently pointed ou t, that Edwin must havehad about him other m etal articles, such askeys

,buttons

,and so on ,

which would haveled to the identification of the corpse just assurely as the ring, s o that on this ground alsoProctor’s theory is weak. I think, therefore,that m y suggestion that Jasper was to attemptto recover the ring in order to place it inNevill e’s possession, is the more likely one,and as it entirely fits in with my explanationofDickens’ s plot as a whole

,it may be accepted

as a working hypothesis, in which case itstrongly corroborates m y main position .

Th e page headings, if they are authentic ,also confirm my view they are respectively,Mr Jasper’s Diary

,

” and Mr Jasper registers a vow.

”In the former

,stress is laid


14 Th e Mystery in th e B r ood Fam ily

which the words can reasonably be held tohave been intended to apply, with the exc eption of th e m ystery contained in the lastextract from Jasper’s diary, and accordinglyI regard this note as exceedingly strongcorroborative evidence in support of mythesis .

B u t even this is not all . Sir W. R . Nicollhas set ou t, at page 57 of his most valuablebook, The P rob lem of Edwin Drood— to which,once for all, I desire to acknowledge myextrem e

indebtedness for numerous details— thevarioustitles for his new story which Dickens noteddown but subsequently di scarded. They may,perhaps, not unfairly be regarded as indicatingthe working of h is mind at the different periodswhen they were j otted down

,for I do not

suppose that they were noted otherwise thanat intervals . I transcribe the whole pagehere, with du e acknowledgments .

D ickens’

s New I dea 15

Friday, Twenti eth

The loss of Jam es WakefieldEdwyn

EdgarMr Hon eythu nder

Mr Hon eyb last

Jam es’s Disappearanc e The Dean

Mrs DeanMiss Dean

FLIGHT AND PURSUIT

SWORN TO AVENGE IT

ONE OB JECT IN LIFE

A KINSMAN’

S DEVOTION

THE TWO KINSMENThe Loss of Edwyn B roodThe Loss of Edwyn B ru de

The Mystery in th e Drood Fam ilyThe Loss of Edwyn DroodThe Flight of Edwyn Drood . Edwin Drood in Hi dingThe Loss of Edwin Dru de .

The Dis appearanc e of Edw in DroodThe Mystery of Edwin Drood .

Dead ? Or Alive

I take it that we here s ee Dickens vacillating between two opposing ideas , uncertainwhether his title shall relate to his m ain

A u gu st 1869

G ilb ert Alfred EdwinJasper EdwynMichael OswaldArthu r

16 Th e Mystery in th e Dr ood Fam ily

mystery, or shall b e so framed a s to drawattention to the secondary one, with theobj ect, no doubt, of putting the reader off

the scent ; the titles vary according as theone view or the other for the m oment obtain spredominance. Th e first title contains noreference to Dickens’ s main theme, neitherdoes th e second. (I assume that the wordEdwin was never meant to be a title atall . ) In the third (the first printed in capitals) , we get an indirect allusion to th e

principal m ystery, which is more marked inthe fourth and fifth, and less definitelyprominent in th e sixth, while in the seventhit has almost vanished. In the eighth

,atten

tion isdi verted entirelyfrom the m ain m ystery,and Dickens reverts to his original intention

,

and seeks to bring the di sappearance of Droodinto prominence

,and the same rem ark applies

to the following title . Th e tenth is againon somewhat different lines , inasm uch as itleaves the natu r e of the m ystery a much moreopen question. Th e eleventh is identical withthe eighth

,except for a slight change of name,

and calls for no comment. In the twelfthand thirteenth we meet with yet another idea

,

D ickens’

s New Idea 17

namely, a definite suggestion that Edwinmight not have been kill ed after all, but Itake it that Dickens considered that he wasnot justified in actually misleading his readersin this way

,and he therefore reverted in the

fourteenth and fifteenth to the original indefin iten es s of the fir st and second. Th e nextis the title actually adopted, and the last,while obviously inappropriate as a titlenevertheless shows that Dickens had finallyadopted the view that the main mystery wasn ot the on e to which attention must be drawn .

It is intensely interesting to observe how inthese titles the on e theme di sappears as theother comes into prominence

,and I cannot

conceive of any other explanation than thatDickens gradually came to the decision tokeep his new idea as much as possible inthe backgrou n d, and s o came to lay more andmore stress in his title upon what

,after a ll

,

he intended to be merely a secondary mystery.

I am of cou r se aware that, according toForster, the originality of the story was tocons ist in the review of the mu r derer’s careerby himself at the close

,when its temptations

were to be dwelt upon as if not he,the culprit

,

2


but some other man, were the tempted.

While admitting the weight of Forster’s testimony

,and not denying that Dickens probably

did intend to review Jasper’s career in thisway

,I cannot convince myself that this was

really his c entra l idea, the one which hequalified as very curious , not communi cable,but very strong, and difficult to work.

”I

cannot help thinking that he must have hadin his mind when writing to Forster

,not

a mere episode,which is in effect what such

a review would have been, but a theme orplot which was to colour and direct the wholestory

,and I confess to feeling considerable

surprise that hitherto this view has apparentlynot obtruded itself upon some on e of thenumerous and able critics who have sominutely examined the book . While n ot

desiring to appear dogmatic , I feel verystrongly that the view I have advanced is soinherently probable and so entirely appro

pr iate to Dickens’ s statement to Forster

, a s

well as to his general manner, that even ifthere were no intrinsic evidence in support ofit

,I should hold that I had made o u tmy case .

B u t when we find, as I have endeavoured to

D icken s’

s New I dea 19

show,that my contention is also borne out by

independent intrinsic testimony, we arrive,I venture to assert, at almost mathematicalcertainty. Absolute proof, of course, we cannever expect to get, but if a backwardlight such as Dickens referred to

,has been

disclosed,I consider that I have every reason

for maintaining that I have succeeded inShowing

,in his own words, what everything

has been working to ,” or, to use the expression

of Sir W. R . Nicoll, in di scovering the planwhich Dickens had in his mind, that he halfrevealed and half concealed.

”

That my solution is correct, the sequel will ,I think, Show, inasmuch as several pointswhich have hitherto remained doubtfu l appearto me

,in the light of it, to allow of obvious

explanation,but even if my ideas upon other

questions do not meet with acceptance,I do

not think that my main position will beinvalidated.

Let us s ee how, in the light of m y solution,Dickens’ s main plot works out . As early asChapter II we find that Jasper has a hiddenSkeleton in his house ; what that Skeleton iswe do not learn, either then or later, but we

2—2


do learn that he hates his vocation, that he istroubled with some stray sort of ambition

,

aspiration,restlessness, dissatisfaction which

Edwin is asked to take a s a warning,but

refuses . At the end of Chapter III, whenEdwin remarks, I fancy I can distinguishJack’s voice,

” Rosa unaccountably urgesTake me back at once.

” At the end of

Chapter V we read (whether appropriately ornot) John Jasper stands looking down uponhim (Edwin) h is unlighted pipe in his hand,for some time, with a fixed and deep attention.

”In Chapter VII we have the scene of

Jasper at the piano, and Rosa overcome byhis magnetic influence while in Chapter VIIIEdwin and Neville

,after being surprised by

Jasper (who has fur tively followed them fromthe nuns’ house) in a state of incipient anim os ity,

are brought by him into active quarrel,

wherein Nevill e’s conduct is characterised byJasper to Crisparkle as murderous .”

So far, things are pretty plain ; Jasper’s

ambition is Rosa,and s u b - consciously

,she

is aware of it . Th e warning to Edwin,which he neither understands nor heeds, isthat he Shall not stand in Jasper’s path , and


22 Th e Mystery in th e D r ood Fam i ly

two young m en , whereupon a very perplexedand perplexing expression takes hold of

Jasper’s face ; in other words, he is workingou t in his own mind how he can turn thesituation to advantage . Crisparkle u n c on

s c iou sly smooths the way for Jasper’s plan,

”

and the latter,real ising h ow the fates are

playing into his hand, first prom ises to bringabout the required reconciliation, and thenfu r ther traduces Nevill e by the production toCrisparkl e of his diary, carefully prepared toshield himself in case of necessity.

Edwin’s letter, which Jasper produces toCr isparkle on the third day after this conversation, while to a ll appearance a simple andinnocent epistle, nevertheless appears to meto be a carefull y concocted document, as,though it is intended to convey the impressionthat Edwin fixes the appointment for Christm a s Eve, it is plain on a careful reading thatit is an acceptance of an invitation by Jasperfor that day ; Jasper has laid his ground forthe murder, and will use Neville as the scapegoat. TO carry ou t his intention he makesthe nocturnal expedition with Du r dles, onwhich he determines upon the manner of the

D i chens’

s New I dea 23

murder, and makes his preparations withmethodical forethought.

In Chapter XI II we get the last interviewbetween Rosa and Edwin on December 23rd ,

when Edwin,unmindfu l of Rosa’s singu l ar

emotion on hearing him speak of Jasper,agrees not to mention anything to him of

their decision to part, but to allow the newsto be broken to him by Grewgious

,who had

promised Rosa to come to her at Christmas,

if written to . Then we are told,with par

tic u l ar emphasis,that Edwi n, in decidi ng not

to give Rosa the betrothal ring which Grew

giou s had handed to him ,forged a wonderful

chain, gifted with invincible force to hold anddr ag. From the fact that Dickens not onl ymakes no secret of the retention by Edwin of

this ring,but ostentatiously directs the reader ’s

attention to it,we may safely infer that the

part the ring is to play is not the part whichone wou l d natu r ally be led to attribute to it.Th e same remark holds good with regard tothe disclosure by the j eweller that Jasper wasacquainted with all the articles of j ewell erywhich Edwin wore.

After Edwin’s scene with the opium


woman,and Jasper’s reassuring conversation

with Crisparkle , we finally arrive at the windynight and the murder and alarm . Neville

,

who had gone on a walking tour, is arrestedand brought back at the instigation of Jasper,examined before Mr Sapsea, and taken chargeof by Crisparkle. Jasper searches the riverostentatiously, and takes an early opportunityof getting r id of Edwin’s watch and scarf-pinby dropping them in the weir. Then comeshis famous interview with Grewgious, whenhe learns that he has committed a uselessmurder

,and swoons away. Close upon that

follows what Dickens calls his artful use ofthe communication on his recovery, namely,h is suggestion that, after all, Edwin may not

be dead,the obj ect of which is no doubt to

prevent Grewgious drawing the obvious inference from his breakdown . B u t he verysoon h a s good cause to alter this attitude,for

,in addition to learning from Grewgious

that he has killed Edwin to no purpose,he

now learns from Crisparkle that the man heshould have killed is Neville . This newsturns him paler ; he has bungled his case,killed the wrong man, and got rid of the onl y

D icken s’

s New I dea 25

articles which wou l d have enabled him tofasten the crime upon his new rival. He isat a loss h ow to act . Note very carefully a l l

that Dickens says in Chapter XVI, after thefinding of the watch and pin ; every su gges

tion is so obvious, so frankly stated , that itis assu redl y self-evident that he wa s puttingforward merely what every one would havethought of at once . And yet it is all true,word for word, a s is also the entry in Jasper

’sd iary with which the chapter concludes , inwhich he devotes him self to the destructionof the m urderer. What, then is the m ys

tery except this devotion, and what isthe obj ect of the ring, except to serve as theinstrument for bringing about the self-destruotion of the murderer, in strict conformity withhis oath , through the attempt to u se it asevidence for the inculpation of h is rival To

me it all seems as clear as noon-day. Dickens ’svery frankness has thrown his commentatorsoff the track

,and they have followed every

false scent which he cunningly threw out,

while overlooking the clue which he took nopains to hide, and therefore hid most successfu l ly. These are the ways of Providence,

26 Th e Mystery in th e Dr ood F am ily

of which ways all art is but a little im itation.

”

Al though I propose to defer until later thefull consideration of the grounds upon whichthat acute critic , Dr Henry Jackson, bases hisacceptance of Mr J . Cu m ing Wa lters

’

s theorythat Datc h ery is Helena in disguise , I neverth eless think that this is a convenient placeto comment very shortly upon such of hisviews as do not bear solely upon the question

of the identity of Datc h ery. Dr Jacksonrecognises that Dickens intended to keep hisreaders in doubt about Drood’s fate, and heeven refers to some of the tentative titles asevidence in support of this view

,but it does

not seem to have occurred to him thatDickens’sdifficulty in his search for an appropriate titlecou ld have any definite connexion with h isreal plot

,and he fails to notice the significance

of m any of the di scarded titles . Forster’ sstatement that n ot only the identity of theperson murdered

,but also the locality of the

crime and the man who committed it were tobe identified by means of the ring, is fullyaccepted by him , and he also du l y notesDickens’ s emphatic declaration respecting the

D icken s’

s New I dea 27

chain forged by Edwin’s determ ination toretain the ring

,but he gets no nearer to the

real import of these hints than to suggest

(page 8, note) that an advertisem ent for thering might draw the mu r derer to the placewhere the body was made away with . Inshort

,like Proctor

,Mr Walters

,and Sir W. R .

Nic ol l he fail s to notice that the mysteryis done already at the end of Chapter ( I V

,

and he is accordingly constrained to look forit where it is not

,in accordance

,no doubt,

with Dickens’ s intentions . Having no thr eadto guide him through the labyr inth , Dr

Jackson,notwithstanding his extremely acute

critical facu l ty,and his extraordi nary know

ledge of the text,is consequently compelled

to adopt a theory concerning the mysteryagainst which there seemed to him to be conc lu s ive evidence

,until he di scovered that by

effecting a transposition of Chapter XVIII , hecould get rid of the difficu l ty. As I shallendeavour to show later, this transposition isn ot only unwarranted

,but it does n ot even

achieve its obj ect, a s it leaves quite u n ex

plained a subsequent reference to Helenawhich m akes it impossible that Dickens could


have intended u s to believe that sh e wa s atCloisterh am ; I only raise the point here

,

however, for the purpose of showing thatDr Jackson’s views may be unconsciouslycolou r ed by his chronological investigations

,

which, in his opinion, derive support froma doubt expressed by Dickens to his Sisterin - law respecting the Datc h ery assumption inthe fifth number. This

,then

,being the state

of matters regarding Dr Jackson’s views uponthe identity of Datc h ery, which he regards asthe mystery, what arguments does headduce that can be accepted, in respect of thenature of the real mystery Frankly speaking,I find very little that is really helpful in thisdirection. On page 10 he writes Cris

parkle , impressed by Jasper’s apparent can

dour, tells his companions of Neville’s second

outbreak of tem per and of h is j ealousy . . .On

the strength of the discovery of the watchand shirt-pin

,Jasper declares himself con

vin c ed that Drood has been murdered, anddevotes himself to the destruction of them urderer.” It is curious to notice how hehere misses the real point

,namely, the di s

c overy by Jasper that Codl in’ s the enemy,


30 Th e Mystery in th e Dr ood F am i ly

around his work. He next intended to stirup strife between Nevil le and Drood, so as to

u se the former for his cat ’s -paw for Edwin’sdestruction . Lastly, his third thought was tomake away with Edwin in such a mannerthat Nevill e will be suspected of the crime .

(B y the way, how warm Dr Jackson sometimes gets without knowing it I venture tothink that

,from the time Jasper su rprised

Edwin and Neville on the brink of a quarrel,

his mind was made up in favou r of the thirdplan

,and that he never entertained any other.

With regard to the Sapsea monument,I cannot

accept Dr Jackson’s view, first, becauseDickens very evidently did not introduce itinto his story for ornamental purposes only

,

and secondly, because, equally evidently, itis necessary for the carrying ou t of the plotthat Drood’s body should be discovered, towhich very end Durdles , with his cur iousgift

,is brought upon the scene . As regards

the fact of the mu r der, I think it is clear,

therefore,that Jasper succeeded

,but I shall

return to this point later.With reference to the manner of the

murder,while I have ventured to put forward

D icken s’

s New Idea 31

a theory which is not in agreement withDr Jackson’s views

,I readily admit that he

is at least as likely to be right in his guessas I

,and consequently I will not presume to

criticise hi s hypothesis, beyond suggestingthat he makes n o use of Du rdl es

’

s di nnerbundle

,whereas

,according to my theory,

Jasper rifled it in order to obtain the necessarytools to execute the work which I think he

Half a year now elapses , Neville is establi sh ed at Staple In n ,

and Jasper, according toDr Jackson, has also taken a room there,although I do not think that there is sufficientevidence to justify this statement . Jasper isevidently busy manufactur ing evidence toincriminate Nevill e ; in fact, for the dueworking out of the p

,lot he has to be, but

Dr Jackson assumes that Grewgious , the manwho searches out right and does right, whofinds Neville chambers in Staple Inn , whodetaches B a z z a rd for special duty, and whohimself keeps a watch at Staple Inn uponJasper’s comings and goings

,has nevertheless

been sufficiently supine to take no activesteps at Cloisterh am to unmask Jasper. He

32 Th e Mystery in th e Drood F am ily

qualifies him a s a brigand and a wild beastin combination on July 4th , and yet we are

asked to believe that prior to that day he haswilfully allowed the wild beast to be at largewithout supervision or control of any sort

,not

withstandi ng G rewgiou s’

s im placable dislikeof him dating from the preceding Christmas .N0 two of them ( i . e. the Staple Inn alli es)says Dr Jackson, have set a watch uponJasper at Cloisterh am (page and Wecannot suppose that, in the interest of Nevill eand Rosa

,Grewgious has already sent an

agent to observe Jasper’s doings at Cloisterham (page To this I venture to reply

,

that the very thing I shou l d suppose,from

my estimate of G rewgiou s’

s character,and

from his estimate of Jasper’s , wou l d be thatGrewgious had already set to work at Cloisterham some time ago . Th e mere fact thatGrewgious has not disclosed his plans toanyone (I think from the evidence afforded byChapter XVII

,that he di d di sclose something

to Crisparkle) would not be a sufficient reasonfor concluding that he has taken no steps

,and

although at the Staple Inn conference he maynot have informed h is allies that he h a d

D icken s’

s New I dea 33

already made a move,there is every ground

for supposing that as Datc h ery was his secretagent

,he purposely refrained from taking the

others into his confidence,in the same way

a s they refrained from communi cating theirintentions to Nevill e . It may be the factthat Grewgious had not moved, prior toJuly 4th

,in the interest of Rosa, but I doubt

very much whether the same could be said asregards the interest ofNevill e, and I am firmlyconvinced thatG rewgiou s

’

s suspicions of Jasperwou l d not have permitted him to abstain fromall steps to discover the truth about the murderun til after the date of the chance conferenceat Staple Inn . For this reason I demur toDr Jackson’s conclusion that the conferencewas the occasion and the origin of Datc h ery

’

s

appearance at Cloisterh am ,and I also demur

to his other conclusion that Dickens ’s misgivings expressed to his sisterin - law werecaused by the discovery that the introductionofDatc h ery was premature by five days . Notonly do I think that it was not premature

,

but I have very grave doubts indeed whetherDickens had ever worked out any c on s is

tent time-table,such as Dr Jackson has so

s . 3

34 The Mystery in th e Dr ood Fam ily

ingeniously deduced from the text. If he had,

however,and if Dr Jackson’s chronological

hypothesis were correct, Dickens would haveperceived h is error immediately on readi ngthe proofs

,and in lieu of making important

textual revisions in Chapter XVIII,he would

simply have set h is doubts at rest by transferring that chapter bodily to its proper place .He did nothing of the sort but somethi ngtotally different

,and pointing in a di fferent

di rection. Ergo,Datc h ery

’

s appearance wasnot considered by Dickens to be prematu r e,and in my opini on

,all the edifice which

Dr Jackson erects upon this basis falls to theground.

CHAPTER II

DATCHERY

HAVING now,as I believe

,obtained some

idea of Dickens’s main plot, let us see whetherit is possible to unr avel some of the othermysteries .

First as regards Datc h ery.

Th e theory that Datc h ery is HelenaLandl ess

,whi ch is now largely meeting with

acceptance,appears to me to offer very con

s idera b le difficu l ties from various points ofview. Provisionally, these may roughl y beclassed as follows (a ) appearance (6) time

( c ) speech ; but I do not pretend that thisclassification is exhaustive . However

,it will

s erve for the present .Let us fir st take the description of Helena

to be found in Chapter VI : An unusuallyhandsome lithe you n g fellow

,and an un usually

handsome lithe girl ; much alike ; both very

da rk, and very r i ch in colou r she of a lm ost

3—2

36 Th e Mystery in th e D rood F am ily

gip sy typ e ; something untamed about themboth a certain air upon them of hunter andhuntress ; yet wi thal a certain air of beingthe obj ects of the chase, rather than thefollowers . Slender, supple, quick of eye andlimb ; half shy, half defiant ; fierc e of lookan indefin a b le kind of pause coming and goingon their whole expression , both of face andform

,which might be equally likened to the

pause before a crouch or bou nd .

” Comparethis vivid description with the few lines at thebeginning of Chapter XVIII announcing Dat

chery’s appearance A white-haired person age , with black eyebrows . B eing buttonedup in a tighti sh blue surtout, with a b ufiwa i stcoat and gray trousers, he had s om eth ing

of a m i lita ry a i r .

” A few lines on we findThis gentleman’s head was unusuall y large,and his shock of white hair was unusuallythick and ample . I suppose, waiter,

’ hesaid

,shaking his shock of hair etc . Upon

the strength of the unusually large head,”

and upon the strength of that alone it hasbeen suggested that Datc h ery was wearinga wig to conceal Helena’s wild black hair

(end of Chapter VII ; note also at the same



fairly be said to be consistent, in part at least,with Mr Datc h ery wearing a wig, and thestatement in Chapter XXIII His obj ect in nowrevisiting his lodging is merely to put on thehat which seems so superfluous an article inhis wardrobe” may also be held to support thesame view. (It would be quibbling, I suppose,to suggest that because in this chapter his hairis said to be grey, he had two wigs . ) I submit

,

however,that no on e assuming the disguise

of a wig to escape detection would consistently shake his head

,or lounge along with

his uncovered gray hair b lowing about,” as

Datc h ery does . If he really had a thickshock ofwhite hair of h is own , the explanationthat he goes about with it uncovered ( forcoolness is quite reasonable and acceptableeven the clapping his hand up to his head

,

as if with some vague expectation of findinganother hat upon it is not conclusive

,

although,I admit

,I have found no suitable

explanation of the phrase. Set against this,

however,the constant shaking of the head

,

and the exposure of the hair to the breeze, aswell as to the view (a wig can , I think, bedetected by the eye at once ) and neither

P atchery 39

theory will be found to be wholly withoutobj ection but even a large head and a wig

,

if admitted,do n ot make Datc h ery Helena .

Something has been made of a woman’ shands being plump , and easily distingu i shablefrom a man’s

,and it has been pointed ou t that

Datc h ery had a habit of putting his handsbehind his back . (B y the way, Sapsea doesthis in Chapter XII . ) With regard to thispoint I would suggest, first, that it is distin c tly a man

’s and not a woman’s habit, to pu t

h is hands behind his back , a habit which hewould mechanically adopt even before anempty grate (empty, by the way, because ofthe season of the year) and secondl y, thatDickens woul d hardly have made Datc h ery

hide his hands unless special attention wereto be called at some time to the differencebetween a man’s and a woman’s hands , whichseem s quite unlikely. Add to this

,also

,first

,

that Datc h ery wears a buff waistcoat, andec ondly, that he lounges about with h is

hands in his trousers pockets,and thirdl y,

that he is buttoned up in a tightish blue s u rtout, all oi which facts distinctly prove thathe took n o pains to conceal his figure

,which,

40 Th e Mystery in th e D r ood Fam ily

had he been Helena , would have been his firstand constant thought . Further, note hissomething of a military air, and consideralso this sentence, which occurs in Datc h ery

’

s

interview with the opium woman : Or , hesuggests, with a ba ckwa rd h itch of h i s head,you can go up at once

,

” etc . to me , it seemsalmost impossible to conceive of Helena employing a gesture of this nature . It is hardlynecessary to refer to the fried sole

,veal ou tlet,

and pint of sherry mentioned in ChapterXVIII

,as constituting Datc h ery

’

s dinner,although the sherry appears to be a rather( large order for a girl of twenty-on e ad

m ittedly,it might have been ordered to keep up

appearances,and it was not necessary for her

to drink it all. B u t the ale for supper in thelast chapter can hardly be explained away inthe same manner

,nor do I think that Mr s

Tope would long have been in doubt as to thesex of her lodger. It is unfortunate that wehave n o fuller description of the personalappearance of Datc h ery than is afforded bythe few lines at the beginning of ChapterXVIII

,but so far as we have one at a l l , it

differs in every poss ible detail (except the

Da tch ery 41

black eyebrows ) from the detail ed description

of Helena already quoted ; and if Helenacou l d wear a wig, in order to disguise herself ,su r ely sh e could also dye her eyebrows

There are other points referring indirectlyto appearance fir st, Helena wa s known to allthe inmates of Miss Twinkleton ’

s school ;s econdly ( s ee Chapter XVII ) , She has wonher way through those ( i . e. Cloisterh am ) streetsuntil sh e passes along them as high in the general respect as any one who treads themthirdl y, she had met Jasper at Cr i spa rkle

’

s

both having been present at the dinner described in Chapter VI

,and he had ( thanked

her for her vindication of his character.Contrast with these facts these others Helenadisguised as Datc h ery,

relies upon the conc ea lm ent afforded by a wig and male attiresh e calls upon Jasper to ask for Tope’s character

,and assumes that the former

,a musician

with a trained ear, capable of identifying akey by its note, will n ot recognise her voicesh e wanders aimlessly about Cloisterh am ,

where she is well known and respected,with

her striking face undisguised except for a wigover her hair ; and sh e carefully keeps the


door of her lodgings open, so that every passerb y, and especially Jasper, may see her.Surely this young lady of twenty-on e m usthave incredible power of self- control and awonderfu l capacity for disguising, at the sametime a s exposing, her face, form , and voice, ifsh e is able thus to meet her former a cqu a intances at any and every moment without anyfear of detection Frankly

, Dickens would beunderrating the perspicacity of his readers ifhe ever expected them to swallow th i s versionof the Datc h ery assumption .

”

My next point has reference to th e timeof Datc h ery

’

s appearance on the scene . Weknow from Chapter XVII that Full half ayear had com e and gone since the ChristmasEve of Chapter ( I V

,and At about this time

a stranger appeared at Cloisterh am (ChapterXVIII) . That takes us up to about July orAugust at the latest

,b u tprobablynot later than

Ju l y. Dickens himself transposed ChaptersXVIII and XIX to their present sequence

,and

apparently regarded the transposition as immaterial. In Chapter XIX we are told AgainMiss Twinkleton has delivered her valedictoryaddress . . and again the young ladies have

Da tch ery 43

departed to their several homes . HelenaLandl ess has left the Nuns’ House to attendher brother’ s fortunes

,and pretty Rosa is

alone .

”Then follows the interview with

Jasper,and in Chapter XX comes Rosa’s

flight ; Helena had evidently been at MissTw inkleton

’

s until the end of the term ,b e

cause Rosa’s mind throughout the last s ix

m onth s had been stormily confused . She hadbeen Helena ’s stay and comfort du r ing the

whole tim e.

”Further

,after the statement at

the beginning of Chapter XVII Full half ayear had come and gone

,

” we find Crisparkletelling Nevill e Next week you will cease tobe alone

,and will have a devoted companion ,

”

i . e. Helena . Now,Helena is in London when

Rosa leaves Cloisterh am ,and yet

,by Dickens’s

own transposition,the appearance at Cloister

ham of Datc h ery is sandwiched in betweenCr i sparkle

’

s statement ( Next week you willcease to be alone

,

” and Miss Tw ink leton ’

s

breaking- u p . If the present order of the chapters can be taken as a guide for the sequenceof the events

,Datc h ery

’

s appearance atCloisterh am a nteda tes Helena’s departure . I

admit however that the chronology is hardl y


sufficiently definite to allow of any strong argument being based thereon, but if Helena weredestined to be her brother’ s companion andpattern at Staple In n , it seems at least odd

that she is also to keep watch on Jasper atCloisterh am . Note also what Crisparkle saysin Chapter XVII in announcing her arrival

,in

answer to Neville’s obj ection : This seemsan uncongenial place to bring my sister to .

”

I don’t think so . There is duty to be donehere ; and there are wom an ly feeling, sense,and cou rage wanted h ere.

”I meant

,

” explained Neville

,that the surroundings are so

dull and unwomanly,and that Helena can

have no suitable friend or society here .

”

You have only to remember,” said Mr Cris

pa rkle , that you are here yourself,and that

sh e has to draw you into the sunlight .” (I

fancy that Crisparkle,if not in the secret,

would not have had much difficulty in recogn is ing Helena in Datc h ery,

notwithstandingthe disguise of a wig

In Chapter XXII we find Rosa taking B il

l i c kin’

s apartments for a m onth , and at theend of that chapter we are told that the dayscrept on , and nothing happened. In Chapter


46 Th e Mystery in th e D r ood F am ily

VII,disguising herself almost daily in a wig

and her own eyebrows, and constantly courting, and as constantly evading, detection bythe greatest enemy of her twin brother (whomsh e strongly resembles ) and her own lover,under whose nose she lounges about with herhands in her trousers pockets, without a falter,and without a blush It is useless to suggestthat the Minor Canon was in the secret

,for he

had specifically told Neville that ( in a weekhe would have a devoted companion

,

” and hewas too upright a man to swerve one hairsbreadth from the truth . Th e chronologicalargument

,however

,is not strong ; all that

on e can say definitely is that Datc h ery’

s

appearance is chr onicled in Chapter XVIII,Miss Twinkleton ’

s breaking - u p and Helena’s

departu r e to attend her brother’ s fortunesin Chapter XIX

,and Rosa’s meeting with

Helena in London in Chapter XXI. I think infairness I ought to add that G rewgiou s

’

s

answer to Rosa’ s enquiry in Chapter XX I

may go to Helena to-morrow I shouldlike to sleep on that question to-nightmight be held to indicate that Helena was notimmediately available

,but the plain answer

Da tch ery 47

to that appears to be that sh e does s ee her,and quite early the next morning, and unl essHelena had come to London with Cr isparkleby the very first train to be caught in themorning

,

” she could not have been interviewed by Rosa within the next half-hour , andhave been surprised, as sh e was , to s ee her inLondon . Further, the reason for G rewgiou s

’

s

indecision is made apparent in the foll owingchapter .My third obj ection, and I think by far

the strongest, is the absolute impossibility ofHelena talking as Datc h ery is made to talk .

Th e whole of his conversation with the waiterin Chapter XVIII is inconceivable in the mouthof Helena besides, Helena must have knownthe way to the Cathedral

,and probably knew

Tope, the verger. Th e few words Datc h ery

addresses to Jasper are equally impossible of

utterance by a young and inexperienced girl ,but when we arrive at the somewhat morelengthy conversation with Sapsea

,whom

Datch ery sums up at a glance, I submit thatby no means on earth coul d Helena ever haveacquired the knowledge necessary to addr esshim as Datc h ery addresses him . Th e

48 Th e Mystery in th e D r ood F a m i ly

Worshipful the Mayor,” His Honour

,

”His

Honour the Mayor,” these modes of address

,

and the third person style of being Spokento

,could not by any possibility have been

known to Helena, a young girl without anyexperience of the world, and conscious andashamed of her own ignorance . And thenwhen Sapsea remarks, Justice . .must beimmorally certain— legally

,that is

,Datc h ery

answers His Honour reminds me of thenature of the law. Immoral . How trueHelena would have been about as likely totwist Saps ea

’

s absurd statement in this wayas , say, Crisparkle or Hon eyth u nder . It isnoticeable that while Dickens cut out thispart of the conversation, he retained theearlier portion

,including the peculiar mode of

address to which I have called attention .

Again,take the whole of Datc h ery

’

s conversation with the opium woman : What’ s hisname

,deary Surname

,Jasper

,Christ

ian name,John . Mr John Jasper.” (Would

Helena ever have dreamt of phrasing it thatway Has he a calling

,good gentleman

Calling Yes . Sings in the choirThat’s the answer. G o in there at seven

P a tch ery 49

to-morrow morning,and you may see Mr John

Jasper,and hear him too You can

admire him at a di stance three times a day,

whenever you like. I t’

s a long way to com efortha t, thou gh .

”Fancy an ignorant

,uneducated

girl evolving such a neat fishing statement asthat ( And then later B een here often

,

m y good wom a n .Wasn’t it a little cool toname your sum ‘

2 It seems to me onlynecessary to contrast these colloquialisms withHelena’s conversation to see at once that theywere entirely beyond her . And who canimagine Helena saying, in the privacy of herown room I like the Old tavern way ofkeeping scores . Illegible

,except to the scorer.

Th e scorer not committed, the scored deb itedwi th what i s against him . Hum

,ha . A

very small score this ; a very poor score .

Helena was about as likely to know anythingof tavern scores , and the old method of keepingthem , as the Dean ; probably less . Andfinally

,Datc h ery accosts the opium woman

with Well, m i s tr es s ,” a style of address

which I am sure no woman wou l d ever thinkof adopting to another . If anyone who readsthese conversations of Datc h ery

’

s carefully,


can then support the view that Helena isspeaking

,I can only suggest that he must

have a poor opinion of Dickens’s power ofdifferentiation of character to me the mostbrilliant literary identification seems utterlywithout foundation, and I think it wouldnever have been put forward except for theview that Datc h ery m u stbe a character whoseacquaintance we have already made .

B u t for the fact that the Helena-Datc h ery

theory has gained the support of Sir W .

Robertson Nicoll, I should be inclined todismiss it without further consideration asutterly untenable

,but his weighty authority

certainly demands that it should be treatedwith more respect, and I therefore propose toexamine very shortly the arguments he ad

vances in support .He starts with the assumption that Datch

ery was disguised , a fact which , accordingto him

,is universally admitted. I have

already dealt with Datc h ery’

s wig, and haveshown that there are at least some validarguments in support of the view that it wasnon -existent . I do not propose to reiteratethem

,and provisionally

,although without

Da tch ery 51

prejudi ce, as the lawyers s ay,I will admit the

He next deals with the principles andlimitations of disguise , showing by an authority which I am not concerned to question,that there are certain fundamental thingswhich can never be imitated

,such as courage

or enthusiasm (I do not admit humili ty) ,cleverness and truth . Such a proposition isundoubtedly true

,and I assent to it u n c on

dition a lly,but I think it is fatal to ou r theory,

inasmuch as cleverness, adaptability, exper i

ence,and knowledge of the world, were just

the things which admittedl y Helena had n ot,

a nd which Datc h ery had . Daring she mayhave been

,and earnest

,but there is absolutely

nothing to indicate that she was mentallyalert . On the other hand, there was something untamed ” about her, a certain air of

huntress,yet withal a certain air of being the

obj ect of the chase if Crisparkle noticed thison the occasion of their fir st meeting, it seemshardly likely that within a few months a l l

traces of it shou l d have vanished,and that sh e

wou l d be lounging along, like the charteredb ore of the city.

” Even th e masterful

4—2


look,the resolution and power which

Sir W . R . Nicoll calls attention to,seem to

me to refuse to square with Datc h ery’

s genialand brisk character, and I cannot imagineHelena becoming ecstatic over Mrs Sapsea

’

s

monument in order to ingratiate herself withthe Mayor. And as for describing herself asa diplomatic bird, that

,I fancy

,was a

material and moral impossibility.

I admit the weight of Neville’s statementthat when he and Helena ran away

,each

time sh e dressed as a b oy,and showed the

daring of a man ,” and to my mind it affords

almost the only serious argument in favour ofthe Helena-Datc h ery theory. B u t I am in

c lined to think that too much stress can belaid upon it

,in the same way as too much

importance can be attached to G rewgiou s’

s

statement concerning B a z z a rd that he isoff duty here, altogether, for the present .

”

B oth,I fancy

,are false leads , because both are

too obvious to escape attention, and, so far asI am aware, it was not Dickens

’s habit to givedirect clues of this nature . I do not suggest, bythe way

,that Dickens di d not mean his readers

to infer anything from Nevi l le ’

s reference


54 The Mystery in th e Dr ood Fam i ly

and I fail to discover any reason why th e

B i ll ickin and B a z z ard were related,if Dickens

had n ot had some such intention in view as Ihave ascribed to him .

I do not at all question that Helena lovedRosa and her brother

,and that sh e probably

hated, distrusted, and perhaps suspected Ja sper, but I hold that these were qualificationswhich rather u n fitted her for the task of

watching Jasper,because love and hate do not

conduce to clearness of perception and coolnessof action, but rather tend to obscure the on eand to prohibit the other. What Datc h ery

needed and had, essentially, wa s a clear,logical mind

,a knowledge of men and the

world,perhaps experience of criminals and

their ways,and certainly an adaptability of

character such as to enable him to consort onterms of equality with all m en . That Grew

giou s , with h is practical, matter-of- fact habits,would ever have consented to Helena assumingthe task of watching Jasper, seems to me tobe quite incomprehensible

,and I am of opinion

that the Minor Canon would also never havebeen an assenting party to such an arrangem ent, not only because it would have shocked

Da tchery 55

h is sense of propriety,but also because he

wou l d have had legitimate fears for Helena’ssafety. What sh e might have dared, hewould certainl y not have permitted . I havealready drawn attention to the fact that itwas Cr isparkle wh o announced to Nevill ethat his sister was shortly coming to Londonto be h is companion

,and seeing that he and

Grewgious were secretly working the casetogether ( see the beginning of Chapter XXI,where Grewgious says of Crisparkle And itwa s particu l arly kind of him to come, for hehad but just gone I can only conclude thathe knew exactly what was going on, so thathis statement to Neville must be acceptedliterally, if he is not to be held guilty of awilfu l and unnecessary falsehood .

Th e argum ent drawn from the long passagein Chapter XVII which Dickens deleted, doesnot appear on consideration to merit greatweight, for Dickens allowed to stand the shortbut important ph rase in which Crisparkleannounced Helena’ s arrival. What he exc ised had reference partly to the reasons forHelena being required in London

,partly to

Cr ispa rkle’

s eu l ogy of Helena’s character.

56 The Mystery in th e Dr ood Fam i ly

That he struck out the one and retained theother

,seems to go to prove, not what Sir W . R .

Nicollwants it to prove, but the exact contraryDatc h ery

’

s wistful gaze I am unableto explain satisfactorily, but neither can I

explain Helena’s wistfu l gaze ,” nor do I

think Sir W . R . Nicoll has done so . Wistful is hardl y an epithet which fits Helena inany circumstances , and the context does not ,I think

,warrant his interpretation of the

whole phrase . As mariners on a dangerousvoyage

,app roa ch ing a n i ron - bou nd coa st may

look along the beams of the warning light tothe haven lying beyond it that m ay n ever b e

rea ched, so Mr Datc h ery’

s wistful gaze isdirected to this beacon, and beyond.

” So faras it is possible to interpret this enigmaticsentence

,I shou l d feel inclined to consider that

it had reference to Datc h ery’

s knowledge of

the difficulty and danger of his task, especiallyat that juncture

,and to his desire to unravel

an apparently insoluble mystery, but theallusion Offers immense difficulties unless wecan show that Datc h ery did have , as Sir W. R .

Nicoll urges , some personal interest in tracking Jasper . Of this, later on .

P a tch ery 57

As regards Datc h ery’

s hands , if he hadr eally wanted to conceal them ,

he might haveworn a pair of gloves , but I think the point isa very weak on e , because, as I have shown ,Datc h ery seems to have taken n o real painsto conceal his figure Fur ther, I doubtseriously whether Helena would have troubledto conceal her hands from a waiter, or evenfrom the opium woman, and she wouldcertainly have required her hands to copythe inscription on Mr s Saps ea

’

s monument ,th e opportunity for transcribing which might

w ell have been deferred, as Dickens himselfpoin ted out . If Datc h ery

’

s hands are claspedb ehind him or are in his trousers pocketsdu r ing his walk with the opium woman

,it is

,

in the one case, because he is( lou n ging,

”

a nd in the other, because he is rattling hismoney

,and tempting her to speak .

Sir W . R . Nicoll argues that Datc h ery di d

n ot stretch ou t his hand for his hat at theCrozier because he was afraid that the

waiter would notice its shape ; without sug

gesting that s o observant a man would havebeen wasted as a waiter

,is it not permissible

to suppose that the hat was some distance


off Again,we are told that Datc h ery does

n ot shake hands with Jasper or the Mayor ;neither does Edwin with Grewgious , nor

Crisparkle with Hon eyth u nder . We are askedto assume (because we are nowhere told it a sa fact) that , because Datc h ery carried his hatunder his arm

,one hand would be bur ied in

it ; I do not think the inference is a legiti

mate one,in fact

,I should be inclined to infer

that by carrying his hat under his arm , Datchery had both hands free. Coming to h i s

interview with the opium woman, we a re

asked to dr aw an important conclusion fromthe fact that Dickens originally wrote greedily watchin g h im and subsequently alteredthe phrase to greedily watching his ha nds .

B u t a s Datc h ery was counting out money togive to the woman

,surely the most natural

thing for her to do was to watch the ha nds

with which he was counting it and if, whilehe was counting out money to give to her

,sh e

had watched h im and not h i s ha nds containingthe money

,wou l d that not have been more

remarkable,without taking into consideration

the adjective greedily Then,Datc h ery

dr ops some money,and stoops to pick it up

P atch ery 59

Sir W. R . Nic ol l would have u s believe that ifDatc h ery,

after s lowly counting out the s u m

demanded of him ,

” finding he has countedwrong

,shaking h is money together, and

beginning again , dr ops some money andstoops to pick it up

,it is because he suspects

his hands are being watched. B u t the realreason was that he heard, for the first time ,that the young gentleman’s name wa s

Edwin . And so possessed is Sir W. R . Nicollby the theory

,that while he argues that this

infirm and greedy old woman , waiting eagerlyfor alms, nevertheless had sufficient detachment of mind to consider Datc h ery

’

s handshe seriously advances the view that Jasper,with his trained musician’s ear

,consumed a s

he wa s with hatred and jealousy of Neville,failed to recognise the voice or face of Helena,Neville’s striking- looking twin sister ( This ,it appears to me

,is not criticism

,but prepos

session .

Even the suggested origin ofDickens’s ideais without any real bearing on the point for ,

as regards the figu r e in real life,the im person

ation by a girl of a male character for a coupleof hours on the stage is essentially different

,

60 Th e Mystery in th e D r ood F am i ly

a s Dickens would have known,from its perma

nent assumption in real life,while the example

quoted from fiction (Wilkie Collins’ s N 0

N am e) is a mere general statement, infiction

,and without authority.

So far as Dickens’ s excisions from theproofs are concerned

,I propose to deal with

them later under another heading ; for thepresent I need onl y say that they appear tome to afford no support whatever to theHelena -Datc h ery theory.

Sir W . R . Nicoll remarks that the ideathat Datc h ery is a new character may safelybe dismissed, and that it is in on e of the chara c ters already on the stage that we must findhim . I have carefully searched his book inorder to ascertain upon what grounds he basesthis assertion

,and I can find two reasons only

the fir st is contained in his chapter entitledTh e Methods of Dickens ,

” and the secondis stated in the following words I havetaken no account of the theory that Datc h ery

is an unknown person . An unknown personcould not possess the necessary qualities ofheart .” This second reason

,in my opinion,

really begs the question,inasmuch as if



does it militate in the least against the contention that Datc h ery is a new character,seeing that he is introduced at the beginning

of Chapter XVIII, while the book was apparently planned to have some 48 or 50 chapters ‘

3

From another point of view,Chapter XVIII

was ( if the monthly parts were of equal length )the second chapter in part Five Datc h ery isthus well on the scene within Sir W. R . Ni c ol l ’ slimit

,and he re -appears in Chapter XXIII ,

which is also not quite half way through thebook . Either, therefore, I have quite misunderstood the argument

, or it is not adaptedto support the superstructur e reared upon itas I have read and re -read the chapter of

Sir W. R . Nicoll’s book to which I havereferred without being able to give it anyother interpretation than that stated above

,I

am obliged to adopt the second alternative .

Dr Henr y Ja c kson ,wh o accepts the Helena

Datc h ery theory, apparently for want of abetter one

,largely bases his conclusions upon

two facts,namely, the alleged

(

proper sequenceof the chapters , and Helena

’ s suggestion that itwould be advisable to try and anticipate anyfur ther pursuing and maligning of Neville on

Da tch ery 63

the part of Jasper, which he considers to bethe origin of Datc h ery

’

s employment . Hei s a scrupu l ously fair controversialist, and isas ready to state any points which seeminglymilitate against the view he advocates as thosewhich appear to support it . Thus, he admitsthat while his theory wou l d logically call forthe placing of Chapter XVIII after ChapterXXII

,what Dickens did was to put it into the

place it now occupies in lieu of the presentChapter ( I (

,so that instead of being trans

posed to a la ter position, it actually occupiesan earlier one than Dickens originally planned.

This fact in itself, candidl y admitted byDr Jackson

,shou l d, I imagine, have caused

him to consider seriously whether, after all,the arrangement adopted by Dickens wasn ot the one which he felt to be best calc u l ated to contribute to the continuity ofhis story

,and personally I feel quite convinced

that the transposition of Chapters XVIII andXIX

,after a few pages onl y of the former had

been written,must be accepted as clear proof

that,in Dickens’ s view at least, there was

nothing incongruous in m aking Datc h ery

appear on the scene at the period assigned to

64 Th e Mystery in th e D r ood Fam ily

him by the present sequence of the chapters .Dickens himself corrected the proofs up to

and including Chapter XXI, so that he h adample opportunity, if he had s o desired

,of

removing Chapter XVIII from its presentplace

,and putting it where

,according to

Dr Jackson, it should have appeared if h isview is correct . Consequently

,I can only

conclude that Dickens experienced no difficulty or doubt whatever with reference to th etim e of Datc h ery

’

s appearance . Th e doubtswhich he expressed to Miss Hogarth hadreference i n my opinion

,not to the period of

Datc h ery s introduction, but to what Dickenshad originally told the reader about Datc h ery

’

s

enquiries concerning the murder of Drood ;that this is so may, I believe, be safely inferredfrom the fact that Dickens subsequentlydeleted all passages in Chapter XVIII directlyor indirectly indicating that Datc h ery was inany way concerned about the tragedy. It isinteresting to note, in this connexion, thatwhereas Proctor wrote (Kn owledge, November, 1887 ) Dickens did, indeed, expressto Miss Hogarth the fear that the Datc h ery

assumption had been so handled in the last

P a tch ery 65

chapter (written) as to disclose too much ,Sir W . R . Nic ol l says , at page 171of his book,We know that Dickens told his sisterin - lawthat he was afraid the Datc h ery assumptionin the fifth nu m ber wa s premature .” I amnot aware where either of these writers gothis information from , nor can I j udge betweenthem as to the accuracy of their several statements

,but if it is legitimate to draw an infer

ence from the alterations actually made byDickens, we are led to the conclusion thatneither statement is strictly correct

,and I

prefer,with great deference to the views of

these two authorities , to interpret the doubtswhich Dickens certainly did express

,by refer

ence to the alterations which he as certainlymade . I hold

,therefore

,notwithstanding

Dr Jackson’s interesting and closely reasonedargument

,that Chapter XVIII is in its proper

position,and that we must take it as we find

it,with all the consequences which it entails .

I have not overlooked the fact that there is noobvious connexion between Datc h ery

’

s doings ,as related in Chapter XVIII, with the eventsrecorded in Chapter XVII

,and Chapters XIX

to XXII,but to this I reply, first, that it was

66 Th e Mystery in the Dr ood Fam i ly

Dickens’s habit to keep all the threads of hisstory going at the same time, which n ec es s i

tated a certain apparent want of continuitybetween the consecutive chapters ; and sec

ondly,that if Chapter XVIII were transposed

to a position after Chapter XXII,we should

see a great deal of Datc h ery in two c on sec u

tive chapters, very much to the detriment ofi

the interest in the other characters . Further,it is quite plain from the conversation between

Datc h ery and Deputy that the former had, atthe period of the events narrated in ChapterXXIII

,been in Cloisterh am for some relatively

considerable time , so that the further backwe put D atc h ery

’

s appearance,the better we

explain their close acquaintance .

Another argument relied upon by Dr Jackson is

,I think , really based upon the state

ment made by Grewgious about Crisparkle atthe beginning of Chapter XXI

,And it was

particularly kind of him to come,for he had

but just gone .

” He infers from this that

Cr ispa rkle’

s visit must be that chronicled inChapter XVII, no other being mentioned inthe intervening chapters that was

,according

to Dr Jackson’s chronology, on June 30th ,

P a tch ery 67

and as the Staple Inn conference did not takeplace until July 4th ,

before which date theallies had apparently not planned to haveJasper watched at Cloisterh am , Datc h ery

’

s

appearance there on June 30th or Ju l y 1stas their agent

,is totally inexplicable . He

regards it as impossible that Grewgious hadalready set a watch on Jasper in the interestsof Rosa or Neville

,as at the conference on

July 4th their defence is discussed as a res

integra ; before this date, therefore, Grew

giou s and his friends can hardly have takenthe field

,either offensively, with a view to

discovering the murderer of Edwin, or defens ively, with a view to the protection of Nevill eand Rosa . In a word,

” he argues , Datchery seems to be a representative or agent ofthe Staple Inn allies but it is inconceivablethat they shou l d have had a representative oragent at Cloisterh am on Friday, June 30th , or

Saturday,Ju l y 1st. On the other hand, the

appearance of such a representative or agenton any day subsequent to the Staple I

conference, say on Ju l y 5th or July 6th ,is

exactly what we should expect . Let ussuppose,

” he continues later on,that while

5—2


Tartar will get into touch wi th Jasper when hevisits Staple Inn , Datc h ery, whoever he maybe

,is to observe Jasper’s movements when

he is at Cloisterh am . This is an intelligiblescheme, whereas the conference is strangelyineffective if its sole result is that Tartar is toldoff to verify Cr ispa rkle

’

s conj ectu ral explanation of Jasper’s visits to Staple Inn

,especially

as that explanation has n ow been justified byJasper’s words to Rosa .

”

If, therefore,” he concludes

,about this

time means July 5th , it follows that ChapterXVIII m u st come after Chapter XXII .

It appears to me,if I have correctly follow

ed Dr Jackson’s argument (and I trust thatin summarising it I have not involuntarilydone it injustice) that it depends very largelyupon the identification of the visit of Cris

parkle referred to in Chapter XXI with thatmentioned in Chapter XVII

,for if About this

time does not mean June 30th , it mightmean practically any other date

,whether a

week or a month previously. Now,I cannot

admit that if Crisparkle had not seen Grew

giou s later than June 30th ,the latter cou l d

have fairly said on July 4th He had on ly



of Jasper’s movements . P r im a fa c i e, therefore

,there is every reason to think that on

July 4th ,the date of the conference,

”

Grewgious had on his own account an observerat Cloisterh am ,

and in the circumstances thiscould be none other than Datc h ery,

and hemust have been there for some time to warrantGrewgious speaking as he did. Instead

,there

fore, of placing Datc h ery

’

s appearance atCloisterh am later than Ju l y 4th ,

I shou l d feelinclined to put it earlier than June 30th .

With regard to the ( ineffective conference

,let me observe that it was a perfectly

accidental on e , so that one would hardl yexpect any concerted plan to be evolved .

Rosa flies to London, and takes refuge withGrewgious ; Crisparkle follows the next day,because Miss Twinkleton was so uneasy ;Tartar recognises h im ,

and, with apologies ,makes one of the company ; and then MrGrewgious sudden ly has an idea

,whereby

Rosa and Helena can meet without Jasper’sspy being any the wiser. Th e only suggestionof a scheme comes from Helena , and all thatsh e proposes, is that Tartar should visitNeville

,s o that if Jasper should communicate

P atch ery 71

with Tartar,we might not onl y know the

fact,but might kn ow from Mr Tartar what the

terms of the communication were .

”That, I

take it,is the extent of her plan to antici

pate Jasper,and the conference, having

come together fortu i tously,and without any

pre- arranged idea of formu l ating any scheme,

breaks up when Helena’s proposal is carried.

B u t even if we assume that a ll my arguments are wrong, that Grewgious had no agentat Cloisterh am before the date of the conference

,that Datc h ery onl y goes there after

Ju l y 4th,that Dr Jackson’s suggested chron

ology is accurate,and that Chapter XVI II

was designed to follow Chapter XXII,then I

would still maintain that Helena could nothave been Datc h ery,

if Dickens was dealingfair ly with his readers

,for the following reason.

Th e fourth paragraph of Chapter XXII I runsas follows Th e dreadful suspicion of

Jasper, which Rosa was so shocked to havereceived into her imagination

,appeared to

have no harbou r in Mr Cr ispa rkle’

s . If itever haunted Helena

’

s thoughts or Neville’s,neither gave it on e spoken word of utterance .

”

Th e clear suggestion conveyed by this last


sentence can only be that Helena,as well as

Neville,was available to all their friends

,and

if Dickens had ever intended that his readerswere to be told that Helena was to have beenshown to have been at Cloisterh am when theyhad every right to infer that she was at StapleInn, he wou l d have been the first to admitthat the words quoted above were grossly andunfairly misleading. He was not obliged

,in

the paragraph under consideration,to make

any reference at a ll to Helena no on e cou l dhave complained of the omission had he leftout her name entirely

,and probably no on e

would have noticed it . If Helena were Datchery

,assu redly Dickens wou l d never have

written the words quoted ; that he did soamounts

,in my opinion

,to clear and absolute

proof that, whoever Datc h ery was , he wasnot Helena.

I think that this reference in Chapter XXIIIto Helena partly meets Mr J. Cu m ingWa lters

’

s

point that we hear no more of her afterDatc h ery comes on the scene ; the referenceto her is not

,indeed, a very definite one, but

it is enough to prove that Dickens was nothiding Helena. Th e argument that she does

P a tch ery 73

not call on Rosa carr ies no weight with me ,as we know that Jasper was watching Neville’ schambers had Helena visited Rosa, the spy,in following her

,wou l d have located Rosa ,

Jasper would have learnt of her addr ess , andall the elaborate precautions taken by Grew

giou s for Rosa’ s protection wou l d have been

nu l lified.

Apparently,also

,neither Grewgious n or

Cr isparkle n or even Tartar visits Rosa, a l

though Tartar was to serve as a medium ofcommunication between Rosa and Helena .

MrWa lter s’

s argument , therefore, either provestoo much or proves nothin g at all

,and by

reason of the fact that Tartar and Rosa weredefinitely intended to meet , although we aren ever told that they di d , I conclude thatnothing can be inferred from Dickens ’s omission to tell us whether Helena called on Rosa.

However far- seein g Dickens may have been,he could not possibly have anticipated how amere omission might be tortu r ed into evidencein favou r of a mystery which

,in all

probabili ty,he never had in his mind .

If Datc h ery is not Helena, is he B a z z a rdor Drood ‘

2 I think neither the on e nor the

74 Th e Mystery in th e Drood Fam i ly

other. B a z z a rd is a sur ly su l ky brute incharacter, entirely unl ike brisk and cheeryDatc h ery. He h a s his mystery,

” but it isnot the Datc h ery mystery. In appearance

,

he is a pale,puffy- faced dark-haired person

of thirty, with big dark eyes that whollywanted lustre, and a dissatisfied doughycountenance that seemed to ask to be sent tothe baker’s ; a gloomy person with tangledlooks .

”Th e one thing that Datc h ery is not,

is gloomy ; and imagine Datc h ery speakingthus : Mr Drood

,

” said B a z z ard . Whatof him ?

” Has called,said B a z z ard .

(

You might have shown him in . I amdoing it

,

” said B a z z ard . Or again : Dinepresently wi th Mr Drood and me .

”If I’m

ordered to dine of cou r se I will, s ir , was thegloomy answer. Save the man ; you

’renot ordered

,you’re invited.

”Thank you,

s ir ; in that case I don’t care if I do .

”It

seems useless to pur sue the B a z z ard theoryany fur ther ; it is onl y built upon G rewgiou s

’

s

statement to Rosa he is off duty here, altogether

,j ust at present

,

” and has no othershred of evidence in its favou r . If Dickensdesigned to make B a z z ard Datc h ery, h e simply

Da tc hery 75

did not know his business . B esides, I thinkI can provide B a z z ard with another rOle , andan important one .

As regards the Drood theory, the internalevidence is not so decisive, but I refer againto the interview between Datc h ery and Saps ea

,and ask

,whether a young man of twenty

one,who admitted that he was not clever

,

was likely to know or adopt the style ofaddr ess used by Datc h ery

‘

2 I think theprobabilities are a ll against such a view.

Datc h ery was certainly bright and cheery,but he quite evidently had n ot th e giddyhead ascribed to Edwin in Chapter II ; hehad a much older and clearer head than Edwinwou ld have possessed for many years

,and a

manner of adapting his conversation to theperson he was addr essing, whi ch Drood certa in ly had not, as witness the latter

’s interview with Grewgious . And then

,think of

the utter impossibili ty of Jasper,Edwin’s

uncle, companion, and rival, and Mrs Tope,

whom he had j oked with and kissed,failing to

recognise him because he happens to wear awig Two things are very difficul t to di sguise,the eyes

,and the voice

,the latter especially

76 Th e Mystery in th e D r ood F ami ly

Jasper was a suffi ciently keen musician to beable to discriminate between and identifythree keys by their respective notes

,and

Dickens makes it clear that h is sense of soundwas highly developed

,and it accordingly

appears to me incredible that he could for amoment have imagined that Datc h ery,

if hewere Drood

,would have risked

, or coul d havehoped to escape, detection by Jasper, underany disguise whatever. Jasper is the firstperson

,after Mr s Tope

,whom Datc h ery

visits at Cloisterh am ; neither of them hasthe slightest suspicion of ever having seen himbefore

,although he has a moderately lengthy

conversation with each oi them . Mr s Topewaits on him ,

prepares his meals,attends to

his wants , and probably sees him every dayof his life ; Jasper no doubt passes himdaily at his open door

,and meets him loung

ing about the cathedral precincts . B u t

neither of them recognises or even suspectshim ; the wonderful wig does the trick (With the greatest respect for the memory ofthe late Mr R . A . Proctor, who , I think,started the Drood theory, I cannot believethat Dickens would ever have required his



him ) , both by the woman’s talk, and by her

very precise statement, but they both leavehim quite cold. When, however, sh e statesthat her medicine is Opium ,

Mr Datc h ery,

with a sudden change of countenance, givesher a sudden look .

”I take this to mean

,

that Datc h ery,up to this point, not being

Edwin,certainl y had nop reci s e knowledge, and

probably no knowledge at all, of the meetingbetween the latter and the woman on Christmas Eve ; but that, on hearing the wordopium

,

” he recognises that he may havehappened on a likely clue. It is not until sh ementions Th e young gentleman’ s name wasEdwin that Mr Datc h ery, becoming startledat his luc k in stumbling upon this witness ,drops some money

,stoops to pick it up

,and

reddens with the exertion . How do youknow the young gentleman’s name ? ” en

quires he ; a perfectly needl ess and foolishquestion

,by the way

,if he were Edwin. And

she answers I asked him for it,and he

told it me . Now Edwin-Datc h ery wouldeither have recognised the woman directly hemet her

,or immediately after the th ree-and

s ix episode,and he woul d n ot have blushed

P a tch ery 79

when he heard the nam e Edwin ; that hereddened only at that particu l ar m oment,conclusively proves

,to my mind

,that Datch

ery is not Edwin .

A fu r ther proof that Datc h ery and Edwinare not on e , is to be found in his first conversation with Deputy. Lookie yonder,

” saysDeputy. You see that there winder anddoor ‘

7 That’s Tope’s answers Datchery

,lying quite needl essly, apparently, if he

were Edwin, who kn ew very well that it wasn’t .

Yer lie it ain’t . That’s Ja r sper’

s ,” replies

Deputy.

‘

Indeed ‘P said Mr Datc h ery,

with a s econd look of s om e interest. Dickensdeleted these words in the proof

,but that onl y

shows that when he wrote them he had notObserved that they might serve to narrowdown the small number of people who mightbe Datc h ery,

or that they di sclosed someinterest in Jasper on the part of Datc h ery

which Dickens desired to hide . Finally,the

last words of Chapter XIX hardl y fit in withthe Edwin-Datc h ery theory, since, except forfacing the ordeal of meeting Jasper and Mr s

Tope,Edwin’s afternoon ( if it were he) , cou l d

hardl y be described as b u sy.


It has been suggested that Datc h ery wa s

Tartar,but I do not think that anything can

be said in favour of this theory. Th e following description of Tartar occurs towards theend of Chapter XVII , A handsome gentleman

,with a young face, but with an older

figure in its robustness and its breadth of

shoulder say a man of eight- and- twenty,or

at the utmost thirty so extremely sunburntthat the contrast between his brown visageand the white forehead shaded out of doors byhis hat

,and the glimpses of white throat

below the neckerchief, would have been almostludicrous but for his broad temples

,bright

blue eyes,clustering brown hair and laughing

teeth .

” Contrast this with the description ofDatc h ery at the beginning of Chapter XVIII,remembering Datc h ery

’

s habit of dispensingwith his hat, and it is at once obvious thatTartar’ s white forehead (which would havebeen as noticeable as Datc h ery

’

s blackeyebrows wou l d have certainl y led him towear a hat at all times , if he desired to remainunr ecognised. There are also very great diffic u l ties connected with his watching Jasper at

Cloisterh am ,at the same time as he was to

P a tch ery 8 ]

be in daily communi cation with Neville inLondon

,and while I agree that Tartar was

probably intended to play some part in theunmasking or captu r e of Jasper, I do notthink that anything points to this part beingan important one, or one which required thequalities with which Dickens endowed Datchery. A naval lieutenant wou l d have been asincapable as Helena or Edwin of adopting thestyle of addr ess which Datc h ery used withSapsea

,and it is quite improbable that hewou l d

h ave been possessed of Datc h ery’

s subtletyand irony. Finally

, Datc h ery’

s settling atCloisterh am does not square with Tartar’ sappearance on the scene

,as we know that the

latter went to Staple Inn nine months beforeNevil le, and apparently remained there du r ingthe remainder of the story

,so far as we have

it. Tartar’ s claim to be Datc h ery may therefore , I think, be safely di smissed as quiteuntenable .

Now,if Datc h ery was neither Edwin, nor

Helena, nor B a z z a rd ,nor Tartar

,who was

he I do not admit that the argument isconclusive that the story was in too advanceda stage for a new character to have been

3 . 6

82 Th e Mystery in th e Drood Fam ily

introduced,but I agree that

,if possible

,it

would be more satisfactory to identify Datchery with some known personage . That hewas a detective in the ordinary sense

,and

similar to Dickens ’s other detective characters,

is disproved by the internal evidence,as

Datc h ery is an educated gentleman, a verydiplomatic bird

,

” and a kind-hearted man,

but that he is Obviously doing detective dutyis apparent . Th e problem can be approached

,

I think,from two directions first

,by looking

for some character who has not hitherto beenidentified with Datc h ery,

and secondly,by

searching for corroborative evidence in hisspeech and habits .Let us first turn to Chapter XI

,where we

are told something about Grewgious ; thereis a good deal of mystery about his business ,which is stated to be that of a Receiver andAgent . Th e whole paragraph is worth transcribing

,after noting that he had been bred

to the B ar .

” Coy Conveyancing wouldnot come to Mr Grewgious . She was wooedand not won

,and they went their several ways .

B u t an Arbitration being blown towards himby some unaccountable wind

,and he gaining

Da tch ery 83

great credit for it as on e indefatigable in seeking out right and doing right, a pretty fatReceivership was ne xt blown into his pocketby a wind more traceable to its source . So

,

by chance,he found his niche . Receiver and

Agent now, to two rich estates, and deputingtheir legal business, in an amount worth having, to a firm of solicitors on the floor below

,

he had snuffed out his ambition . B y

way of di gression, be it noted that the tworich estates cann ot have been Rosa’ s andEdwin’s, as she onl y had an annuity of £250,and Edwin would . . come into his partnership derived from his father

,and in to its

a rrears to his credit ( if any) on attaining h ismaj ority . so Grewgious tell s Rosa inChapter IX . Th e unaccountable win d,

” andthe wind more traceable to its source

,and

the two rich estates hardly appear to me tobe mentioned for no purpose whatever, and Ibelieve that they wou l d have had some conn ex ion with the story, although I am at a lossto offer any suggestion. B u t to revert toou r argument. When Rosa visits Grewgiousat Staple Inn

,he tells her

,by way of general

c onversation, that B a z z ard is off duty here,6—2


altogether,j ust at present and a fir m

downstairs,with which I have business rela

tions,lend me a substitute .

” We thus findthat the firm of solicitors , to whom,

as we aretold

,Grewgious dep u ted h i s lega l bu s in es s in

an amount worth having, find him a substitutefor the absent B a z z a rd is it impossible thathe should also have interested this firm in theenquiries which he has undoubtedly institutedat Cloisterh am ? In my view

,it is n ot only

n ot unlikely, but exceedingly probable ; itwould have been only natu r al for Grewgious toturn for aid to his ordinary legal advisers

,

more particularly as they were unknown tothe person to be watched . For no apparentreason

, Dickens has twice referred to thisfirm in vague and general words , it is true ,but sufficiently definitely to bring ou t theirclose connexion with Grewgious . He thusescapes the accusation of having introducedat too late a stage an entirely new character,and at the same time so little

,and that little

so apparently unimportant, has been said of

this character,that

,so far as I am aware, the

identification with Datc h ery has never beensuggested to this day.



m e ; even a diplomatic bird must fall to such agun .

” Without actually asserting a falsehood,

Datc h eryhas satisfied the solemn ja cka s s’

s curios ity by a particu l arly subtle answer. And thenhis answer to Sapsea

’

s remark,that ( Justice

must be immorally certain— legally,that is

His Honour reminds me of the nature of

the law. Immoral. How true Read thewhole of this scene aloud to any moderatelyexperienced lawyer, and suggest to him ,

if heis n ot beforehand with the suggestion , thatDatc h ery was a member of the legal profession

,and I think that in nine cases ou t of ten

the theory will gain his immediate adherence .If we take the conversation with the opium

woman,the impression is strengthened

Datc h ery is n ot now flattering a fool,but

extracting information from a witness . Having given her Jasper’s name, the burst of

triumph in which sh e thank s him does n ot

escape the attention of the single bufferliving idly on his means . He ( loungesalong the echoing precincts at her side,

”

suggests that she can go up at once to Mr

Jasper’s rooms there,

” and adds It ’

s a longway to come for that

,though ,

” a subtle way

Da tch ery 87

of eliciting information as to where she h a scome from . (Edwin knew that sh e came fromLondon. ) Finding that the fish does not bite

,

but still desiring to ascertain what she wantswith Jasper

,the man that he is also after

,

Datc h ery lounges along, and tem pts her byrattling the loose money in the pockets of histrousers . He has accompani ed her su ffi c i

ently far to note that she is making directlyfor the travellers’ lodging, or rather he hasmade a shot in the dark, as a legal man insearch of information might do . Then stillrattling his money

,and still tempting her.

he enquires B een here often, my goodwoman speaking as any lawyer, examininga witness of the lower classes , wou l d speak.

Having got her to talk, he lets her talk without interruption until he has heard all she h a sto say,

delaying payment until it becomesnecessary ( it would not have been necessaryfor Edwin) to a sk How do you know theyoung gentleman’s name he has a willingwitness

,and, as every lawyer knows , it is

wise to let her tell her own tale . Then comethe conversation with Deputy

,where Datc h ery

is short,sharp, and to the point the soliloquy,


concerning the old tavern way of keepingscores

,which would commend itself to a

sh rewd lawyer ; and finally, the last words withPrincess Puffer, a l l of which appear to meto be highly characteristic . Add to this thefried sole

,veal ou tlet

,and pint of sherry

,the

bread and cheese and ale, Dickens

’s legalexperience

,and his constant habit of intro

du c ing legal characters into his novels, espec ially where delicate work is to be done

,and I

think that we have ample corroboration of

the theory that Datc h ery was a member ofthe firm of soli citors to whom Grewgiousdeputed his legal work , and who found hima substitute for B a z z ard .

Th e acceptance of this theory rendersunnecessary the presence of Helena in two

places at the same time,and enables u s to

acquit theMinor Canon of a falsehood . It alsodoes away with the necessity of convictingDickens of an attempt to make his readersbelieve that a wig would effectively disguiseeither Helena or Edwin from people whoknew them well . Upon this theory, also ,Dickens may be acquitted of wilfully misleading his readers when he describes how


90 Th e Mystery in th e D rood F am i ly

for the introduction of on e later, he couldhardly have chosen a form of words moreapt to his purpose. While, therefore, I canoffer no definite explanation of the wordwistful I think I am at least entitled toput forward

,as a tentative explanation

,the

theory that Datc h ery would have been foundto be in some way related to Rosa

,and

therefore personally interested in Jasper’ sconviction . Th e mere use of on e doubtfulword, cann ot, I think , h e held to invalidatea theory otherwise quite consistent with allthe known facts , more particularly as Dickensdid in fact commit one or two errors whichare attributable to carelessness . As is wellknown , he places Rosa

’ s picture in Jasper’ slodgings first in the outer room and afterwards in the inner one as I have pointed out

,

Datc h ery’

s hair is white in Chapter XVIII,

and grey in Chapter XXIII ; Grewgious isdescribed in Chapter IX as near- sighted

,

although in Chapter XVII his sight seemsparticularly good finally

,I think I shall be

able to prove Dickens guilty of a much gravererror, which , I believe

, h a s escaped attention altogether until now (unless it be his

Da tch ery 91

commentators,and not Dickens

,who are at

faul t) .Upon these grounds

,therefore I think my

identification of Datc h ery is the one whichoffers the least difficulty

,and which can fin d

th e soundest arguments in its favour.

CHAPTER III

WA S EDWIN MURDERED

THE Edwin-Datc h ery theory of coursenecessitates acceptance of the view thatEdwin was not really killed, but only pretendedto be . This particular di ffi culty is not involved in any other identification of Datc h ery,

although,on the other hand, the view that

Drood is dead is not without its own

difficulties . Let us , however, first see whatreason there is for thinking that he wa s

murdered,and effectually murdered.

In the first place, there is Dickens’s own

statement to Fildes , to whom he said I

must have the double neck- tie . It is n ec es

sary,for Jasper strangles Drood with it . ”

This is certainly strong evidence,although ,

be it noted, Dickens eventually gave Jasper alarge black scarf of strong close-woven silk,slung loosely round his neck .

” He may havedone this , however, because Fildes pointed



Sm oothing the way. That is,for Jasper’s

plan and to Chapter XII Jasper’ sfailure in the one great Obj ect made knownby Grewgious all tend entirely in the samedirection

,and unl ess Dickens meant by the

word mu rder in his Own notes, merely at

tempted m urder,” we are bound to admit

that the evidence in support of Edwin’s deathwhich these notes aflord is alm ost irrefutable.Th e contrary view involves either an u nn ec es

sary precaution or a rather silly self-m ystification on Dickens ’s part, or else a suddenchange of plot for no apparent reason

,and

on these grounds alone I should decline toaccept it.Extrinsic evidence in the sam e sense is

also forthcoming from Dickens’s son anddaughter

,which is to be found in Sir W.

Robertson Nicoll’ s book already referred to ,and need not therefore be quoted here ; andfinally

,there is the intrinsic evidence to be

gathered from the book itself. In this conn ex ion ,

the strongest point,I think, is , as

numerous writers have remarked, that ifDrood were alive

,he could hardly have allow

ed Nevill e to remain under suspicion merely

Wa s Edwin Mu rder ed 9 95

in order to inflict a particularly gruesomeform of punishment on Jasper, as Proctorsuggested. Of cou rse , Proctor did not knowof Dickens’s notes, and he was not W ithoutjustification when he imagined that the ringwas introduced for a particu l arly dr amaticpurpose. With the materials at his disposal,he cou l d conceive of no other necessity forJasper to abstract this ring than with a viewto avoiding identification of the body ; andfor the infliction of the pu n ishment which heimagined

,Edwin had to be alive . Now that

I have shown,as I think, that Jasper had

another obj ect in view,namely

,the incu l pa

tion of Nevill e, the dramatic situation whichProctor imagined cou l d have been broughtabout without entailin g any necessity forassuming that Edwin was still alive, and wa s

heartlessly allowing Nevill e to remain undersuspicion

,and I think that

,in the circum

stances,Proctor himself would have been the

fir st to abandon his theory. That two suchupright men as Grewgious and Crisparklewou l d have been parties to this wickeddeception, seems to me to be an utterlyuntenable hypothesis

,and that Grewgious


at least must have known of Edwin’s escape,

if he did escape, is part and parcel of thistheory Crisparkle, with whom he was working to clear Neville, could not have been leftou t of his confidence, and to have left Rosa inignorance would have been such an act of

cruelty as neither of these men cou l d ever havecommitted. That Drood’s life was attemptedseems plain from the fact that his watch andchain and scarf pin were discovered in th e

weir by Crisparkle either, therefore, he wasreally killed

,or he managed to escape . If he

escaped,he and others who were aware of the

fact were almost as great criminals as Jasper,

inasmuch as they were wrecking Nevil le ’

s

life ; legally, I think , they would also haveincurred a grave responsibility, as , knowingthat a murder had been attempted, they tookno steps to bring the wrong-doer to justice .

In face of these considerations , as there is nonecessity for proving that Edwin must havesurvived

,we are su rely justified in concluding

that he was killed,as Dickens said.

There are,however, one or two difficulties

in the way of the unqualified acceptance ofthe view that Drood was dead, and, as the


98 The Mystery in th e D rood F am i ly

whom) in the medicinal herb - closet describedin Chapter X . Let m e remark again that Iattached no importance to this guess at thetime, more particu l arly a s I fail ed to understand its bearing on the story

,but it had one

circumstance, although a very insignificantone, to support it. That circumstance wa s ,that I cou l d find no reason for the introdu ction by Dickens of the medicine closet intothe story, u n less something were to be madeof it. It may be that the long passage inChapter X was merely descriptive

,and nothing

else ; I do not think so,because Dickens

generally meant something by every detailwhich he introduced. I Observe

,also

,that

in his notes for this Chapter there is thisentry : Minor Canon Corner. Th e Closet ?a significant note when we remember thatDickens wa s tabulating h is materials andscenes, and was hardl y likely to j ot downpu r ely descriptive matter leading to nothing.

It is also noteworthy that the closet in questionwas a medi cinal herb - closet situated on anupper staircase landing a low and narrowwhite-washed cell.” Lastly

,and this

,I think,

might be significant, Dickens first describes

Wa s E dwin Mu rder ed ? 99

the dining-room closet,where the Chi na

Shepherdess kept her preserves, and reservesthe description of the herb - closet for secondplace . Th e note speaks of one closet only,and the fact that two are described in thebook, led me to believe that Dickens had someinformation to impart to hi s readers to whichhe desired to avoid dr awing particular attention ; the argument is the same a s thatwhich I have already used with reference toJasper’ s diary

,for what it m ay be worth in

this connexion .

Th e theory which now,however, commends

itself to me in regard to the herb - closet,enables me to offer a suggestion not onlywith reference to the enigmatical pictureon the lower part of the cover, but also inconnexion with the title of Chapter ( I V,

When shall these three meet again ? ”

It was contended by Proctor that Dickensevidently intended to convey to his readers ,by means of this title

,the suggestion that

Jasper, Drood, and Nevill e did meet again.

Mr Charles,on the other hand

,points out a

parallel between Jasper’s crime and the murder committed by Macbeth, and he thinks

7— 2


that Dickens had Shakespeare’s tragedy inhis mind when he chose the title of ChapterXIV . He infers , therefore, that the quotationdecisively proves that Edwin wa s murderedby Jasper

,as Duncan was undoubtedly

murdered by Macbeth , and he considers thatthe meaning that Proctor read into the quotation was unwarranted. In my view

,both

Proctor and Mr Charles are partly right, butthey are also partly wrong. Th e chapterheading chosen by Dickens is n ot a strictlyaccurate quotation what Shakespeare wrotewas , When shall we three meet again,

” andthe line is to be found

(

right at the commencement of M a c b eth . It was spoken by oneof the witches , all three of whom do meetagain, on one other occasion at least. I

think,therefore

,that Dickens meant us to

understand that Edwin,Neville

,and Jasper

were to meet again,and accordingly, that to

this extent,Proctor was right. B u t I also

think that Drood was murdered, so that, inthe ordinary sense of the word, the threewere not to meet again

,so that

,to this extent

again, Mr Charles was right. When the threedid meet, Edwin was dead, and lay hidden in



understand that when it became necessary forNeville to return to Cloisterh am , it was advisable for the utmost secrecy to be observed,not onl y because of the Dean’s obj ections,but also by reason of the very purpose ofNevi lle ’ s return. What more natu r al, therefore, than that Crisparkle shoul d have sheltered Nevill e secretly

,and where cou l d he have

hidden him s o easily as in the medi cine closetThere he would have been m ost effectivelyhidden

,and yet he wou l d have been at hand

at a moment’s notice to c arry out the part hewas designed to play. To my mind, there isnothing strained about this interpretationeither of the picture or of the title of ChapterXIV, and as it enables us to connect the twoin a simple manner

,a s well as to find a use

for the medicine closet which Dickens described s o carefully

,and even elaborately, I

venture to assert that the theory I have proposed at least requires carefu l considerationbefore it is rej ected.

On e other point . In describing Jasper’svisit to Durdl es

,preparatory to the n oc tu r

nal expedition,

”Dickens referred to Two

skeleton j ourney-men . . about to slash away


at cutting ou t the grave- stones of the nexttwo people destined to die in Cloisterh am .

Likely enough , the two think little of that now,

being alive, and perhaps merry. Curious,to

make a guess at the two —or say at on e of thetwo .

”That two people were to die is obvious

,

and that one was Edwin is almost equallyObvious but whether the second was Nevill e

,

or whether he was Jasper himself, is not so

easy to decide . To j udge by the remarkthat perhaps they were merry, on e wou l dbe inclined to conclude that Jasper couldnot have been the second, as the adjectivewhich Dickens used is qui te inapplicable tohim . If

,therefore, the second doomed man

were Nevill e,we have fur ther confirmation

of my explanation of the picture, and thetheory I have advanced in connexion with it.Another obj ection to the theory that

Drood is dead, and on e which , before I

knew of the existence of Dickens’ s notes ,influenced me very considerably in favou rof h is escape, may be drawn from the conversation between Datc h ery and the Opiumwom an. Datc h ery, if he was Edwin, knewof Jasper’s opium habit ; but if he was any


on e else, what ground have we for supposingthat he knew anything of it And yet

,

I argued,he must have had some know

ledge O i it, for when the Opium woman tell sDatc h ery : I

’

l l be honest with you beforehand

,as well as after. It

’

s opium welearn that Mr Datc h ery, with a suddenchange of countenance, gives her a suddenlook . Now Edwin, on the occasion of h is

meeting with this wom an,had not onl y

recogni sed the opium look, but had actuallybeen told by her that she smoked opium .

Datc h ery’

s change of countenance when hehears the word opium ,

” shows that hehad s om e knowledge either of the priormeeting, or of Jasper’s opium habit

,and

I do not see that any other interpretationcan be put upon it ; we are thereforeenabled to draw a most important inference .

If Datc h ery is not Edwin, he can onl y haveheard of th i s m eeting from one of two persons , the woman herself or Edwin ; aboutthat there can be no question. Th e argument is, that he has not met the womanbefore, therefore he must have heard of themeeting from Edwin ; ergo , Edwin, if not



of this den at the sam e time, so that hisinstructions to Deputy to find ou t wherethe opium woman lived would appear to beneedl ess and therefore quite inexplicable .

I am inclined to think that Grewgious had

got to learn of Jasper’s opium habit by some

means which did not involve the tracing ofthe latter to the opium den, and (althoughthis is pure guess -work ) I suggest that wemay have here an explanation of G rewgiou s

’

s

hint in Chapter XXI It is a businessprinciple of mine, in such a case, not to closeup any direction, but to keep an eye on everydirection that may present itself. I couldrelate an anecdote in point

,but that it

would be premature .

” Whether this inter

pretation of G rewgiou s’

s anecdote be corrector not, I still believe that, by some meansor other, he knew of Jasper

’s opium habit,and had informed Datc h ery of it, without,however

,telli ng the latter of the opium

woman’s addr ess , which he himself may or

may not have known ; this would accountboth for Datc h ery

’

s obvious agitation, andfor his instructions to Deputy, and I consider therefore that we are not obliged to


assume that any information as to Jasper’sopium habit had necessarily to be obtainedfrom Edwin .

Proctor,whose theory compelled him to

prove that Edwin was al ive,made h is best

points,in my opini on, from the text itself .

He called attention to very m anv passageswhere Dickens referred to Edwin after hisdi sappearance, and pointed ou t that everyone of them was consistent w ith the theorythat Edwin was not dead. He also showedvery cleverly that neither Rosa nor Grew

giou s ever defini tely referred to Edwin asdead

,and that all their numerous remarks

concerning hi m were so worded as to leavetheir knowledge or belief upon the subjecta perfectly open question . Upon this pointI refer the reader to the articles by ThomasFoster in Kn owledge for 1884, and contentmyself with observing that the able mannerin whi ch Proctor there deals with the evidence I am now considering wou l d, in myview, carry conviction with it if we possessedonly the materials which were then availableto him . Since that time

,however

,Dickens’ s

notes have been di scovered,and other ex


tran eou s facts have been brought to l ight ,all of which sufficiently explain the reasonsfor the ambiguous statements which Dickensput into the mouths of h is characters , andpersonally I am convinced that his obj ectin leaving Edwin’s fate in doubt was to drawattention off his main mystery and tocentre it around his subordinate on e . Itseems pretty obvious to me that had heallowed it to become known definitely thatEdw in wa s dead, the interest in the bookwould at once have become focussed uponthe manner of the detection of Jasper, whichwas exactly what Dickens would

,in the cir

c u m stan c es,naturally have desired to avoid ;

I have already drawn attention to this pointalthough from a som ewhat different aspectwhen considering the various titles whichDickens noted. I conclude

,therefore

,that

all the evidence which Proctor laboriouslybrought together was purposely introducedby Dickens wi th a view to that very end ,and that the imagination of the novelistsuccessfully anticipated and forestalled themethods of the mathematician.



and he remodelled the second Part, which,as re - cast

,contained Chapters VI to IX , the

last,entitled B irds in the B ush ,

” beingapparently new matter, a s we find no

reference to it in the notes proper. Thereis , however, on the back of the notes forPart II (I am assuming that Sir W. R .

Nicoll’s reproduction of them is exact inevery detail ) the following note Rosa’sguardian ? Don e in N0 . I I I take it,therefore

,that by interpolating this chapter,

Dickens got back to h is scheme as originallyplanned

,as until we reach Chapter XXI

,

entitled A recognition,” the Chapter

numbers and titles in the notes agree withthose of the book. Dickens must therefore have had the whole scheme well arrangedin h is mind, a s , except for the transposition

of what was original ly Chapter VIII, and theinterpolation of Chapters IX and XXI

,the

plan of the book agrees with that outlinedin the notes .

Th e notes for Chapter VIII contained thissentence : Carry through the woman ofthe first chapter,

” meaning, I take it, bringher upon the scene again here . No doubt,

P r in cess P uj er , a nd Oth er s 111

Dickens realised that in its new position,

this chapter cou l d not appropriately contain any reference to the opium woman

,

and accordingly, although the remaini ngnotes are fu l ly utili sed, Princess Puffer isentirely ignored. It is not until we reachChapter XIV When shall these three meetagain ? that she again makes her appearance

,although the notes for that chapter

do n ot mention her ; from this I deducethat sh e h a s been brought forward fromChapter VIII

,and that Dickens di d not over

look her, or intend to bring her in either

more or less often than three times in thatportion of the book which we have.

Even when we first make her acquaintancein Chapter I, sh e either hates or suspectsJasper, because, although apparently obliviousto everything which i s occurring sh e handshim the nearly empty pipe

,and sink s back

,

turning over on her we find her verywide awake indeed, for when Jasper dragsforth the Lascar and the latter draws aphantom kni fe

, sh e starts up and restrainsand expostu l ates with him . In Chapter XXII I,sh e soliloquises thus I heard ye say once ,


when I was lying where you’re lying, and youwere making your specul ations upon me

,

Uni ntelligible .

’

I heard ye s ay so , of twomore than me . B u t don’t ye be too surealways ; don

’t ye be too sur e, beauty (”

Of her Jasper muses on this fir st occasionWhat visions can she have ? Visions ofmany butchers’ shops , and public houses,and much credi t ‘

7 Of an increase of hideouscustomers, and this horrible bedstead set

upright again,and this horrible court swept

clean ? What can she rise to , under anyquantity of opium , higher than that EhI think it reasonably possible that Dickensintended her to rise to som ething higher thanthat subsequently, although from her u n

grammatical speech them two come inafter ye

,

” more nor three shill ings ,”

I s es

to my poor it is plain that sh e was awoman of the lower classes . Note, by theway

,that sh e got Heaven’s hard drunk

for sixteen year afore she took to opiumsmoking ; note also that Jasper was s ix andtwenty at the time of this scene, s o that itseems impossible that there can have beenany di rect or personal connexion between the



di fficult j ourney. She had followed Jasperand missed h im ; he had therefore visitedher den a day or two previously

,and had

the reason for her desire to trace him beenthat she wished to give him some information

,it is hardly likely that sh e would not

have given it to him when he was in London .

On this ground, therefore, and also becauseof her behaviou r on the occasion of her nextvisit, we are justified in concluding that herobj ect in going to Cloisterh am was a personal one ; she evidently wished to find ou t

who he was,where he l ived

,and what hi s

occupation was,but we are left entirely in

the dark as to her real motive . P lainl y herpurpose was no friendly on e , as we mayjudge from her gestu r e when she s u b se

quently sees him in the Cathedr al, nor , forthe same reason

,was it mere curiosity, nor

even cupidity. Hatred and desire for revengeare the only grounds whi ch satisfy all theconditions, but even if we are entitled toconclude that she nourished a secret hatredagainst Jasper, we are no further advancedunl ess we can assign some plausible reasonfor it. In the book there is absolutely

P r inc ess P yf er , an d Oth er s 115

nothing in the shape of a clue to thi s m ystery,

with one exception : the death sh riek whichDu rdl es had heard on the precedi ng Christmas Eve

,the mention of whi ch on th e

occasion of the noctu r nal excursion, causesJasper to ask What do you mean ‘

7 byway of a very abrupt, and, on e might s ay,

fierce retort .” That the shr iek whichDu rdl es heard was real I have not th e

slightest doubt becaus e otherwise I canimagine no reason for Dickens referring toit ; that it concerned Jasper, I also thi nkis absolutely certain , for on no other groundis it possible to account for his suddenfi er c en es s . Th e stretch of imagination n ec es

sary to enable us to conn ect together Jasper,the midni ght death sh riek, and the opiumwoman with her strong hatred of him , is n ota very great on e , and although I will notventu r e to advance any definite hypothesis

,

I nevertheless hazard a guess that sh e sus

pec ted him strongly of a crim e alreadycommitted in which some relative or conn ex ion of hers had figured a s the victim .

I regard it as a curious fact, that whereas inth e notes for Chapter VIII (whi ch afterwa rds


became Chapter v) , Dickens refers to Deputyby name, noting

(

Deputy engaged to stoneDurdl es nightly, in the notes for Chapter X (originally IX ) we find this entryremember there is a child there is noother note preceded by the word remem ber.”

We find nothing at a ll about any child inChapter X , in fact, there is no mention of

any child at a ll anywhere in the book otherthan Deputy, and we fir st meet with h im

again at the end of Chapter XII, in the notesfor which Dickens records keep the b oysuspended. Had the reference to the childin the notes for Chapter X any special obj ectWas Deputy to be the child in question

,

and whose child was he ? Was he relatedto the opium woman, to Jasper, to theperson murdered on the precedi ng ChristmasEve ? It would be quite in keeping withDickens’ s m ethods if any, or even all, of thesesurmises should turn ou t to be correct

,and

it would at least be dramatic if Deputy,one

of the persons whose evidence was to beused to convict Jasper, should happen tobe his own son by some woman he hadmurdered. Obviously, if Deputy is engaged



the will , and it seems to us quite naturalthat when Grewgious subsequently gives himthe ring

,he wakes B a z z ard in order to make

him a witness of the transaction. On the faceof it

,as I s ay, that seems quite natural in

Grewgious, fir st and foremost a man of business and order but if we look a little deeper,is it not possible to di scern a hidden obj ectin this little manoeuvre of Dickens, suggested,in fact

,by his very attempt to make Grew

giou s’

s action seem natur al We know thatthe onl y persons having knowledge of thenature of G rewgiou s

’

s trust were himself,Edwin, and B a z z a rd ; Edwin, ea: hyp othes i ,

wa s dead, and Grewgious had not breatheda word to anyone of the ring, but yet weare told by Forster, that, so far as he knew,

by means of this ring,th e person murdered

was to be identified,as well as the locality

of the crime and the man who committed it.I accept some of this statement, but not all,as representing the fact

,and my reason for

discardi ng part of it is that it leaves no roomfor Durdl es . For the moment, however, I amonl y concerned with B a z z ard ,

and the part heplayed in the story

,and I suggest that what

P r in cess P uj er , a nd Oth er s 119

Dickens had in his mind was that B a z z ard ,

of whom probably Jasper had made a tool,was to be the instrument leading to h is

destruction . Thus,B a z z ard

,having witnessed

the handing of the ring to Edwin, knewthat it had been in hi s possession the daybefore his death , a fact of which Jasper wasunaware ; B a z z a rd , probably set to watchJasper in London some hanger on ofStaple suggests Grewgious ) turns traitor,and plays into Jasper’s hands ; Jasper thusgets to hear of the existence of the ring andof the fact that it had been confided toEdwin . This provides him with the on e

piece of evidence against Neville for whichhe had been looking

,and he accordingly

resolves to recover the ring , wi th the obj ectof placing it in Neville’s possession . Meanwhile

,Durdl es

,whose acquaintance had been

cultivated by Datc h ery,had no doubt in

formed the latter of his nocturnal expeditionwith Jasper , or , it may be, Datc h ery hadlearned of this from Deputy. Datc h ery,

withG rewgiou s

’

s suspicions in his mind,had in

ferr ed that Jasper, who was a wild beastand a brigand

,

” had very obviously had some


obj ect in exploring the Cathedral,and no

doubt when he learned from Durdles the ful ltruth of that expedition, his suspicions werestrengthened . He therefore s et Du r dl es towork searching by his accustomed methods

,

and I suggest that the latter soon succeededin di scovering Edwin’s body

,whether in

Mr s Saps ea’

s tomb or elsewhere hardl y matters . My own view is that the ring was notrequired to identify Edwin

,because

,contrary

to what everyone has assumed,I believe that

quicklime,withou tthe addition of water , is not

a corrosive, but a preservative, and I thinkthat Dickens

,who lived so near the Medway

Cement Works , must have known this , andmeant to make use of it . Is that

,perhaps

,

why he suggests that Edwin was disfiguredHowever that may be, and whether Dickens ,or his critics , or I , have been mistaken uponthis point

,hardly matters for the moment ;

the important thing, to my mind, is , thatEdwin’s body is discovered by Durdl es

,at

the instigation of Datc h ery,and removed

that Jasper,intending to recover the ring in

order to incriminate Neville, repairs to thescene of his victim ’s burial, and is there



of the existence of the ring, and intended toremove it for the pu r pose of avoiding identifi c ation of the body, if and when di scovered,could we not say of such a chain

,in his own

words what a poor, mean, miserable thingit is ? ” B u t if we adopt my suggestion

,

note h ow the chain lengthens ou t, and howmuch more worthy it becomes of Dickens ’ simpressive description : the existence of theri ng made known to B a z z ard ; B a z z a rd

employed by Grewgious to shadow Jasper,but turning traitor to his employer ; Jaspergetting to hear from B a z z ard of the ring,and of its having been entrusted to Edwinthe day before h is death ; his design toincriminate Neville his resolution to recoverthe ring for this purpose ; and, lastly, h isstealthy vi sit to the place where Edwin layburied

,known

,as he believes

,only to him

self,whereby his suspected guilt is finally

proven,by h i s own a ct. A long chain, and

a wonderful chain,which holds and drags

with invincible force ; a chain which enablesthe prophecy recorded in his diary to becarried ou t to the letter ; a chain whi ch , infact

,proves to me that the curious

,strong,

P r in cess P ugfer , a nd Oth er s 123

but incommun icable idea which Dickenshad in his mind

,when he wrote to Forster,

has finally been laid bare after forty- five

years of baffling pur suit . Truly the greatartist builded better than he knew (While I am reasonably certain that the

chain which I have endeavour ed to re

construct must have comprised at least thelinks which I have set out above, I ampersuaded that it must also have includedmany others . To know all the intermedi atelin ks would be to know Dickens’ s plot in allits details

,and I shou l d be the fir st to admit

that this is a resu l t which I have not achieved,nor do I imagine that in the state of ou r

knowledge it wil l ever be definitely reached .

When on e comes to examine critically theseveral links which I have suggested as formingthe chain upon which Dickens laid suchemphasis

,it becomes plain that they do

not connect up, while a carefu l considerationof the text reveals so many facts whichmight have been designed by Dickens tobe utilised as intermediate links

,that the

difficu l ty experienced arises ou t of the superflu ity, rather than the paucity, of material .

124 Th e Mystery in th e Drood F a m ily

To take the latter point first, why did Sapseatake it upon himself in Chapter XII toanswer for Jasper’ s neck ? Why were Mi ssTwinkleton and the B i ll i ckin n ot on speakingterms Why was Tartar a sailor, why wasit necessary for him to resign his commissionin the navy as a condi tion of succeedi ngto his uncle’s estate

,where was that estate

,

and why did Tartar have a yacht at Greenhithe ‘

P It would be possible to go on mu l tiplying enquiries of this sort alm ost indefinitely

,

and no doubt it would be an interestingexercise to extract the numerous hints whichDickens h a s given, and to consider theirpossible bearing upon the cou r se of thestory, but that is a task which would hardl ybe in place here, and I do not propose topu r sue the subject any further.

On the other hand,however, it may

perhaps serve some usefu l purpose to indicatesome of the more Obvious gaps in the chain,and although I can hardl y hope to be successfulin supplying them satisfactorily, yet otherenquirers may possibly be able to profitindirectly by my guesses . If my theorybe correct, we know the two ends of the



gestures,B a z z ard

’

s Thorn of Anxiety,and

so on ; each and all of these facts musthave been intended by Dickens to havesome definite bearing upon the developmentof the story, and I cannot but think thatthey were to form links in the wonderfulchain which was eventually to bring Jasperto justice . However that may be

,it seems

absolutely necessary, if we are to knowanything more than the barest outline of

the plot,to suggest some explanation at

least of the means by which Jasper andNevill e were to be brought together inMr s Sapsea

’

s monument,to Jasper’s undoing

,

and I therefore put forward, with the greatestdiffiden c e , the foll owing tentative explanation .

It is obvious that Durdl es, with hi s

unaccountable gift, was designed to discoverEdwin’s body ; the ring, although it mighthave served as a means of identificationcould hardly have been a means of discovery

,

as we know that it was contained in a case,s o that it would have failed to attract attentionby the sparkling of its stones . Du rdl es

’

s

s earch was no doubt a systematic one, undertaken at the instigation of Datc h ery,

and

P r in cess P ufi er ,a nd Oth ers 127

it appears likely that Deputy intervened insome way

,as in Chapter V we are significantly

told that he was skirmishing nearer, assuspecting that Treasure was about to bediscovered which may somehow lead tohis own enrichment

,and the del icious treat

of the di scoverers being ha nged by the n eck,

on h i s eviden c e, until they are dead. ThatMr s Sapsea

’

s monument was the hidingplace

,is clearly deducible from the information

given,in the same chapter, by Durdl es to

Jasper, that there was a free space of s ix

feet inside its wall.To this monument Durdl es had access ,

because we are told in Chapter IV , afterSapsea had handed him the key

,Durdl es

keeps the keys of his works mostly thereis no difficulty, therefore , in explainin g howDu rdl es

’

s di scoverywas verified, or how Nevill ewas introduced into the monument on asubsequent occasion . Jasper, on the otherhand, obtained admission to the monument,on the night of his discovery, in th e samemanner, whatever that may have been , a s

on the night of the murder.Jasper, I have assumed, got to learn of


the ring from or through B a z z ard , but whetherby accident , or through B a z z a rd

’

s treachery,

or in execution of G rewgiou s’

s design, itis impossible to say. Th e probabilities seemto me to point in the direction of a treacherousdisclosure

,or at least an accidental one,

Dickens’s idea being based,as I think , on

the notion of a man’ s crime finding himout. Consequently

,if Fate could be made

to furnish the final link which man’ s effortswere incapable of forging

,we are probably

j ustified in assuming that Dickens wouldhave preferred that solution . Let u s suppose,then

,that Jasper learned from B a z z ard ,

in some manner,that the ring was in Edwin’s

pocket at the time of his murder,and let

us also suppose that B a z z ard had disclosedto Jasper where Rosa was hiding

,which

information he would have obtained quitenaturally as the B il li c kin ’

s relative . Jasper’ sfirst impulse would certainl y have been tocall upon Rosa at once

,with the obj ect of

further pressing his suit,under threat of

accomplishing Nevill e ’

s destruction if shestill refused him . If Helena were at theB ill i c kin

’

s at the time of Jasper’s visit, which



his secret,but it seems to me that such

an expectation took no account of Jasper’svillainous character, which wou l d have causedhim to attempt to m u r der Neville ratherthan allow his guilt to be exposed. Thisdesign

,I imagine, he wa s to have carried

into execution with dramatic effect, and itwould probably onl y have been after leavingthe Sapsea monum ent that he would havebecome aware that there were others onhis track . Thereupon, no doubt, he wouldhave attempted to escape by flight

,and

,

being hunted into the Cathedral, wou l d finallyhave been captured by Tartar and Crisparkle,after a desperate struggle, and lodged ingaol, where, in accordance with Dickens’ sexpressed intentions , he wou l d have writtenthe full story of his temptations and crimes,and have paid the final penalty.

CHAPTER V

MINOR MATTERS

Now that I have traced ou t Dickens ’s

c entral them e, and sketched in the mainlines upon which it was to have beendeveloped, and have also , a s I thi nk

,de

finitely identified Datc h ery, it remains todi scuss several of th e many subordinatequestions which present themselves to any

on e reading Edwin Drood. In doing this,

I do not propose to attempt to follow anylogical sequence ; indeed, by reason of thevariety of subj ects requiring explanation ,I do not think this is possible, and I willtherefore examine such points onl y as appearof importance, and in the sequence in whichthey present themselves to m y mind.

In the fir st place, what h earing, if any,have Dickens’s proof-revisions upon my mainthesis , and what Obj ect had he in view inmaking them We know that thr ee monthl yP arts had been issued during Dickens’s life ,

9— 2


that three others had been written, and thathe had himself corrected the proofs up toand includi ng Chapter XXI. We also knowthat he had expressed some misgiving toh is Sister- in - law respecting the Datc h ery

assumption in the fifth number (Chapter XVIII ) , and it is not an unreasonableinference to draw, that the revisions whichhe made in that number, as also probablythose in the succeeding number, were di rectedto the removal of the causes for this misgiving

,so far as that might be done at that

stage. Some of the revisions, of course,were doubtless made from a purely literarypoint of view, and therefore have no bearingupon the matter in hand, but others werequite evidently made from a di fferent motive

,

and it is these to which I intend to directattention.

Th e first of these, I think , occur s inChapter XVII, and consists in the deletionof a few sentences , commencing with thewords Mr Crisparkle rose and endingto be undertaken by a layman.

”It seems

to me that Dickens wished to hide, for themoment

,the connexion which evidently



and Cr isparkle : Neville says It seems alittle hard to be so tied to a stake andinnocent ; but I don’t complain .

” And

you must expect no miracle to help yousaid Mr Crisparkle compassionately. No,s ir , I know that.” I think that Dickensfelt that if Neville was to expect no m i ra cleto help him, it wa s open to the reader tosu rm ise that active steps to the same endwere being taken by someone, and thatconsequently there might have been arouseda sub - conscious feeling that Datc h ery wa s

working in conjunction with Grewgious tobring Jasper to book

,in order to clear Nevill e.

As it is m y opini on that Datc h ery wa s so

engaged, and that he was G rewgiou s’

s legalacquaintance

,I can well understand that

Dickens thought it advisable to delete thepassage

,and I can im agine no other ground

for his decision.

I fail entirely to appreciate the motivewhich actuated Dickens in making his nextexcision. Nevill e had stated that on theadvice of Crisparkle

,he had taken up the

di fficult profession of the law, and Dickenshad made it plain that Crisparkle had either

Min or Ma tter s 135

given or lent him the necessary books .These he studi ed under the guidance andwith the help of the latter, and Dickensinforms his reader that the Minor Canon’sduties made these visits of his di fficult toaccom pli sh, and onl y to be compassed atintervals of m any weeks . B u t they were a s

s ervi cea b le a s they were p rec iou s to Nevi lle

Landles s .

”Th e words which Dickens struck

ou t are those whi ch I have italicised,and

I am at a loss to suggest any reason for h isdoing so ; they seem to me to be absolutelyharmless , and much less obj ectionable fromthe point of Vi ew of the disclosu r e of Cr i

sparkle’s strong interest in the exculpationof Nevill e than m any other phrases whichDickens allowed to stand.

Much of the remainder of the conversation between Nevill e and Cr isparkl e on thesame occasion was deleted by Dickens, and

the sentences which he struck ou t have beenrelied upon as affording support to th e

Helena-Datc h ery theory, upon the groundthat Dickens feared that the identificationmight thereby be made mani fest. Naturally

,having rej ected thi s theory, I am


compelled to search for some other reason,but I frankly admit that I have di scoverednone which satisfies me entirely. PerhapsDickens considered that at that stage of h is

story they were undu l y eu l ogistic of Helena,and that Cr isparkle

’

s admiration of and lovefor her were growing too quickly to seementirely natur al. At any rate, I do notthink that they were deleted on the groundthat they were likely to enable Helena tobe identified as Datc h ery,

because Dickensallowed several important sentences to stand,which , to my mind, militate strongly againstthe Helena-Datc h ery theory. Upon thispoint, however, I refrain from dogmatising,being content to allow the evidence wh ichI may have adduced in support of the lawyerDatc h ery theory to be weighed against thatthought to be afforded for the other viewby the words in question.

All the other excisions in this chapterrelate to Grewgious , and were made I cons ider, with a view to hiding from the readerthat he was keeping a watch on Jasper ;they are set out in detail in Sir W . R . Nic oll ’sbook, to which I refer the reader.



Mr s Tope the recital of the tragedy, and th ewhole of the long conversation betweenDatc h ery and Sapsea on the same subject,as well as the indirect references to the lawfurther

,the reminder to Deputy that he

owes h im a j ob also di sappears . I have notthe sli ghtest doubt that Dickens felt he hadprematurely di sclosed Datc h ery

’

s interest in

Drood’s disappearance, and, on reflection,decided

,for the time being, to conceal the

real purpose of his mission ; he thereforestruck out not only all reference to Drood’ smurder

,but also a ll conversation about

Jasper,and

,finally

,the few words relating

to Datc h ery’

s intention to visit Du r dles .With all these excisions made from thischapter

,as Dickens intended, Datc h ery

’

s

reflection at the end of it would have had

m uch more point ; as the book now stands ,we find no difficu l ty in agreeing that he hadhad a rather busy afternoon, inasm uch as hehad found lodgings in the very place he hadbeen di rected to seek for them , had madethe acquaintance of Jasper, Sapsea, Deputy,and Du r dles , had learned that Deputyheartily disliked Jasper, and that there were

Minor Ma tter s 139

grave suspicions entertained about somebodywith reference to the mu r der. Dickens’s misgivings were indeed justified

,and I think

the resul t wou l d have been much m oreartistic if Forster had not disregardedDickens’s emendations .

In Chapter XX there is only one phrasestruck ou t, and that, I think was donebecause Dickens noticed that the purport of

the phrase was repeated a few lines lower.In Chapter XXI several sentences were deleted

,

whi ch might conceivably have di rected attention to what Dickens wi shed to keep secret,namely

,the collaboration of Grewgious and

Cr isparkle in the steps which were beingtaken to have Jasper kept under observation

,and also probably the fact that any

Observation at all wa s being kept ; I cansee no other reason for these excisions uponany view whatever.

I think it may fairly be concluded thatDickens’ s proof-revisions, with one exception,which is indifferent

,all tend to strengthen

my main position,so that from yet another

point of view m y theories receive c onfirm a

tion.


Th e next matter which I propose to dealwith

,is the part played by Grewgious

,and

the explanation of h is conduct on a m em or

able occasion. I call attention,in the fir st

place,to the conversation which he had with

Jasper, s et ou t in full at the end of Chapter (

the whole of it is of more or less importancebut I lay special stress upon the concludingwords : Grewgious had said, God blessthem both .

” God save them both criedJasper . I said, bless them ,

remarkedGrewgious . I said, save them returnedthe other. Is there any differenceThis incident m ust have stuck in G rewgiou s

’

s

memory, so that when the disappearance

occur red,the words used by Jasper no doubt

came back to him . Add to this, first, thatwhen he went to Cloisterh am at Christmas ,he must have heard from Rosa about herinstinctive repulsion from Jasper, as well asthe incident of the di nner-party ; probablyalso sh e told him how Jasper had spiedupon Edwin and her on the occasion of theirlast meeting . Again, we are told that Grew

giou s , before calling on Jasper a day or twoafter the mur der

,had just left Helena

,and



wa s a ni ght-bird, m ight have seen Jasper on

the ni ght of the murder, and have somehowbeen di scovered and interviewed by Grew

giou s . I think , however, that it is quiteunnecessary to make any such assumption

,

a s the manner in which Grewgious opens h isattack on Jasper seems to me onl y to warrantthe view that he had gauged Jasper’ s villa inou s character, and that, having di scovereda possible motive, he had inferred the verylikely probabili ty of Jasper’s criminality.

As a barrister by training, he dealt withh is man in a non- committal way at fir st

,

m aking his soundi ngs and feeling his grounda s he went along ; not absolutely antago

n i stic at the start , but merely stern andsuspicious . (Th e title of Fildes

’

s illustrationof the scene is Mr Grewgious has his s u s

pic ion s”

) Then, findi ng that Jasper fenceswith him Do you suspect him ?

” asksGrewgious . I don’t know what to think.

I cannot make up my mind,

” replies Jasper ) .Grewgious determines upon a coup

,the result

of which will afford h im moral certainty ofJasper’s gu ilt or inn ocence . Th e coup comesoff, and Jasper, in G rewgiou s

’

s eyes , stands

Minor Matter s 143

convi cted, a self-confes sed murderer ; henceforth he is a man to be avoided, feared, andwatched. Th e murder whi ch Grewgious feelsassured h a s been committed, is to be verifiedin the first place, and h is next task will thenbe to prove Jasper’s guilt

,and to dem and

retribution. Grewgious, the upright man,indefatigable in seeking ou t right and doingright, has a plain duty before him from thatmoment, and the whole of h is subsequentconduct is consistent with h is moral convi c tion of Jasper’s gu i lt

,and with his

inabil ity for the moment to establi sh it bylegal m eans . Hence his recourse to his legaladviser, hi s em ploym ent of B a z z ard a s awatch-dog, his enli stment of Cr isparkle

’

s aid,his appeal to Tartar for help . If he hadknown

,he wou l d have struck immedi ately ;

he di d not know,he merely suspected, and

therefore he set to work to obtain evidencefrom any and every likely quarter. Thathe eventually obtained it, there can be nodoubt

,but certainl y not in the way he

anticipated ; it wa s the miracle,” which

Crisparkle had regarded as im possible, whichultim ately came to pass, and Jasper finally


furnished the one necessary damning pieceof evidence which all Grewgiou s

’

s efforts hadbeen unavailing to di scover.Hitherto I have dealt with B a z z ard some

what summarily, but I thi nk it necessary toconsider this character a li ttle more at lengthhere

,because I feel convinced that he

,too

,

had h is mystery, although I am of opini onthat we have not enough evidence to enableus to fathom it. He is first referred to inChapter IX , on the occasion of G rewgiou s

’

s

call on Rosa . I have no other engagementat Ch ristmas- time, he remarks, than topartake, on the twenty-fifth , of a boiled turkeyand celery sauce with a— with a particularlyangular clerk I have the good fortune topossess

,whose father

,being a Norfolk farmer

,

sends him up (the turkey up ) , as a present tome

,from the neighbourhood of Norwich .

”

Th e fir st point calling for remark in thisstatement of G rewgiou s

’

s , is , what was he goingto call B a z z ard when he stopped himself ?Secondly

,why had he the good fortune

to possess such a clerk , who , as we afterwards s ee , was in reali ty a surly, ill-mann ered person

,and tolerably conceited ?



B a z z a rd had done his work of consumingmeat and drink in a workmanlike manner

,

though mostly in speechlessness,we find

that the first toast is drunk to his success,

and that the nearest Grewgious can get toan intell igible sentiment is

,may the thorn

of anxiety come out at last . ThereuponB a z z ard frowns at the fir e

,and goes through

various antics which Dickens describes , re

marking, I follow you,s ir

,and I thank

you .

” We then get G rewgiou s’

s whisperedapology, with the peculiar reason that ifB a z z ard had not been placed first, he mightn ot have liked it

,and after that we hear

nothing more of him until the end of thechapter, where we learn that he awoke himself by his Own snoring, and sat apoplecticallystaring at vacancy. (Imagine such conducton the part of Datc h ery B a z z ard thenwitnesses the handing over of the ring toEdwin

,and immediately di sappears, to return

no more in person upon the scene .

In Chapter XX,however, he forms the

subj ect of a long conversation between Grew

giou s and Rosa, with regard to which thefirst point I have to notice is that Dickens


wrote the following explanation It wasnot hard to divine that Mr Grewgious hadrelated the B a z z ard history thus fu ll y, atleast quite as much for the recreation of hisward’s mind from the subject that had drivenher there

, a s for the gratification of his owntendency to be social and commun icative .

”

I think that it is a perfectly fair inference todraw from the explanation which Dickensthus volunteers , that the real reason for theB a z z ard history being thus fully set ou t wasnot that stated by Dickens , but that, on thecontrary, he had some information to impartto the reader which he wanted to bring inas naturally as possible, so as not to makeit too conspicuous . I am confirmed in myOpinion that this view is correct, first, by thefact that Dickens’s original title for thisChapter was Let’s talk ,

” an expressionwhich he puts

,wholly unnecessarily, into

G rewgiou s’

s mouth at least three times inthe course of this conversation ; secondly,by Rosa’s query, How came you to be h isMaster a question about which Grew

giou s is made to Observe a question th atna tu ra lly follows,

” whereas,in fact

,there is

10—2

148 Th e Mystery in th e D rood F am ily

nothing natur al about it at all ; and thirdl y,because Rosa finally enquires , d p ropos de

bottes , a s I think, Is the tragedy namedTh e conversation is too long to be s et

ou t here in exten so, but it is well worthreading with the greatest care

,as in my

view it not only deals with the B a z z ard

mystery, but m ay also have been intendedto throw some l ight upon the ul timatedevelopment of the story, although I failto evolve a satisfactory theory. It is interesting to note, however, that when Rosasuggests

,without any apparent justification

,

that B a z z ard must be very fond of Grewgious,the latter replies, He bears up against itwith commendable fortitude if he is

,

” fromwhich we must conclude that Grewgiousdoes not think that he is ; why, therefore ,does Grewgious retain him as hi s clerk , ifclerk he be ? Th e explanation of how theemployment originated appears to me to besomewhat weak, and I am inclined to hazardthe guess that the Norfolk farmer, of whomwe now hea r for the second time, was to havebeen introduced to u s in person at a laterstage . Th e main point, however, around



materials which we possess , the B a z z ard

mystery is insoluble, and I very much doubtwhether a satisfactory solution will ever beoffered.

I hold a simil ar Opini on with regard tothe manner of the murder,

” the di scoveryof which was to be prepared by Chapter XIII have read this chapter again and again

,

and am hardly any wi ser now than whenI fir st read it . There are certainl y on e ortwo clues, but they are too shadowy andindefini te to warrant any detailed theorybeing advanced, except with the utmostdi ffiden c e . Th e first di fficulty we encounteri s the loc u s in qu o we are told in Chapter Vthat Jasper came upon Du rdl es leaningagainst the iron railing of the burial groundenclosing it from the Old cloister-arches

,

from which,I think

,we are fairly entitled

to deduce that Mr s Sapsea’

s monument wassituated outside the Cathedral precincts .

(Note, by the way, that Drood’s father lay

beneath the sarcophagus immedi ately adj oining Mr s Sapsea. ) When we come to thenocturnal expedi tion

,we learn that Jasper

and Durdles descended into the crypt by


a small side door, of which Du r dl es had thekey

,and that they looked themselves in .

Reference to Chapter Iv shows us that thethr ee keys which Du r dl es produced to Jasperwere all keys of monuments ; two of thesehe put back into his capacious pockets

,and

the third was tied up in his di nner-bundl e .

Jasper and Durdl es do n ot remain in thecrypt

,to which they had descended by

rugged steps ; they are to ascend the greattower

,and on the steps by which they rise

to the Cathedr al, Durdl es pauses for newstore of breath . That these are the samesteps as they descended by, seems to me tobe certain

,as Durdl es opens the door at the

top of the steps with the key he has alr eadyused . . and so emerges on the Cathedrallevel. Then Jasper ( fumbles among hispockets for a key confided to hi m that wil lopen an iron gate, so a s to enable them topass to the staircase of the great tower .”

SO far, five keys have been mentionedthree belonging to monuments (on e of whichwas Mrs Saps ea

’

s ) , another belonging to thecrypt door

,and the last openi ng the iron gate

giving entrance to the staircase of the tower.


Next we find Jasper taking possession of

Du rdl es’

s dinner-bundl e, in which , a s we sawin Chapter IV, he had deposited the key ofMr s Saps ea

’

s monument . Th e pair thenascend the tower, and Jasper contemplatesespecially that stillest part Of ” the scenewhich the Cathedr al overshadows .” Th e

iron gate is looked after their descent, afterwhich Du r dles falls asleep at once

,and

dreams . He dreams that something toucheshim

,and that something falls from his hand

( say, at a ventu r e, the key of the crypt door )then

,something cl inks and gropes about ( say,

at another venture, Jasper searching for thekey of Mr s Sapsea

’

s tomb , and identifying itby its note ) ; then Durdl es slumbers undistu rb ed until two o’clock , when he wakes andfinds the key of the crypt door lying close by.

Seeing that it was mid-winter, that Jasperhad sat at his piano for two or three hoursafter it had grown dark , and had thenrepaired to Du rdl e s

’

s house, the expeditioncould not have started later than eighto ’clock ; assuming that it lasted, so far asDurdles was concerned

,for an hour, we

deduce that Jasper had n ot less than five



choirmaster to adopt, that I cannot admitthat Dickens ever imagined it . It is quitepossible that he visited Mrs Sapsea

’

s monument in order to make hi s arrangementsthere for the hiding of Edwin’s body knowing

,as he di d , of Du rdl es

’

s peculiar faculty forunearthing bu r ied obj ects , it is only reasonableto think that Jasper would have chosen ahiding place ou ts ide the crypt, and thereforepresumably beyond the reach of Du r dl e s

’

s

ordinary activities . B u t that he spent fivehour s in the monument I consider quiteunlikely, more particul arly a s he possessedthe key of the ir on gate leading to the tower

,

and I suggest that some of his tim e at leastwas passed on the summit of the tower.We are told in Chapter XIV that on themorning after the murder it was seen thatthe hands of the Cathedr al clock are torn off

that lead from the roof has been strippedaway

,rolled up , and blown into the close ;

and that some stones have been di splacedupon the summit of the great tower.” Is itdrawing too much upon our imagination tosuppose that Jasper loosened the lead fromthe roof

, so that he might wrap up Edwin’s

M in or Ma tter s 155

corpse in it, and thus thr ow it over into theclose without shattering the body and leavingbloodstains behind

,and that the stones were

di splaced by hi m in order to facil itate thi smethod of di sposing of the corpse We aretold by Jasper himself in Chapter XXI II thatthere was n o struggle, no consciousness of

peril , no entreaty,” and we also know that

Dickens intended Edwin to be strangled byJasper either with hi s neck- tie or the longblack silk scarf which he u l timately gave hi m .

Al l the facts that we know,and are ever

likely to know, appear to me to point to themanner of the mu r der having been somewhat as follows : Edwin and Jasper ascend thetower together after twelve O ’clock on Christm a s Eve to observe the effect of the storm ,

the former having probably previously drunksome wine that had been dr ugged ; Jasperputs hi s own scarf round Edwin’s neck on

the pretext of protecting him from the wind,and immediately strangles him with it, without Edwin being conscious of any peril, ormaking any struggle or entreaty. Jasperrolls his body up in the lead covering whichhe had previously loosened, with this obj ect,


from the roof of the tower, removes a fewstones out of the way, and rolls the bodyover into the close below. In its descent itstrikes against the face of the clock

,catches

on the hands , and by its weight drags themfrom their spindle, this being possibly whatJasper alluded to when he cried in his trance

,

and yet I never saw that before .

” He nextabstracts from the corpse of his victim thewatch and chain and pin (all the j ewelleryof which he had knowledge ) , and depositsEdwin’s remains in some safe hiding-place

,

in a ll probability,Mr s Saps ea

’

s monument .I am aware that some of this h a s been

suggested before, and that, at the best, it ispure surmise

,but I think that I have brought

several facts into prominence which havehitherto escaped attention, and which materially strengthen this hypothetical explanation.

I regard as metaphorical onl y the two statements of Jasper which do not square withthis explanation , namely, To think howoften fellow- traveller

,and yet not know it (

To think how many times he went the j ourney,and never saw the road,

” and this other,It was a j ourney

,a difficult and d angerous



comedies,makes the whole of h is plot turn

upon a missing document,which wa s qu i te

safely hidden in a most conspicuous place 1.

I take it that Dickens anticipated Sardou,in

that he fearlessly disclosed what he mostdesired to hide, and that his artifice wa s

successful is proved by the controversieswhich have raged for many years aroundhis book . I consider

,therefore

,that the

obj ection to which I have alluded possessesno real weight .

It woul d be possible to write many pagesrespecting other characters and incidents ;Du rdles

,for instance

,and Deputy

,and Tope

,

whose name was originally to have beenPeptu n e (curiously like the word peptonewhich on e finds in the chemistry books )and the B illi c kin , B a z z ard

’

s cousin diverstimes removed

,with her empty third floor

to let ; Tartar, also , with his cool head andstrong arm

,and sailor- like climbing abilities ,

and Crisparkle,the athletic Minor Canon,

wi th his swimming and boxing propensities .B u t however interesting these characters

1 Th e idea prob ab ly or igin a ted w ith E . A . P oe , wh o u s ed

it m os t effec tively in h i s s tory Th e P u r loined Letter .

”

Minor Ill a tter s 159

might be to study, I doubt whether we shouldever learn any more through them of th e

true nature of Dickens’s plot, and as this wasthe obj ect with which I s et ou twhen I startedto write this little book, I do not propose tocarry my investigations any further. It isfor the reader to say whether I have succeededin elucidating any of the difficult problemswhich Dickens’ s book presents , and if onlyon e of the several suggestions which I haveadvanced should meet with general acceptance

,I shall esteem myself amply repaid for

the labour which I have expended upon it.

(Hamming:

PR INTED B Y JOHN CLAY, M . A .

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS .


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