Forster does not tell us that Dickens communicated the secret in a letter. He quotes none: he says “I was told,” orally, that is. When he writes, five years later (1874), “Landless was, I THINK, to have perished in assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer,” he is clearly trusting, not to a letter of Dickens’s, but to a defective3 memory; and he knows it. He says that a nephew was to be murdered by an uncle. The criminal was to confess in the condemned4 cell. He was to find out that his crime had been needless, and to be convicted by means of the ring (Rosa’s mother’s ring) remaining in the quicklime that had destroyed the body of Edwin.
Nothing “new” in all this, as Forster must have seen. “The originality,” he explains, “was to consist in the review of the murderer’s career by himself at the close, when its temptations were to be dwelt upon as if, not he the culprit, but some other man, were the tempted5.”
But all this is not “hard to work,” and is not “original.” As Mr. Proctor remarks, Dickens had used that trick twice already. (“Madman’s Manuscript,” Pickwick; “Clock Case Confession,” in Master Humphrey’s Clock.) The quicklime trick is also very old indeed. The disguise of a woman as a man is as ancient as the art of fiction: yet Helena MAY be Datchery, though nobody guessed it before Mr. Cuming Walters. She ought not to be Datchery; she is quite out of keeping in her speech and manner as Datchery, and is much more like Drood.
“A New Idea”
There are no new ideas in plots. “All the stories have been told,” and all the merit lies in the manner of the telling. Dickens had used the unsuspected watcher, as Mr. Proctor shows, in almost all his novels. In Martin Chuzzlewit, when Jonas finds that Nadgett has been the watcher, Dickens writes, “The dead man might have come out of his grave and not confounded and appalled7 him so.” Now, to Jasper, Edwin WAS “the dead man,” and Edwin’s grave contained quicklime. Jasper was sure that he had done for Edwin: he had taken Edwin’s watch, chain, and scarf-pin; he believed that he had left him, drugged, in quicklime, in a locked vault8. Consequently the reappearance of Edwin, quite well, in the vault where Jasper had buried him, would be a very new idea to Jasper; would “confound and appall6 him.” Jasper would have emotions, at that spectacle, and so would the reader! It is not every day, even in our age of sixpenny novels, that a murderer is compelled to visit, alone, at night, the vault which holds his victim’s “cold remains,” and therein finds the victim “come up, smiling.”
Yes, for business purposes, this idea was new enough! The idea was “difficult to work,” says Dickens, with obvious truth. How was he to get the quicklime into the vault, and Drood, alive, out of the vault? As to the reader, he would at first take Datchery for Drood, and then think, “No, that is impossible, and also is stale. Datchery cannot be Drood,” and thus the reader would remain in a pleasant state of puzzledom, as he does, unto this day.
If Edwin is dead, there is not much “Mystery” about him. We have as good as seen Jasper strangle him and take his pin, chain, and watch. Yet by adroitly9 managing the conduct of Mr. Grewgious, Dickens persuaded Mr. Proctor that certainly, Grewgious knew Edwin to be alive. As Grewgious knew, from Helena, all that was necessary to provoke his experiment on Jasper’s nerves, Mr. Proctor argued on false premises10, but that was due to the craft of Dickens. Mr. Proctor rejected Forster’s report, from memory, of what he understood to be the “incommunicable secret” of Dickens’s plot, and I think that he was justified11 in the rejection12. Forster does not seem to have cared about the thing — he refers lightly to “the reader curious in such matters”— when once he had received his explanation from Dickens. His memory, in the space of five years, may have been inaccurate13: he probably neither knew nor cared who Datchery was; and he may readily have misunderstood what Dickens told him, orally, about the ring, as the instrument of detection. Moreover, Forster quite overlooked one source of evidence, as I shall show later.
Mr. Proctor’s Theory
Mr. Proctor’s theory of the story is that Jasper, after Edwin’s return at midnight on Christmas Eve, recommended a warm drink — mulled wine, drugged — and then proposed another stroll of inspection14 of the effects of the storm. He then strangled him, somewhere, and placed him in the quicklime in the Sapsea vault, locked him in, and went to bed. Next, according to Mr. Proctor, Durdles, then, “lying drunk in the precincts,” for some reason taps with his hammer on the wall of the Sapsea vault, detects the presence of a foreign body, opens the tomb, and finds Drood in the quicklime, “his face fortunately protected by the strong silk shawl with which Jasper has intended to throttle15 him.”
A Mistaken Theory
This is “thin,” very “thin!” Dickens must have had some better scheme than Mr. Proctor’s. Why did Jasper not “mak sikker” like Kirkpatrick with the Red Comyn? Why did he leave his silk scarf? It might come to be asked for; to be sure the quicklime would destroy it, but why did Jasper leave it? Why did the intoxicated16 Durdles come out of the crypt, if he was there, enter the graveyard17, and begin tapping at the wall of the vault? Why not open the door? he had the key.
Suppose, however, all this to have occurred, and suppose, with Mr. Proctor, that Durdles and Deputy carried Edwin to the Tramps’ lodgings18, would Durdles fail to recognize Edwin? We are to guess that Grewgious was present, or disturbed at his inn, or somehow brought into touch with Edwin, and bribed19 Durdles to silence, “until a scheme for the punishment of Jasper had been devised.”
All this set of conjectures21 is crude to the last degree. We do not know how Dickens meant to get Edwin into and out of the vault. Granting that Edwin was drugged, Jasper might lead Edwin in, considering the licence extended to the effects of drugs in novels, and might strangle him there. Above all, how did Grewgious, if in Cloisterham, come to be at hand at midnight?
Another Way
If I must make a guess, I conjecture20 that Jasper had one of his “filmy” seizures23, was “in a frightful24 sort of dream,” and bungled25 the murder: made an incomplete job of it. Half-strangled men and women have often recovered. In Jasper’s opium27 vision and reminiscence there was no resistance, all was very soon over. Jasper might even bungle26 the locking of the door of the vault. He was apt to have a seizure22 after opium, in moments of excitement, and HE HAD BEEN AT THE OPIUM DEN1 THROUGH THE NIGHT OF DECEMBER 23, for the hag tracked him from her house in town to Cloisterham on December 24, the day of the crime. Grant that his accustomed fit came upon him during the excitement of the murder, as it does come after “a nicht wi’ opium,” in chapter ii., when Edwin excites him by contemptuous talk of the girl whom Jasper loves so furiously — and then anything may happen!
Jasper murders Edwin inefficiently28; he has a fit; while he is unconscious the quicklime revives Edwin, by burning his hand, say, and, during Jasper’s swoon, Edwin, like another famous prisoner, “has a happy thought, he opens the door, and walks out.”
Being drugged, he is in a dreamy state; knows not clearly what has occurred, or who attacked him. Jasper revives, “look on’t again he dare not,”— on the body of his victim — and HE walks out and goes home, where his red lamp has burned all the time —“thinking it all wery capital.”
“Another way,”— Jasper not only fails to strangle Drood, but fails to lock the door of the vault, and Drood walks out after Jasper has gone. Jasper has, before his fit, “removed from the body the most lasting29, the best known, and most easily recognizable things upon it, the watch and scarf-pin.” So Dickens puts the popular view of the case against Neville Landless, and so we are to presume that Jasper acted. If he removed no more things from the body than these, he made a fatal oversight30.
Meanwhile, how does Edwin, once out of the vault, make good a secret escape from Cloisterham? Mr. Proctor invokes31 the aid of Mr. Grewgious, but does not explain why Grewgious was on the spot. I venture to think it not inconceivable that Mr. Grewgious having come down to Cloisterham by a late train, on Christmas Eve, to keep his Christmas appointment with Rosa, paid a darkling visit to the tomb of his lost love, Rosa’s mother. Grewgious was very sentimental32, but too secretive to pay such a visit by daylight. “A night of memories and sighs” he might “consecrate” to his lost lady love, as Landor did to Rose Aylmer. Grewgious was to have helped Bazzard to eat a turkey on Christmas Day. But he could get out of that engagement. He would wish to see Edwin and Rosa together, and Edwin was leaving Cloisterham. The date of Grewgious’s arrival at Cloisterham is studiously concealed33. I offer at least a conceivable motive34 for Grewgious’s possible presence at the churchyard. Mrs. Bud, his lost love, we have been told, was buried hard by the Sapsea monument. If Grewgious visited her tomb, he was on the spot to help Edwin, supposing Edwin to escape. Unlikelier things occur in novels. I do not, in fact, call these probable occurrences in every-day life, but none of the story is probable. Jasper’s “weird seizures” are meant to lead up to SOMETHING. They may have been meant to lead up to the failure of the murder and the escape of Edwin. Of course Dickens would not have treated these incidents, when he came to make Edwin explain — nobody else could explain — in my studiously simple style. The drugged Edwin himself would remember the circumstances but mistily36: his evidence would be of no value against Jasper.
Mr. Proctor next supposes, we saw, that Drood got into touch with Grewgious, and I have added the circumstances which might take Grewgious to the churchyard. Next, when Edwin recovered health, he came down, perhaps, as Datchery, to spy on Jasper. I have elsewhere said, as Mr. Cuming Walters quotes me, that “fancy can suggest no reason why Edwin Drood, if he escaped from his wicked uncle, should go spying about instead of coming openly forward. No plausible37 unfantastic reason could be invented.” Later, I shall explain why Edwin, if he is Datchery, might go spying alone.
It is also urged that Edwin left Rosa in sorrow, and left blame on Neville Landless. Why do this? Mr. Proctor replies that Grewgious’s intense and watchful38 interest in Neville, otherwise unexplained, is due to his knowledge that Drood is alive, and that Neville must be cared for, while Grewgious has told Rosa that Edwin lives. He also told her of Edwin’s real love of her, hence Miss Bud says, “Poor, poor Eddy39,” quite a propos de bottes, when she finds herself many fathoms40 deep in love with Lieutenant41 Tartar, R.N. “‘Poor, poor Eddy!’ thought Rosa, as they walked along,” Tartar and she. This is a plausible suggestion of Mr. Proctor. Edwin, though known to Rosa to be alive, has no chance! But, as to my own remark, “why should not Edwin come forward at once, instead of spying about?” Well, if he did, there would be no story. As for “an unfantastic reason” for his conduct, Dickens is not writing an “unfantastic” novel. Moreover, if things occurred as I have suggested, I do not see what evidence Drood had against Jasper. Edwin’s clothes were covered with lime, but, when he told his story, Jasper would reply that Drood never returned to his house on Christmas Eve, but stayed out, “doing what was correct by the season, in the way of giving it the welcome it had the right to expect,” like Durdles on another occasion. Drood’s evidence, if it was what I have suggested, would sound like the dream of an intoxicated man, and what other evidence could be adduced? Thus I had worked out Drood’s condition, if he really was not killed, in this way: I had supposed him to escape, in a very mixed frame of mind, when he would be encountered by Grewgious, who, of course, could make little out of him in his befogged state. Drood could not even prove that it was not Landless who attacked him. The result would be that Drood would lie low, and later, would have reason enough for disguising himself as Datchery, and playing the spy in Cloisterham.
At this point I was reinforced by an opinion which Mr. William Archer42 had expressed, unknown to me, in a newspaper article. I had described Edwin’s confused knowledge of his own experience, if he were thoroughly43 drugged, and then half strangled. Mr. Archer also took that point, and added that Edwin being a good-hearted fellow, and fond of his uncle Jasper, he would not bring, or let Grewgious bring, a terrible charge against Jasper, till he knew more certainly the whole state of the case. For that reason, he would come disguised to Cloisterham and make inquiries44. By letting Jasper know about the ring, he would compel him to enter the vault, and then, Mr. Archer thinks, would induce him to “repent and begin life afresh.”
I scarcely think that Datchery’s purpose was so truly honourable45: he rather seems to be getting up a case against Jasper. Still, the idea of Mr. Archer is very plausible, and, at least, given Drood’s need of evidence, and the lack of evidence against Jasper, we see reason good, in a novel of this kind, for his playing the part of amateur detective.
Dickens’s unused draft of a Chapter
Forster found, and published, a very illegible46 sketch47 of a chapter of the tale: “How Mr. Sapsea ceased to be a Member of the Eight Club, Told by Himself.” This was “a cramped48, interlined, and blotted” draft, on paper of only half the size commonly used by Dickens. Mr. Sapsea tells how his Club mocked him about a stranger, who had mistaken him for the Dean. The jackass, Sapsea, left the Club, and met the stranger, A YOUNG MAN, who fooled him to the top of his bent49, saying, “If I was to deny that I came to this town to see and hear you, Sir, what would it avail me?” Apparently50 this paper was a rough draft of an idea for introducing a detective, as a YOUNG man, who mocks Sapsea just as Datchery does in the novel. But to make the spy A YOUNG man, whether the spy was Drood or Helena Landless, was too difficult; and therefore Dickens makes Datchery “an elderly buffer” in a white wig51. If I am right, it was easier for Helena, a girl, to pose as a young man, than for Drood to reappear as a young man, not himself. Helena MAY be Datchery, and yet Drood may be alive and biding52 his time; but I have disproved my old objection that there was no reason why Drood, if alive, should go spying about in disguise. There were good Dickensian reasons.
A Question of Taste
Mr. Cuming Walters argues that the story is very tame if Edwin is still alive, and left out of the marriages at the close. Besides, “Drood is little more than a name-label, attached to a body, a man who never excites sympathy, whose fate causes no emotion, he is saved for no useful or sentimental purpose, and lags superfluous53 on the stage. All of which is bad art, so bad that Dickens would never have been guilty of it.”
That is a question of taste. On rereading the novel, I see that Dickens makes Drood as sympathetic as he can. He is very young, and speaks of Rosa with bad taste, but he is really in love with her, much more so than she with him, and he is piqued54 by her ceaseless mockery, and by their false position. To Jasper he is singularly tender, and remorseful55 when he thinks that he has shown want of tact56. There is nothing ominous57 about his gaiety: as to his one fault, we leave him, on Christmas Eve, a converted character: he has a kind word and look for every one whom he meets, young and old. He accepts Mr. Grewgious’s very stern lecture in the best manner possible. In short, he is marked as faulty — “I am young,” so he excuses himself, in the very words of Darnley to Queen Mary! (if the Glasgow letter be genuine); but he is also marked as sympathetic.
He was, I think, to have a lesson, and to become a good fellow. Mr. Proctor rightly argues (and Forster “thinks”), that Dickens meant to kill Neville Landless: Mr. Cuming Walters agrees with him, but Mr. Proctor truly adds that Edwin has none of the signs of Dickens’s doomed59 men, his Sidney Cartons, and the rest. You can tell, as it were by the sound of the voice of Dickens, says Mr. Proctor, that Edwin is to live. The impression is merely subjective60, but I feel the impression. The doom58 of Landless is conspicuously61 fixed62, and why is Landless to be killed by Jasper? Merely to have a count on which to hang Jasper! He cannot be hanged for killing63 Drood, if Drood is alive.
Mr. Proctor’s Theory continued
Mr. Proctor next supposes that Datchery and others, by aid of the opium hag, have found out a great deal of evidence against Jasper. They have discovered from the old woman that his crime was long premeditated: he had threatened “Ned” in his opiated dreams: and had clearly removed Edwin’s trinkets and watch, because they would not be destroyed, with his body, by the quicklime. This is all very well, but there is still, so far, no legal evidence, on my theory, that Jasper attempted to take Edwin’s life. Jasper’s enemies, therefore, can only do their best to make his life a burden to him, and to give him a good fright, probably with the hope of terrifying him into avowals.
Now the famous ring begins “to drag and hold” the murderer. He is given to know, I presume, that, when Edwin disappeared, he had a gold ring in the pocket of his coat. Jasper is thus compelled to revisit the vault, at night, and there, in the light of his lantern, he sees the long-lost Edwin, with his hand in the breast of his great coat.
Horrified64 by this unexpected appearance, Jasper turns to fly. But he is confronted by Neville Landless, Crisparkle, Tartar, and perhaps by Mr. Grewgious, who are all on the watch. He rushes up through the only outlet65, the winding66 staircase of the Cathedral tower, of which we know that he has had the key. Neville, who leads his pursuers, “receives his death wound” (and, I think, is pitched off the top of the roof). Then Jasper is collared by that agile67 climber, Tartar, and by Crisparkle, always in the pink of condition. There is now something to hang Jasper for — the slaying68 of Landless (though, as far as I can see, THAT was done in self-defence). Jasper confesses all; Tartar marries Rosa; Helena marries Crisparkle. Edwin is only twenty-one, and may easily find a consoler of the fair sex: indeed he is “ower young to marry yet.”
The capture of Jasper was fixed, of course, for Christmas Eve. The phantom69 cry foreheard by Durdles, two years before, was that of Neville as he fell; and the dog that howled was Neville’s dog, a character not yet introduced into the romance.
Mr. Cuming Walters’s Theory
Such is Mr. Proctor’s theory of the story, in which I mainly agree. Mr. Proctor relies on a piece of evidence overlooked by Forster, and certainly misinterpreted, as I think I can prove to a certainty, by Mr. Cuming Walters, whose theory of the real conduct of the plot runs thus: After watching the storm at midnight with Edwin, Neville left him, and went home: “his way lay in an opposite direction. Near to the Cathedral Jasper intercepted70 his nephew. . . . Edwin may have been already drugged.” How the murder was worked Mr. Cuming Walters does not say, but he introduces at this point, the two sounds foreheard by Durdles, without explaining “the howl of a dog.” Durdles would hear the cries, and Deputy “had seen what he could not understand,” whatever it was that he saw. Jasper, not aware of Drood’s possession of the ring, takes only his watch, chain, and pin, which he places on the timbers of the weir35, and in the river, to be picked up by that persistent71 winter-bather, Crisparkle of the telescopic and microscopic72 eyesight.
As to the ring, Mr. Cuming Walters erroneously declares that Mr. Proctor “ignores” the power of the ring “to hold and drag,” and says that potent73 passage is “without meaning and must be disregarded.” Proctor, in fact, gives more than three pages to the meaning of the ring, which “drags” Jasper into the vault, when he hears of its existence. 1 Next, Mr. Cuming Walters supposes Datchery to learn from Durdles, whom he is to visit, about the second hearing of the cry and the dog’s howl. Deputy may have seen Jasper “carrying his burden” (Edwin) “towards the Sapsea vault.” In fact, Jasper probably saved trouble by making the drugged Edwin walk into that receptacle. “Datchery would not think of the Sapsea vault unaided.” No — unless Datchery was Drood! “Now Durdles is useful again. Tapping with his hammer he would find a change . . . inquiry74 must be made.” Why should Durdles tap the Sapsea monument? As Durdles had the key, he would simply walk into the vault, and find the quicklime. Now, Jasper also, we presume, had a key, made from a wax impression of the original. If he had any sense, he would have removed the quicklime as easily as he inserted it, for Mr. Sapsea was mortal: he might die any day, and be buried, and then the quicklime, lying where it ought not, would give rise to awkward inquiries.
Inquiry being made, in consequence of Durdles’s tappings, the ring would be found, as Mr. Cuming Walters says. But even then, unless Deputy actually saw Jasper carry a man into the vault, nobody could prove Jasper’s connection with the presence of the ring in the vault. Moreover, Deputy hated Jasper, and if he saw Jasper carrying the body of a man, on the night when a man disappeared, he was clever enough to lead Durdles to examine the vault, AT ONCE. Deputy had a great dislike of the Law and its officers, but here was a chance for him to distinguish himself, and conciliate them.
However these things may be, Mr. Cuming Walters supposes that Jasper, finding himself watched, reenters the vault, perhaps, “to see that every trace of the crime had been removed.” In the vault he finds — Datchery, that is, Helena Landless! Jasper certainly visited the vault and found somebody.
Evidence of Collins’s drawings
We now come to the evidence which Forster strangely overlooked, which Mr. Proctor and Mr. Archer correctly deciphered, and which Mr. Cuming Walters misinterprets. On December 22, 1869, Dickens wrote to Forster that two numbers of his romance were “now in type. Charles Collins has designed an excellent cover.” Mr. C. A. Collins had married a daughter of Dickens. 1 He was an artist, a great friend of Dickens, and author of that charming book, “A Cruise on Wheels.” His design of the paper cover of the story (it appeared in monthly numbers) contained, as usual, sketches75 which give an inkling of the events in the tale. Mr. Collins was to have illustrated76 the book; but, finally, Mr. (now Sir) Luke Fildes undertook the task. Mr. Collins died in 1873. It appears that Forster never asked him the meaning of his designs — a singular oversight.
The cover lies before the reader. In the left-hand top corner appears an allegorical female figure of joy, with flowers. The central top space contains the front of Cloisterham Cathedral, or rather, the nave77. To the left walks Edwin, with hyacinthine locks, and a thoroughly classical type of face, and Grecian nose. LIKE DATCHERY, HE DOES NOT WEAR, BUT CARRIES HIS HAT; this means nothing, if they are in the nave. He seems bored. On his arm is Rosa; SHE seems bored; she trails her parasol, and looks away from Edwin, looks down, to her right. On the spectator’s right march the surpliced men and boys of the Choir78. Behind them is Jasper, black whiskers and all; he stares after Edwin and Rosa; his right hand hides his mouth. In the corner above him is an allegorical female, clasping a stiletto.
Beneath Edwin and Rosa is, first, an allegorical female figure, looking at a placard, headed “LOST,” on a door. Under that, again, is a girl in a garden-chair; a young man, whiskerless, with wavy79 hair, kneels and kisses her hand. She looks rather unimpassioned. I conceive the man to be Landless, taking leave of Rosa after urging his hopeless suit, for which Helena, we learn, “seems to compassionate80 him.” He has avowed81 his passion, early in the story, to Crisparkle. Below, the opium hag is smoking. On the other side, under the figures of Jasper and the Choir, the young man who kneels to the girl is seen bounding up a spiral staircase. His left hand is on the iron railing; he stoops over it, looking down at others who follow him. His right hand, the index finger protruded82, points upward, and, by chance or design, points straight at Jasper in the vignette above. Beneath this man (clearly Landless) follows a tall man in a “bowler” hat, a “cut-away” coat, and trousers which show an inch of white stocking above the low shoes. His profile is hid by the wall of the spiral staircase: he might be Grewgious of the shoes, white stockings, and short trousers, but he may be Tartar: he takes two steps at a stride. Beneath him a youngish man, in a low, soft, clerical hat and a black pea-coat, ascends83, looking downwards84 and backwards85. This is clearly Crisparkle. A Chinaman is smoking opium beneath.
In the central lowest space, a dark and whiskered man enters a dark chamber86; his left hand is on the lock of the door; in his right he holds up a lantern. The light of the lantern reveals a young man in a soft hat of Tyrolese shape. His features are purely87 classical, his nose is Grecian, his locks are long (at least, according to the taste of today); he wears a light paletot, buttoned to the throat; his right arm hangs by his side; his left hand is thrust into the breast of his coat. He calmly regards the dark man with the lantern. That man, of course, is Jasper. The young man is EDWIN DROOD, of the Grecian nose, hyacinthine locks, and classic features, as in Sir L. Fildes’s third illustration.
Mr. Proctor correctly understood the unmistakable meaning of this last design, Jasper entering the vault —
“To-day the dead are living, The lost is found today.”
Mr. Cuming Walters tells us that he did not examine these designs by Mr. Collins till he had formed his theory, and finished his book. “On the conclusion of the whole work the pictures were referred to for the first time, and were then found to support in the most striking manner the opinions arrived at,” namely, that Drood was killed, and that Helena is Datchery. Thus does theory blind us to facts!
Mr. Cuming Walters connects the figure of the whiskerless young man kneeling to a girl in a garden seat, with the whiskered Jasper’s proposal to Rosa in a garden seat. But Jasper does not kneel to Rosa; he stands apart, leaning on a sundial; he only once vaguely88 “touches” her, which she resents; he does not kneel; he does not kiss her hand (Rosa “took the kiss sedately,” like Maud in the poem); and — Jasper had lustrous90 thick black whiskers.
Again, the same whiskerless young man, bounding up the spiral staircase in daylight, and wildly pointing upwards91, is taken by Mr. Cuming Walters to represent Jasper climbing the staircase to reconnoitre, at night, with a lantern, and, of course, with black whiskers. The two well-dressed men on the stairs (Grewgious, or Tartar, and Crisparkle) also, according to Mr. Cuming Walters, “relate to Jasper’s unaccountable expedition with Durdles to the Cathedral.” Neither of them is Jasper; neither of them is Durdles, “in a suit of coarse flannel”— a disreputable jacket, as Sir L. Fildes depicts92 him —“with horn buttons,” and a battered93 old tall hat. These interpretations94 are quite demonstrably erroneous and even impossible. Mr. Archer interprets the designs exactly as I do.
As to the young man in the light of Jasper’s lamp, Mr. Cuming Walters says, “the large hat and the tightly-buttoned surtout must be observed; they are the articles of clothing on which most stress is laid in the description of Datchery. But the face is young.” The face of Datchery was elderly, and he had a huge shock of white hair, a wig. Datchery wore “a tightish blue surtout, with a buff waistcoat and grey trousers; he had something of a military air.” The young man in the vault has anything but a military air; he shows no waistcoat, and he does not wear “a tightish blue surtout,” or any surtout at all.
The surtout of the period is shown, worn by Jasper, in Sir L. Fildes’s sixth and ninth illustrations. It is a frock-coat; the collar descends95 far below the top of the waistcoat (buff or otherwise), displaying that garment; the coat is tightly buttoned beneath, revealing the figure; the tails of the coat do not reach the knees of the wearer. The young man in the vault, on the other hand, wears a loose paletot, buttoned to the throat (vaults are chilly96 places), and the coat falls so as to cover the knees; at least, partially97. The young man is not, like Helena, “very dark, and fierce of look, . . . of almost the gipsy type.” He is blonde, sedate89, and of the classic type, as Drood was. He is no more like Helena than Crisparkle is like Durdles. Mr. Cuming Walters says that Mr. Proctor was “unable to allude98 to the prophetic picture by Collins.” As a fact, this picture is fully described by Mr. Proctor, but Mr. Walters used the wrong edition of his book, unwittingly.
Mr. Proctor writes:— “Creeping down the crypt steps, oppressed by growing horror and by terror of coming judgment99, sickening under fears engendered100 by the darkness of night and the charnel-house air he breathed, Jasper opens the door of the tomb and holds up his lantern, shuddering101 at the thought of what it may reveal to him.
“And what sees he? Is it the spirit of his victim that stands there, ‘in his habit as he lived,’ his hand clasped on his breast, where the ring had been when he was murdered? What else can Jasper deem it? There, clearly visible in the gloom at the back of the tomb, stands Edwin Drood, with stern look fixed on him — pale, silent, relentless102!”
Again, “On the title-page are given two of the small pictures from the Love side of the cover, two from the Murder side, and the central picture below, which presents the central horror of the story — the end and aim of the ‘Datchery assumption’ and of Mr. Grewgious’s plans — showing Jasper driven to seek for the proofs of his crime amid the dust to which, as he thought, the flesh and bones, and the very clothes of his victim, had been reduced.”
There are only two possible choices; either Collins, under Dickens’s oral instructions, depicted103 Jasper finding Drood alive in the vault, an incident which was to occur in the story; or Dickens bade Collins do this for the purpose of misleading his readers in an illegitimate manner; while the young man in the vault was really to be some person “made up” to look like Drood, and so to frighten Jasper with a pseudo-ghost of that hero. The latter device, the misleading picture, would be childish, and the pseudo-ghost, exactly like Drood, could not be acted by the gipsy-like, fierce Helena, or by any other person in the romance.
Mr. Walters’s Theory continued
Mr. Cuming Walters guesses that Jasper was to aim a deadly blow (with his left hand, to judge from the picture) at Helena, and that Neville “was to give his life for hers.” But, manifestly, Neville was to lead the hunt of Jasper up the spiral stair, as in Collins’s design, and was to be dashed from the roof: his body beneath was to be “THAT, I never saw before. THAT must be real. Look what a poor mean miserable105 thing it is!” as Jasper says in his vision.
Mr. Cuming Walters, pursuing his idea of Helena as both Datchery and also as the owner of “the YOUNG face” of the youth in the vault (and also of the young hands, a young girl’s hands could never pass for those of “an elderly buffer”), exclaims: “Imagine the intense power of the dramatic climax106, when Datchery, the elderly man, is retransformed into Helena Landless, the young and handsome woman; and when she reveals the seemingly impenetrable secret which had been closed up in one guilty man’s mind.”
The situations are startling, I admit, but how would Canon Crisparkle like them? He is, we know, to marry Helena, “the young person, my dear,” Miss Twinkleton would say, “who for months lived alone, at inns, wearing a blue surtout, a buff waistcoat, and grey —” Here horror chokes the utterance107 of Miss Twinkleton. “Then she was in the vault in ANOTHER disguise, not more womanly, at that awful scene when poor Mr. Jasper was driven mad, so that he confessed all sorts of nonsense, for, my dear, all the Close believes that it WAS nonsense, and that Mr. Jasper was reduced to insanity108 by persecution109. And Mr. Crisparkle, with that elegant dainty mother of his — it has broken her heart — is marrying this half-caste gipsy TROLLOP, with her blue surtout and grey — oh, it is a disgrace to Cloisterham!”
The climax, in fact, as devised by Mr. Cuming Walters, is rather too dramatic for the comfort of a minor110 canon. A humorist like Dickens ought to have seen the absurdity111 of the situation. Mr. Walters MAY be right, Helena may be Datchery, but she ought not to be.
Who was the Princess Puffer?
Who was the opium hag, the Princess Puffer? Mr. Cuming Walters writes: “We make a guess, for Dickens gives us no solid facts. But when we remember that not a word is said throughout the volume of Jasper’s antecedents, who he was, and where he came from; when we remember that but for his nephew he was a lonely man; when we see that he was both criminal and artist; when we observe his own wheedling112 propensity113, his false and fulsome114 protestations of affection, his slyness, his subtlety115, his heartlessness, his tenacity116; and when, above all, we know that the opium vice104 is HEREDITARY117, and that a YOUNG man would not be addicted118 to it unless born with the craving119; 1 then, it is not too wild a conjecture that Jasper was the wayward progeny120 of this same opium-eating woman, all of whose characteristics he possessed121, and, perchance, of a man of criminal instincts, but of a superior position. Jasper is a morbid122 and diseased being while still in the twenties, a mixture of genius and vice. He hates and he loves fiercely, as if there were wild gipsy blood in his veins123. Though seemingly a model of decorum and devoted124 to his art, he complains of his “daily drudging round” and “the cramped monotony of his existence.” He commits his crime with the ruthlessness of a beast, his own nature being wholly untamed. If we deduce that his father was an adventurer and a vagabond, we shall not be far wrong. If we deduce that his mother was the opium-eater, prematurely125 aged126, who had transmitted her vicious propensity to her child, we shall almost certainly be right.”
Who was Jasper?
Who was Jasper? He was the brother-in-law of the late Mr. Drood, a respected engineer, and University man. We do not know whence came Mrs. Drood, Jasper’s sister, but is it likely that her mother “drank heaven’s-hard”— so the hag says of herself — then took to keeping an opium den, and there entertained her son Jasper, already an accomplished127 vocalist, but in a lower station than that to which his musical genius later raised him, as lay Precentor? If the Princess Puffer be, as on Mr. Cuming Walters’s theory she is, Edwin’s long-lost grandmother, her discovery would be unwelcome to Edwin. Probably she did not live much longer; “my lungs are like cabbage nets,” she says. Mr. Cuming Walters goes on —
“Her purpose is left obscure. How easily, however, we see possibilities in a direction such as this. The father, perhaps a proud, handsome man, deserts the woman, and removes the child. The woman hates both for scorning her, but the father dies, or disappears, and is beyond her vengeance128. Then the child, victim to the ills in his blood, creeps back to the opium den, not knowing his mother, but immediately recognized by her. She will make the child suffer for the sins of the father, who had destroyed her happiness. Such a theme was one which appealed to Dickens. It must not, however, be urged; and the crucial question after all is concerned with the opium woman as one of the unconscious instruments of justice, aiding with her trifle of circumstantial evidence the Nemesis129 awaiting Jasper.
“Another hypothesis — following on the Carker theme in ‘Dombey and Son’— is that Jasper, a dissolute and degenerate130 man, lascivious131, and heartless, may have wronged a child of the woman’s; but it is not likely that Dickens would repeat the Mrs. Brown story.”
Jasper, pere, father of John Jasper and of Mrs. Drood, however handsome, ought not to have deserted132 Mrs. Jasper. Whether John Jasper, prematurely devoted to opium, became Edwin’s guardian133 at about the age of fifteen, or whether, on attaining134 his majority, he succeeded to some other guardian, is not very obvious. In short, we cannot guess why the Princess Puffer hated Jasper, a paying client of long standing135. We are only certain that Jasper was a bad fellow, and that the Princess Puffer said, “I know him, better than all the Reverend Parsons put together know him.” On the other hand, Edwin “seems to know” the opium woman, when he meets her on Christmas Eve, which may be a point in favour of her being his long-lost grandmother.
Jasper was certainly tried and condemned; for Dickens intended “to take Mr. Fildes to a condemned cell in Maidstone, or some other gaol136, in order to make a drawing.” 1 Possibly Jasper managed to take his own life, in the cell; possibly he was duly hanged.
Jasper, after all, was a failure as a murderer, even if we suppose him to have strangled his nephew successfully. “It is obvious to the most excruciatingly feeble capacity” that, if he meant to get rid of proofs of the identity of Drood’s body by means of quicklime, it did not suffice to remove Drood’s pin, watch, and chain. Drood would have coins of the realm in his pockets, gold, silver, bronze. Quicklime would not destroy these metallic137 objects, nor would it destroy keys, which would easily prove Drood’s identity. If Jasper knew his business, he would, of course, rifle ALL of Edwin’s pockets minutely, and would remove the metallic buttons of his braces138, which generally display the maker’s name, or the tailor’s. On research I find “H. Poole & Co., Savile Row” on my buttons. In this inquiry of his, Jasper would have discovered the ring in Edwin’s breast pocket, and would have taken it away. Perhaps Dickens never thought of that little fact: if he did think of it, no doubt he found some mode of accounting139 for Jasper’s unworkmanlike negligence140. The trouser-buttons would have led any inquirer straight to Edwin’s tailor; I incline to suspect that neither Dickens nor Jasper noticed that circumstance. The conscientious141 artist in crime cannot afford to neglect the humblest and most obvious details.
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1
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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3
defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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4
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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5
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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appall
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| vt.使惊骇，使大吃一惊 | |
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appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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adroitly
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| adv.熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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10
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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inaccurate
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| adj.错误的，不正确的，不准确的 | |
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14
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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15
throttle
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| n.节流阀，节气阀，喉咙；v.扼喉咙，使窒息，压 | |
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16
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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18
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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bribed
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| v.贿赂( bribe的过去式和过去分词 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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conjectures
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| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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seizure
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| n.没收；占有；抵押 | |
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seizures
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| n.起获( seizure的名词复数 )；没收；充公；起获的赃物 | |
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24
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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25
bungled
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| v.搞糟，完不成( bungle的过去式和过去分词 )；笨手笨脚地做；失败；完不成 | |
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bungle
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| v.搞糟；n.拙劣的工作 | |
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opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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28
inefficiently
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| adv.无效率地 | |
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29
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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30
oversight
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| n.勘漏，失察，疏忽 | |
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31
invokes
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| v.援引( invoke的第三人称单数 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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32
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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weir
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| n.堰堤，拦河坝 | |
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mistily
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| adv.有雾地，朦胧地，不清楚地 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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39
eddy
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| n.漩涡，涡流 | |
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40
fathoms
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| 英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
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41
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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42
archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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43
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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44
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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45
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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46
illegible
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| adj.难以辨认的，字迹模糊的 | |
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47
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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48
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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49
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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50
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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51
wig
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| n.假发 | |
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52
biding
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| v.等待，停留( bide的现在分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待；面临 | |
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53
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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54
piqued
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| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
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55
remorseful
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| adj.悔恨的 | |
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56
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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57
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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58
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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59
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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60
subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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61
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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62
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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63
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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64
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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65
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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66
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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67
agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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68
slaying
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| 杀戮。 | |
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69
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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70
intercepted
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| 拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻 | |
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71
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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72
microscopic
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| adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的 | |
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73
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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74
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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75
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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76
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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77
nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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78
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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79
wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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80
compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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81
avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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82
protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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83
ascends
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的第三人称单数 ) | |
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84
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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85
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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86
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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87
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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88
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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89
sedate
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| adj.沉着的，镇静的，安静的 | |
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90
lustrous
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| adj.有光泽的；光辉的 | |
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91
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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92
depicts
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| 描绘，描画( depict的第三人称单数 )； 描述 | |
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93
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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94
interpretations
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| n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解 | |
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95
descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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96
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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97
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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98
allude
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| v.提及，暗指 | |
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99
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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100
engendered
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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101
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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102
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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103
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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104
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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105
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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106
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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107
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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108
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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109
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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110
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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111
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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112
wheedling
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| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的现在分词 ) | |
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113
propensity
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| n.倾向；习性 | |
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114
fulsome
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| adj.可恶的，虚伪的，过分恭维的 | |
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115
subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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116
tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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117
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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118
addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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119
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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120
progeny
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| n.后代，子孙；结果 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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122
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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123
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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124
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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127
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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128
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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129
nemesis
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| n.给以报应者，复仇者，难以对付的敌手 | |
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degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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lascivious
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| adj.淫荡的，好色的 | |
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132
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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134
attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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135
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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136
gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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137
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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138
braces
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| n.吊带，背带；托架( brace的名词复数 )；箍子；括弧；（儿童）牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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139
accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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140
negligence
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| n.疏忽，玩忽，粗心大意 | |
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141
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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