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THE HISTORY OF A MYSTERY

A REVIEW OF THE SOLUTIONS TO "EDWIN DROOD"

By GEORGE F. GADD

from The Dickensian (1905-sep)

CHAPTER I

AUTHENTIC SUGGESTIONS

DURING the progress of Barnaby Rudge a startling disclosure of Dickens's carefully-guarded secret--the surprise concerning the supposed murder of Rudge, steward to Reuben Haredale--was prematurely made by an American writer whose genius for imagination and mystery has become world-famous. Edgar Allan Poe's tour-de-force was, in fact, astonishingly accurate, and highly remarkable as the result of penetrating insight and scientific inference, but its quotation in these pages is merely intended to suggest that, had Poe survived Charles Dickens, and brought his peculiar powers to bear upon the mystery of Edwin Drood, a not unconvincing solution would have issued from his pen. Assuredly, in that event, much nonsense which has been written on this subject would never have seen the light, and, on the other hand, clever but misguided analysts might have been denied the thrill arising from an inborn conviction of triumph.

  The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a particularly perplexing problem for two important reasons. In the first place, it is full of misleading suggestion: redolent of the red herring drawn across the path. In the second place, the amount of external hint or clue left by the novelist is disappointingly small, and does not go far towards helping out the sequel.

  The first suggestion of mystery peeps out in a letter sent by Dickens to his friend John Forster on 6 August, 1869. "I laid aside the fancy I told you of, and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable one (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work." Part of this curious idea Forster was able to disclose at the latter end of his admirable biography.

  "The story," he explains, "was to be that of the murder of a nephew by his uncle, the originality of which was to consist in the review of the murderer's career by himself at the close.... The last chapters were to be written in the condemned cell, to which his wickedness, all elaborately elicited from him as if told of another, had brought him. Discovery by the murderer of the utter needlessness of the murder for its object was to follow hard upon commission of the deed; but all discovery of the murder was to be baffled till towards the close, when, by means of a gold ring which had resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which he had thrown the body, not, only the person murdered was to be identified, but the locality of the crime and the man who committed it.... Rosa was to marry Tartar, and Crisparkle, the sister of Landless, who was himself to have perished in assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer."

  It is interesting to observe how unfailingly this statement agrees with the written part of the story. John Jasper, the guilty uncle, is, we know, consumed by a secret passion for Rosa Bud, Drood's betrothed. He encourages, while seeming to deprecate, the quarrelsome spirit arising between his nephew and Neville Landless. He indulges in strange nocturnal excursions about the cathedral, in company with Durdles the stonemason, and makes the acquaintance of several keys, including that of Mrs. Sapsea's vault. On the first of these expeditions he is warned off a heap of quicklime. "Quick enough," says Durdles, "with a little handy stirring, to eat your bones." Further, the story introduces a diamond ring, entrusted to Edwin by Rosa's guardian, Mr. Grewgious, and to be returned in case doubt exists on either side as to the wisdom of the betrothal. The boy and girl agree to part, and Edwin, in consequence, makes no reference to the jewel in his pocket.

  After Drood has disappeared, such of his valuables as Jasper is aware of are found in the river, but nothing more is told of the ring. Finally, Grewgious comes to Cloisterham and calls upon the stricken uncle. Choosing a most inappropriate occasion, and almost entirely ignoring the catastrophe, he imparts the comparatively insignificant news of the broken engagement; whereat Jasper swoons away, not at all to the surprise of Grewgious, who evidently knows that he has disclosed "the needlessness of the murder for its object."

  We are enormously indebted to Forster for the light thrown upon the intended use of the betrothal ring. Even Poe's powers might have failed to connect this bauble with the heap of lime in the mason's yard. Not so much reliance, however, is to be placed upon the statement that the original part of the scheme was Jasper's confession in the cell, though there is little doubt that the villain was to come to that ignominious end. Dickens himself shows that the real mystery lay in another direction. Writing to Mr. J.T. Fields in January of 1870, he thus refers to his work: "There is a curious interest steadily working up to number 5, which requires a great deal of art and self-denial.... I hope, at numbers 5 and 6, the story will turn upon an interest suspended until the end."

  The novelist evidently refers to the appearance upon the scene of Mr. Dick Datchery, the mysterious white-haired stranger who keeps such a close watch upon Jasper, and who is so elated by the discovery of an old opium woman from London, come down to Cloisterham to track the villain, that the hieroglyphic score upon the inside of his cupboard is made to record an almost overwhelming access of intelligence.

  The identity of Datchery is enshrouded in mist; it is the heart of the entire problem, and has been interpreted in a variety of ways, as we shall see. Yet this character forms the subject of the only detached note of any importance left by the author.

  The first number-plan, or sketch-chapter, of the story--"Mr. Sapsea. Old Tory Jackass, connect Jasper with him (He will want a solemn donkey by and by)"--does no more than confirm our certainty of Jasper's guilt,; but the accidentally discovered manuscript called, "How Mr. Sapsea ceased to be a member of the Eight Club," gives us a group of new characters, throws a possible light upon Datchery, and enables a more complete estimate to be formed of the great Mr. Sapsea himself. The chapter is fully quoted in Forster's "Life," but the part of it which most nearly concerns the mystery-solver is the broken fragment of conversation between the inflated auctioneer and the obsequious Mr. Poker, for the latter is surely a study sketch of the "Idle Buffer" who lived upon his means, at Mrs. Tope's, in Cloisterham.

  In the following chapters it is intended to set forth data which, it is hoped, may not only be interesting reading, but be sufficient to give a clear idea of the nature of the many different solutions of the "mystery" which have been published in this country and in America, and so present a complete record of all that has been written on the subject, much of which is not easily accessible to the general reader to-day.

 

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST SOLUTION

"RUMOUR," said Miss Twinkleton to the ladies of her select seminary, "has been represented by the Bard of Avon as painted full of tongues."

  Some of these tongues were very busily whispering shortly after it became known that Dickens had not lived long enough to finish his work: whispering that another writer would be appointed to supply the deficiency; that the younger Charles, or Wilkie Collins, or both, or some other, had already been approached on the matter. So persistent, in fact, did these "airy breaths" become, that at length it was deemed advisable to issue an authoritative denial. This took the form of a letter to the Times, from Messrs. Chapman and Hall, who emphatically stated that the three numbers still in hand would be published without any added matter whatsoever. "No other writer," they asserted, "could be permitted by us to complete the work which Mr. Dickens left." And, to the present day, this very commendable attitude has been preserved by the excellent firm so long associated with the works of our author.

  But there was the unauthorized Continuator to reckon with, which genus was particularly active during the early days following the death of Dickens. It may, or may not, be a tribute to our national modesty that none of these hasty attempts to assume the cloak of the Prophet is of British origin, but it is not the less certain that, for a number of years, America virtually held a monopoly in continuations of Edwin Drood.

  We may now examine these extraordinary attemptS in some detail.

  Right of priority, at least, is due to Mr. R.H. Newell, who, as "Orpheus C. Kerr," published in 1870 an extravagant burlesque entitled The Cloven Foot, professedly "an adaptation of the English novel to American scenes, characters, customs, and nomenclature." Originally issued at New York, this grotesque work found its way to London, where it first received notice in the pages of the Piccadilly Annual for 1870. In the following year an English edition was printed, under a new title, The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood, and with several minor alterations. The publisher was John Camden Hotten, of Piccadilly.

  Considering the circumstances of the time, the vein in which this book is conceived must have appeared singularly infelicitous; but it may be that burlesque was the author's strong point, and certainly this comic paraphrase exhibits considerable cleverness in its close parallel with the original, while the humour, although it perhaps relies too frequently upon the alcoholic vagaries of the chief character, is at times irresistible.

  A remarkable peculiarity of the work is that it forms a burlesque, in part without an original, for the story is carried to a definite conclusion. It is a book with a theory, too. Whether a seriously advanced theory or not it would be difficult to say, but the clue is derived from chapter iii. of Edwin Drood, wherein a suggestion of dual consciousness in man is illustrated by the strange remark: "If I hide my watch when I am drunk, I must be drunk again before I can remember where."

  In the adaptation, Mr. John Bumstead (Jasper) divides his affection amongst three objects: his nephew, an umbrella, and powerful stimulants. Under the influence of the last-named he disposes of the two others and fails to recollect their whereabouts, until Mr. Tracey Clews (Datchery), following an inspiration, screws him up to precisely the same condition of inebriety as before, when discovery results.

  Space forbids any but the briefest quotation from Mr. Newell's book, but the following extracts from the chapter describing Jasper's meeting with his nephew at the gatehouse may convey some idea of the author's methods:--

  "Mr. Bumstead, lighting his lamp, has, abstractedly, almost covered it with his hat... but you can just detect, above the mantel, an unfinished sketch of a schoolgirl. There is no artistic merit in this picture; in which, indeed, a simple triangle on end represents the waist, another, and slightly larger triangle the skirts, and straight lines, with rake-like terminations, the arms and hands.... A young man fourteen years old enters the room with his carpet bag.

  "'My dear boys! My dear Edwins!'

  "Thus speaking, Mr. Bumstead sidles eagerly at the new-comer, with open arms, and falling upon his neck, does so too heavily, and bears him with a crash to the ground. Mr. Bumstead rises slowly, and with dignity.

  "Excuse me, my dear Edwin. I thought there were two of you."

  "... Mr. Bumstead motions with his whole right side towards an adjacent room in which a table is spread, and leads the way thither in a half circle. After dinner Edwin Drood produces pea-nuts. Bumstead, with a wet towel round his head, drinks a great deal of water.

  "'Crack!' on Edwin Drood's part.

  "'Hic!' on Mr. Bumstead's part....

  "Mr. Bumstead, very carefully poising himself on both feet, puts on his hat over the wet towel, gives a sudden horrified glance downward towards one of his boots, and leaps frantically over an object.

  "'Why, that was only my cane,' says Edwin.

  "Mr. Bumstead breathes hard, and leans heavily on his nephew as they go out together."

(To be continued.)