Trial of John Jasper, lay precentor of Cloisterham Cathedral in the County of Kent, for the murder of Edwin Drood, engineer

by England) Dickens Fellowship (London

Mr. Crotch: Do you know the prisoner?

Witness: Know him! Better far than all the Reverend Parsons put together know him.

Mr. Crotch: He is a customer of yours, I believe?

Witness: When he first came to me he was quite new to it, but after a while he could take his pipe with the best of ’em, deary.

Mr. Crotch: I conclude from that he was a heavy opium smoker?

Witness: He was, deary.

Mr. Crotch: Do you remember his being in your place on the night of the twelfth of December?

Witness: He was, deary. I see him coming to, and I says, deary, “Get him another ready when he wakes, and he will remember the market price of opium is very high.”

Mr. Crotch: What was the date he next visited you?

Witness: December 23, my deary dear.