It appears that certain readers have taken the heading of chapter xiv., ‘When shall these three meet again?’ as an argument for the theory that Drood reappears. If the use of the quotation has any special interest a very good interpretation has been supplied by Mr. Edwin Charles. Mr. Charles points out that the words are used in Macbeth before the three witches meet again to plant in Macbeth’s mind the tragical lust of ambition. He slays Duncan, who is at once his guest, his kinsman, and his king. And Duncan’s sons, also guests of Macbeth, fly respectively to England and Ireland, and Macbeth uses the flight to spread suspicion against them. ‘We hear our bloody cousins are bestow’d in England and in Ireland: not confessing their cruel parricide.’ Jasper is Edwin Drood’s kinsman and guardian and host. Jasper slays his nephew, and contrives that the suspicion of his murder shall fall on his other guest, Neville Landless, who has to leave Cloisterham. Is this a chance parallel? Does the use of the words in the heading of the chapter prove that Dickens had the tragedy of Macbeth in his mind? Mr. Charles not only thinks so, but he holds that the quotation positively destroys any shadow of doubt as to what was intended to be the fate of Edwin. Mr. Charles also notes that Dickens makes another reference to Macbeth in the story when he records the dinner which Grewgious gave to Edwin and Bazzard at Staple Inn. Speaking of the leg of the flying waiter Dickens says that ‘it always preceded him and the tray by some seconds, and always lingered after he disappeared,’ adding, ‘like Macbeth’s leg when accompanying him off the stage with reluctance to the assassination of Duncan.’
There is not much to reply to in the argument, but the reply is, to say the least, sufficient.
‘EDWIN DROOD IN HIDING’
Another argument has been drawn from the tentative titles written by Dickens here first printed in full. Two of them are ‘The Flight of Edwin Drood,’ and ‘Edwin Drood in Hiding.’ On this Mr. Lang writes in the Morning Post [130] that, though the titles do not go with the idea that Edwin was to be slain early, Dickens may have intended the titles to mislead his readers, and may have rejected them because he felt them to be too misleading. This I believe to be the exact truth. Dickens was willing to have as much mystery as possible, but he soon perceived that it would not suit his purpose to raise the question whether Edwin was dead or alive.
THE MANNER OF THE MURDER
In Dr. Jackson’s book on the subject there is a very able discussion on the manner in which the murder was accomplished. Dr. Jackson inquires: (1) Where and how did Jasper murder Drood, or attempt to murder him? (2) Where and how did Jasper dispose of Drood’s body, or attempt to dispose of it? For myself, I believe that the manner of the murder is part of the mystery to be solved as the book proceeds. In this I am in general agreement with Proctor. It would be vain to guess what happened on that stormy night. To give the details definitely would have been to give them prematurely, for much of the interest of the novel is to depend on their unfolding. But certain suggestions may be offered. Dr. Jackson holds that significance is to be attached to Jasper’s babblings in the presence of the opium woman. He tells her that he has in his mind the tower of the cathedral, a perilous journey over abysses with an indispensable fellow-traveller. Also that when the journey was really made there was ‘no struggle, no consciousness of peril, no entreaty,’ but that ‘a poor, mean, miserable thing,’ which was nevertheless real, lay ‘down below at the bottom.’ Dr. Jackson thinks that we have here Jasper’s confession of the place and the manner of the crime. ‘He had ascended the tower with Edwin, and he had seen Edwin’s body lying down below, presumably at the foot of the staircase by which they had ascended.’
Mr. Walters thinks that Drood was to be encountered near the cathedral, drugged and then strangled with the black silk scarf that Jasper wore round his own neck. Mr. Proctor and Mr. Lang suppose that Jasper partially strangled Drood near the cathedral, and then deposited his body in the Sapsea monument. They do not explain ‘the perilous journey over abysses.’ The babblings of the opium den become intelligible if Jasper flung or pushed Drood down the staircase of the tower. But if Drood was attacked outside the cathedral on level ground they are ‘unjustifiable mystifications.’
Dr. Jackson further argues that in chapter xii., ‘A Night with Durdles,’ is a rehearsal of the coming tragedy. He thinks that when Durdles sleeps Jasper makes a wax impression of a key with which Durdles had opened the outside door of the crypt and the door between the crypt and the cathedral. He finds quicklime in the crypt. Then he flings or pushes Drood, who is drugged, down the staircase, and deposits his body in the quicklime in the crypt. Else why did Jasper make a careful study of the tower with Durdles?
My friend and colleague, Miss Jane T. Stoddart, kindly sends me the following:
Some critics have failed to realise the extreme importance of the Sapsea monument in connection with the murder. It has been suggested by Professor Jackson that Jasper buried the body in a heap of lime in the crypt of the cathedral. But crypts are semi-public places, and if heaps of lime were about workmen would be coming and going. In no case could a corpse lie unnoticed on the open floor of a crypt for more than a few hours. All the evidence points rather to the Sapsea monument in the graveyard as the murderer’s chosen hiding-place. Observe how Dickens distinguishes between tombs and monuments, clearly meaning by the latter those massive vault-like erections of stone which are often seen in old churchyards, and which have the dimensions of small chambers with a corridor. Durdles says in chapter V.: ‘“Say that hammer of mine’s a wall—my work. Two; four; and two is six,” measuring on the pavement. “Six foot inside that wall is Mrs. Sapsea.”