three and a half numbers of his usual instalment of a novel in the Cornhill Magazine. Dickens had issued three of his monthly "green leaves"-as he calls them out of the twelve agreed for of Edwin Drood, and left just enough for three more prepared in proof or manuscript.

But here the strange parallel changes into a stranger contrast. About the intended story of Denis Duval there is no room for any great doubt, nor can anyone ever have felt excited about it. About Weir of Hermiston there is more doubt, but little scope for dispute. But as to The Mystery of Edwin Drood a keen dispute began on the very day that it was made known that the story could never be finished. And now, forty-six years afterwards, when the book is out of copyright, we have a succession of books, many of them by very distinguished men, as well as many very ably conducted debates in magazines, most of the disputants positively asserting that their own solution of the Mystery is the only one conceivable. Sir W. R. Nicoll has no less than six pages of bibliography of the subject up to 1912, now much increased. There is no parallel to it in the case of any other work of fiction in the world.

It is not my object in the present article to put forward any new theory as to the intended ending, or as to who Mr. Datchery really is. Indeed it would be difficult to find any character in the book, except those in whose company he has actually appeared, with whom that gentleman has not been identified-unless it be Miss Twinkleton or Mr. Honeythunder. I simply propose to state the different solutions that have been proposed, and to show how far each of these is possible. I rely most of all on the existent indications in the book itself; secondly, on such external evidence as remains; and,

thirdly, on the parallels with other works of Dickens as showing a probable inclination or reluctance presumably to be found in his mind. This last is obviously of a much more subjective character than the other two, and, as will be seen, sometimes leads people to directly opposite convictions. It must therefore only be used as at best fortifying conclusions already suggested by the direct evidence.

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Now the "mystery," it is agreed, resolves itself mainly into two points. First, had Jasper really murdered Edwin, as he, admittedly, believed he had done? Secondly, who Datchery? There are several portant subordinate questions; pecially what was to be the function of the betrothal-ring, and what connection "Princess Puffer" had with Jasper's previous life. But these are concerned more with the discovery of the mystery than with its existence. It is better to keep the main questions distinct.

I.

WAS EDWIN REALLY MURDERED OR NOT?

Here we come to a most remarkable conflict of opinion among those who have both studied the question thoroughly and know their Dickens well. Forster, Mr. J. C. Walters, and Sir W. R. Nicoll say positively that he was; Proctor and Mr. Lang, equally decidedly, that he was not. Dr. Jackson and Mr. Saunders, with wiser caution, believe that he was murdered, but allow that both theories are admissible.

The possibility of this curious divergence about the very heart of the "mystery" itself is caused by the fact that the book gives no certain indication whatever. Every word in it has been pondered by commentators eager to find props to their own

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theories, but nothing can be quoted in evidence. Edwin in Chapter xiv simply disappears. There is not a single word in all the subsequent part which is not just as applicable to the murder if Jasper only supposed that he had accomplished it, as if he really had done so. Edwin's watch and pin, which were caught in the weir, had been taken, but that would equally have been done if Edwin had merely been stunned. Hence our commentators have to fall back on their inner consciousness as to what would have been sure to do Edwin, as they say, was "marked" for life or death. It is amusing to see how exactly the judgment on this question of taste corresponds with what each writer takes to be the plot. To Mr. Proctor "there are touches in the chapters of Edwin Drood preceding Edwin's disappearance which show anyone who understands Dickens' manner and has an ear for the music of his words, that Edwin Drood is not actually to be killed." To Mr. Walters, on the contrary, Edwin "is entirely uninteresting. . . . He is certainly not of the class that either Dickens or his readers would care to survive." Here we are in the thick of the Higher Criticism.

We turn therefore next to the external evidence. That, in the present case, is limited practically to two heads the consideration of the picture-cover must for the present be postponed-namely, first, the statements made, or understood to be made (an important qualification) by Dickens to Forster and others; and, secondly, the various titles for the book, which were always vary carefully weighed beforehand by Dickens himself.

First, let us take the statements. The chief of these is the one reported by Forster, which, if accepted as entirely accurate, and as intended by Dickens to be a summary, would leave

us with no mystery at all worth five minutes' discussion. It is clear that it has not generally been so accepted, or the numerous books on Edwin Drood would never have been written.

Forster's statement* needs the closest attention. It is that in a letter of August 6, 1869, Dickens wrote: "I have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work." Forster, however, must have instantly asked for the secret which was both incommunicable and would if disclosed destroy the interest of the book, for he goes on:

the story, I learned immediately afterwards, 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.

Now is it possible that anyone can think after reading the book, as Forster before it was written appears patiently to have accepted, that the very strong but incommunicable idea was simply Jasper's review of his career at the close? It is just about the same as if we were to say that the story of Oliver Twist rested on the very powerful scene of Fagin in the condemned cell. The conclusion which, I submit, is pointed to, is the very different one suggested by the words italicized above, that Dickens meant to keep his secret from Forster, as he did from everybody else. Possibly Forster had rubbed in too emphatically the overearly revelation of the main plot in Our Mutual Friend. In any case to have asked for the plot, after so strong an intimation that he must not do so, was indiscreet at best, and *Life, xi, 2.

Forster seems not to have been a model of discreetness. The reply seems to show a skeleton of facts, entirely borne out by the story as we have it, but to give no solution whatever of the "mystery." The latter part of the words above, it must be carefully noted, gives not ipsissima verba of Dickens, but what Forster "learned afterwards," and might have only indicated the attempted murder. That Jasper was in a condemned cell proves nothing, because according to Forster's own sketch, "Neville Landless was, I think, to have perished" (this is borne out by several points in the story) "in assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer." Indeed it is only possible by a murder of someone thrown down from the tower of the Cathedral-which in the case of Edwin himself is excluded-to explain Jasper's ejaculations in the opium den. "Look down, look down, you see what lies at the bottom there!" "Look at it. Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing it is. That must be real . . . and yet I never saw that before." So the argument about the condemned cell crumbles altogether away.

We may take it as one of the few quite certain points about the ending, that Jasper was to be found guilty of murder, and condemned to death. For not only have we the Forster sketch of the plot, which, as we shall see, needs some discounting, but Sir Luke Fildes (who, apparently, strongly believes that the murder was intended to have been really effected) was to have been taken by Dickens "to a condemned cell in Maidstone or some other gaol, in order that he might make a drawing." But the murder of Neville Landless, who by the agreement of nearly all commentators is to be got rid of-it is the only point in which they almost all

agree equally serves this purpose for the story. The proof therefore that Jasper was to die on the scaffold (or, more probably, in the condemned cell) is only, at best, corroborative evidence that the murder was that of Edwin Drood.

The latest interpreter, Mr. Saunders, contends with much plausibility that the "incommunicable idea" was that of Jasper unwittingly helping to convict himself by every step that he took to procure the destruction of Neville. His diary ends

I swear that I will fasten the crime of the murder of my dear dead boy upon the murderer; and; that I devote myself to his destruction.

This is really a valuable contribution, because for the first time it explains the point of the seemingly useless diary, and helps in explanation of the strange emphasis laid on Edwin's non-delivery of the ring.

Mr. Andrew Lang, who is supported by Mr. C. K. Shorter in The Sphere, then introduces a further complication. They both believe, and with some evidence, that Dickens changed his plot in the course of writing. This is a possibility which has seriously to be reckoned with. In the case of Great Expectations it, admittedly, was actually what was done. Bulwer Lytton and of all people in the worldThomas Carlyle objected to the natural and intended close which left Pip a solitary man, and Dickens substituted the hasty and banal reunion of Pip and Estella. "I have no doubt," Dickens wrote to Forster, "that the story will be more acceptable through the alteration." The almost universal desire of the British reading public for a happy ending was too strong for the artistic instincts of the author. So again, it has always been a moot point whether the monstrously impossible part of a miser

played by Mr. Boffin in Our Mutual Friend, solely to teach Bella that the love of money is the root of all evil, could have been part of the deliberate scheme of the book. Forster's account of Our Mutual Friend is much shorter than that of any of the other great books, whereas it might have been expected to be fuller, because it is nearer in date to his own writing of the biography. There are traces, too, that Forster had here overstepped the line of acceptable criticism; and this may have suggested the important sentence about the "not communicable" nature of the idea of Edwin Drood. But Mr. Shorter clearly goes far beyond the evidence when he says that "undoubtedly Dickens started with the intention of killing Drood, and told Forster so." For, in the first place, this is not only doubted but flatly denied by half of the critics who have written upon the point. In the second place, Forster does not say that Dickens told him so, but only that he "learned immediately afterwards" he does not say from whom or in what exact words-that the plot "was to be that of a murder of a nephew by his uncle"-thus leaving a double loophole of escape from the statement. But Mr. Lang is within the evidence when he says that "if Dickens had seen hopes of getting more material and more interest out of a living than out of a dead Edwin Drood he had not burned his boats; he could produce Edwin alive." Here again we come full tilt against one of the numerous impasses of the story. It seems almost impossible to believe that if the completed murder of Edwin was intended from the first, Dickens could by any chance have avoided accidentally "burning his boats" in even a single sentence that could be brought forward.

Beyond Forster's evidence, which, as we have seen, falls far short of

proving his conclusions, there is very little to be discovered in the way of direct statement to anybody. But it is passing strange that Sir Luke Fildes* should think that Dickens is accused of moral obliquity because he gave evasive answers or dropped misleading hints about his secret. Has Sir Luke never read about Sir Walter Scott-most upright of menand the authorship of the Waverley Novels? The Times reviewer had remarked, perfectly fairly:

Nor do we attach much importance to any of the hints Dickens dropped, whether to John Forster, to any member of his family, or to either of his illustrators. He was very anxious that his secret should not be guessed, and the hints which he dropped may very well have been intentionally misleading.

Mr. Fildes had asked about the thick silk neckerchief going twice round Jasper's neck, which no doubt was rather troublesome to the artist; and Dickens, after saying "he was afraid he was getting on too fast," exclaimed "It is necessary, for Jasper strangles Edwin Drood with it." There is evasion here, but of a perfectly justifiable kind, and no "deceit is lightly attributed to him." It proves that Jasper was to "strangle" Edwin, a point which naturally was to be kept secret before the event; but, as before, strangling is not identical with murdering. Here again the supposed direct statement proves to be a blind alley.

The only other piece of direct evidence that I can find is that Dickens appears to have said to one of his family when too much seemed to be taken for granted, that he had called it "The Mystery," not "The History," of Edwin Drood.

It is worth while at this point to glance at the alternative titles taken into consideration, seeing how much *The Times, November 4, 1905.

importance Dickens always assigned to his titles. There are no fewer than sixteen experimental ones in the MS. volume at South Kensington. Some of these, such as "Flight and Pursuit," "The Two Kinsmen," are meant to convey nothing of the plot. Most of

them are only varieties of the title adopted, and one of these, "Dead or Alive?" plainly indicates, though without solution, in what the mystery lay. But two of them, "The Flight of Edwin Drood," and-still more— e-"Edwin Drood in Hiding," create a very strong presumption in favor of the theory that Edwin was not really murdered.

The only remaining evidence, apart from each man's subjective impressions as to what Dickens would be sure to do, consists in the celebrated cover of the original monthly parts. It is not celebrated for its artistic merits; indeed it contrasts rather painfully with the delicate and finished work of Sir Luke Fildes. But it is the work of Charles Collins, Dickens' son-in-law, a younger brother of Wilkie Collins, who abandoned the profession of arts for that of letters, in which he had somewhat greater success, and it was drawn under Dickens' own direction. Sir Luke Fildes himself has explicitly made the important statement,*

Collins told me he did not in the least know the significance of the various groups in the design; that they were drawn from instructions given by Charles Dickens, and not from any text.

We have come back, therefore, to the fountain-head, and the Cover ought to have contained a decisive, if hidden key to the mystery. But alas! the sketchy drawings, "not from any text," only lead us up another blind alley, since several of them, including the most important final scene, are interpreted in wholly *The Times, November 4, 1905.

different ways! They need, therefore, the closest examination.

The cover may be taken as divided into seven scenes. The two upper corners allegorical figures of Comedy and Tragedy-and the two lower corners the old hag and a Chinaman smoking opium pipes-may be passed as undisputed. So also may the scene over the title-Jasper behind the procession of choristers going down one side of the Cathedral nave, and looking at Edwin and Rosa (both of whom have a bored expression) on the other side. Even here, however, Mr. Lang, with all the solemnity of italics, notes that Edwin "like Datchery, does not wear, but carries his hat." Alas for the clue! The rest of us men, also, like Datchery, do not wear our hats in church. But Jasper, it should be noted, has black whiskers, as in the text.

The other three little vignettes are disputed on more reasonable grounds. The first of these represents a womanthe features are too vague to entitle one to say a girl-with streaming hair and a lamentable deficiency of clothing above the waist, who is staring at a placard headed “Lost." This might just possibly be, as Mr. Lang calls it, "an allegorical figure," though why an allegorical figure should be obtruded among the actual scenes from the book is hard to imagine. But it does almost make one gasp to learn that any human being couldexcept in defense of a thesis, for which case Aristotle wisely allows much latitude-take this to be a representation (of this Dr. Jackson is "sure") of Rosa's "flight" from Miss Twinkleton's school to see her guardian, Mr. Grewgious. That "flight" consisted in packing a small handbag, walking to the railway omnibus "at the corner," and proceeding in it to the station! One can hardly be "sure" about anything in