What Dickens had to say

[tomhoward]

It amazes me that few critics and commentators on "Edwin Drood" bother to consult Forster's book to see what Forster (and Dickens) had to say. According to Forster: "The story I learnt [from Dickens] was to be that of the murder of a nephew by his uncle... The last chapters were to be written in the condemned cell to which his wickedness had brought him. Discovery by the murderer of the utter needlessness of his crime was to follow hard upon commission of the deed; but all discovery of the murderer was to be baffled until towards the close, when, by means of a gold ring which had resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which the body had been thrown, not only the person murdered was to be identified but the locality pf the crime and the man who committed it. So much was told to me [by Dickens]. It will be recollected that the ring, taken by Drood to be given to his betrothed only if their engagement went on, was brought away with him from their last interview. Rosa was to marry Tartar, and Crisparkle the sister of Landless. Crisparkle himself, I think, was to have perished in assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer." <br><br>From this, it seems quite plain to me that Tartar is Datchery. It must be remembered that we have little more than half of the novel. It seems to me that Dickens would have spent quite a bit of time elaborating and filling out Tartar in both his guises until the final surprise revelation. <br><br>We do know that Dickens intended to make much more of Sapsea. Forster publishes a long scene with Sapsea that Dickens actually wrote beforehand and intended to include in a later chapter. Oddly, this extract is never published with the book and seems to be unknown to most commentators. It is undoubtedly the work of Dickens. Forster affirms it is Dickens's handwriting and that he found it with the author's "other manuscripts".

[gilgilis]

I've only just read ED. I had picked up on the clues Dickens gave about the disposal of the body in quicklime, and guessed that the ring would eventually make it possible to identify Drood's body. I'm also assuming the body was secreted somewhere in the cathedral, and that Durdles would eventually locate it?
Are we to suppose Jasper prepares Drood's last resting place on the same night he tours the cathedral with Durdles - I mean, does he go out and steal the quicklime then? How much would he need to corrosively dispose of an entire body?
Actually one thing that interested me in the book was Dickens' observation that the mind of a man like Jasper would be completely unlike that of an average man. It's tantamount to saying Jasper was what we would define as a psychopath. That seems like quite an insight, pre-Freud.

[gilgilis]

I've re-read chapter 12. Aren't we meant to understand Jasper went outside the crypt while Durdles was drugged, because he is so incensed to find Deputy waiting when they finally leave? He assaults the boy and accuses him of having watched them from the beginning, which Deputy furiously denies.

When Durdles first wakes from his drugged sleep Jasper tells him he has been waiting for him to wake up all this time; whereas if he is the murderer he must have been a) finding and preparing a suitable place to hide Drood's body and b) leaving to steal the quicklime and then returning. Had Deputy really been watching from the time the two men first entered the cathedral, he would be able to bust Jasper's story. He would have seen him leave and return. So Jasper's over-reaction to finding him on watch when they come out, and the accusation that he had been there from the time they entered, must be Dickens giving us a fair clue that Jasper had left and come back. Yes?

[gilgilis]

Why does Datchery have to be an existing character in disguise? Why can't he be a new character, an investigator set on the trail by Grewgious, whose suspicions of Jasper are already very evident (in fact seem like certainty)? I thought Datchery might be a private detective at first, an ex-policeman, but I'm not so sure. Why does he smilingly acknowledge to Sapsea that he has been in "the diplomatic service"? He's probably concealing his true identity, to some extent, as he seems not to be wearing his own clothes - his surtout is too tight and his hat doesn't fit: and he may be using a pseudonym, which he casually gets the waiter to supply him with from the name inside the hatband. But I'm not sure he's Tartar. He denies having been in the navy; and Tartar is strikingly sunburnt, but we aren't told that Datchery is.

'Datchery' is I think a friend of Grewgious, someone who has seen adventure in the wilder parts of the world. He could even be someone with prior knowledge of the Landless twins - his 'diplomatic' service could have taken him to the east.

[gilgilis]

Ploughing on alone...I think that on the 'night with Durdles', Jasper takes his opportunity to leave the crypt and acquire some quicklime; and he probably accesses Mrs Sapsea's vault, by way of preparation. He may even force open her coffin (there is a hint in Durdles' dream state that his bag of tools is removed). If Jasper then deposits the quicklime where it will be handy, and relocks the vault, then on the night of the murder he only needs to quickly strangle Edwin (with the sinister black scarf), wrap his body and clothes in a sheet - having first removed the watch and shirt-pin which might identify his victim but not finding or removing the incriminating ring - carry him over to the vault, unlock it and dump him in the Sapsea coffin. (This all assumes he has had the chance either to swipe the vault key or make a duplicate. That shouldn't be too hard, since he has access to the Sapsea parlour where the key is kept. At least I think that's where it's kept?)

Anyway, when he relives the murder again in the opium den he recalls the actual event as being like his previous dreams of murdering Edwin, except that it is all over too quickly and there is no begging for life, terror etc. It is also unlike his dreams of murder in that he sees something he hasn't foreseen before, something that strikes him as 'poor' and miserable. Maybe it's when he raises the lid of Mrs Sapsea's coffin for the first time and dumps Edwin's body on her remains? A semi-decomposed corpse might well strike him as mean and wretched.

So, on the night of the murder Edwin goes in on top of Mrs S., the quicklime goes over them both, Jasper relocks the vault and returns to his little room over the gatehouse, where the red light burns all night, and next morning - a bravura performance to shift the blame on Neville.

It's hard not to like Jasper.