THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD

OUTLINE

Chapter In a wretched opium den, early one morning, John Jasper I slowly shook off his stupor and lay listening to the mutterings of his companions. He wanted to know how much of what they said in their sleep could be understood, and it was with evident satisfaction that he found their words unintelligible.

II

John Jasper, music master, was Lay Precentor at the Cathedral of Cloisterham, and to all the Cloisterham world a thoroughly respectable man much wrapped up in the welfare of his nephew, Edwin Drood. Edwin, an orphan and his uncle's ward, was engaged to be married to Rosa Bud, who was also an orphan. The fathers of the young people had arranged the affair, which Rosa and Edwin, with youthful dislike for constraint, found rather irksome to live up to.

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The Cloisterham world, for Mr. Jasper's purposes (which now began to develop), included even so humble a citizen as Durdles, stone-mason, habitual drunkard, and keeper of the key to the cathedral crypt. Jasper began making his way with Durdles by showing a friendly interest in the latter's hobby, the finding of forgotten tombs.

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On the evening of the arrival in Cloisterham of Helena Landless and her brother Neville, Mr. Crisparkle, with whom Neville was to read, gave a small dinner in their honor, at which they met Jasper, Edwin, and Rosa Bud. By the end of the evening the two young ladies had become good friends, and Rosa had VII confided to Helena the fear she had of Jasper because of his love for her.

VIII

Edwin and Neville, on their part, failed to hit it off so well together; for Neville's attempt to congratulate Edwin upon his engagement was met with a rebuff, and a quarrel ensued. Jasper appeared on the scene in time to act, to all appearances, as peacemaker, but in reality to foment the trouble; rumor of IX which was abroad by the next morning in Cloisterham. Now Rosa thought a great deal about this quarrel, with the feeling that she was involved in it, in some way, through being in a

false position as to her marriage engagement. It was with great relief, therefore, that she learned from her guardian, Mr. Grewgious, that her betrothal was not binding unless she and Edwin voluntarily made it so. Unfortunately she told no one of her state of mind, as she wished Edwin to know it first.

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Mr. Crisparkle, too, thought a great deal about the quarrel, and set his mind upon bringing a complete reconciliation between the persons concerned in it. This determination was strengthened by the discovery, from Neville himself, that the latter was in love with Rosa, and that part of his anger against Edwin was due to that fact. Having obtained Neville's promise to forgive and forget, Mr. Crisparkle won Jasper to try to effect the same end with Edwin, and the meeting between the young men was arranged for Christmas Eve, at Jasper's lodgings.

XI

Christmas was drawing nigh, and Edwin, on his way to Cloisterham, called on Mr. Grewgious in London by way of courteous attention to the guardian of his fiancée. Mr. Grewgious, though an angular man and unimaginative, had his ward's happiness very much at heart, and took this opportunity to talk with Edwin against the wicked folly of entering lightly into an engagement of marriage. In conclusion, he gave into Edwin's keeping a jewelled ring that had been the engagement ring of Rosa's mother, and that was now destined for Rosa herself. And he so impressed upon Edwin that the ring was rightly to be a symbol of love, that Edwin began at last to question seriously his motives for binding himself to Rosa.

In the mean while Jasper was quietly pursuing his ends, XII and making use of Durdles as guide for a moonlight ramble through the crypt of the cathedral, — an innocent journey enough had not Durdles fallen into a drunken sleep in the crypt, thus allowing Jasper to make what use of the keys he wished.

Mr. Grewgious's words about their engagement to Edwin XIII and Rosa, at different times, had so wrought upon the young people that they readily agreed to remain mere friends and to break any closer tie. On the plea that the news would pain Jasper, they decided to ask Mr. Grewgious to tell him, an unwise course as events proved. Edwin, of course, retained the jewelled ring, in order to deliver it over again into Mr. Grewgious's safe-keeping.

Christmas Eve came. Neville spent the day in setting his XIV room in order and preparing for a journey afoot to be begun

the next day; Edwin spent it in taking sauntering leave of ancient Cloisterham, in which he ran across a haggard old woman who, in return for money to buy opium, warned him that some one named Ned was in great danger of his life; Jasper spent it in preparing

for his two guests. In the evening the three came together. The next morning Edwin was missing, and Neville had started on his journey.

Jasper raised so hideous a cry of foul play over the disapXV pearance of his nephew, that the first thing done was to ar

XVI

rest and detain Neville on suspicion of murder. While search for Edwin was going on, Jasper learned from Mr. Grewgious of the arrangement arrived at between Rosa and Edwin, a bit of news which affected him so strangely that he swooned away when he heard it. The search for Edwin was well-nigh fruitless, revealing nothing but a watch and shirt-pin which were identified as his; but nothing was proven against Neville, who was, nevertheless, obliged to leave Cloisterham. He took lodgings in London XVII very near Mr. Grewgious, who also discovered that Jasper sometimes occupied rooms in his neighborhood.

XVIII

At about this time a Mr. Datchery - a single briefer, living on his means - appeared in Cloisterham, secured lodgings of Jasper's landlady, and rapidly enlarged his acquaintance with the townspeople. He seemed to have some curious interest in the mystery of Edwin Drood's disappearance.

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It was in consequence of a proposal of marriage from Jasper that Rosa fled to her guardian in London, in whose mind various circumstances were serving to rouse suspicion of Jasper. For the latter, in his declaration to Rosa, had used threats scarcely consonant with purity of motives and uprightness of conduct. Accordingly Mr. Grewgious set about circumventing Jasper, settling Rosa in London.

XXI

Having concluded the bargain for rooms, he wrote and XXII signed a few lines of agreement, and requested Mrs. Billickin to put her signature to the document also, "Christian and surname in full.

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'Mr. Grewgious,” said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of candor, no, sir. You must excuse the Christian name."

Mr. Grewgious stared at her.

"The door-plate is used as a protection," said Mrs. Billickin, "and acts as such; and go from it I will not."

Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.

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No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as this 'ouse is known indefinite as Billickin's, and so long as it is a doubt with the riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin' near the streetdoor or down the airy, and what his weight and size, so long I feel safe. But commit myself to a solitary female statement no, miss! Nor would you for a moment wish," said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of injury, "to take that advantage

of your sex, if you was not brought to it by inconsiderate example."

Rosa, reddening as if she had made some disgraceful attempt to overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grewgious to rest content with any signature; and accordingly, in a baronial way, the sign-manual BILLICKIN got appended to the document.

XXIII

Once more the scene opens in the opium den. This time, however, the haggard keeper of the place watched and listened; nor did she find Jasper's mutterings unintelligible. This time, moreover, she traced him, when he left her den, to Cloisterham, where she fell in with Mr. Datchery, who discovered her hatred for the Lay Precentor, and laid up the discovery as important among some others he had made.

INDEX TO CHARACTERS

Bazzard, Mr. Clerk to Mr. Grewgious, over whom he possesses a strange power. He is a pale, puffy-faced, dark-haired person of thirty, with big, dark eyes wholly wanting in lustre, and with a dissatisfied, doughy complexion, that seems to ask to be sent to the baker's. The secret of his influence over Mr. Grewgious is thus explained by that gentleman in a conversation he has with Miss Rosa Bud:

"We were speaking of Mr. Bazzard. . . . What do you think Mr. Bazzard has done?"

"Oh, dear!” cried Rosa, drawing her chair a little nearer, and her mind reverting to Jasper, "nothing dreadful, I hope?" "He has written a play," said Mr. Grewgious in a solemn whisper," a tragedy."

Rosa seemed much relieved.

"And nobody," pursued Mr. Grewgious in the same tone," will hear, on any account whatever, of bringing it out."

Rosa looked reflective, and nodded her head slowly, as who should say, "Such things are, and why are they!"

“Now, you know," said Mr. Grewgious, "I could n't write a play."

"Not a bad one, sir?" asked Rosa innocently, with her eyebrows again in action.

"No. If I was under sentence of decapitation, and was about to be instantly decapitated, and an express arrived with a pardon for the condemned convict Grewgious, if he wrote a play, I should

be under the necessity of resuming the block, and begging the executioner to proceed to extremities, meaning," said Mr. Grewgious, passing his hand under his chin, "the singular number, and this extremity."

Rosa appeared to consider what she would do if the awkward supposititious case were hers.

Consequently," said Mr. Grewgious, "Mr. Bazzard would have a sense of my inferiority to himself under any circumstances; but when I am his master, you know, the case is greatly aggravated.” Mr. Grewgious shook his head seriously, as if he felt the offence to be a little too much, though of his own committing.

"How came you to be his master, sir?" asked Rosa.

"A question that naturally follows," said Mr. Grewgious. "Let's talk. Mr. Bazzard's father, being a Norfolk farmer, would have furiously laid about him with a flail, a pitchfork, and every agricultural implement available for assaulting purposes, on the slightest hint of his son's having written a play. So the son, bringing to me the father's rent (which I receive), imparted his secret, and pointed out that he was determined to pursue his genius, and that it would put him in peril of starvation, and that he was not formed for it."

"For pursuing his genius, sir?"

It was

"No, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious, -" for starvation. impossible to deny the position that Mr. Bazzard was not formed to be starved; and Mr. Bazzard then pointed out that it was desirable that I should stand between him and a fate so perfectly unsuited to his formation. In that way, Mr. Bazzard became my clerk, and he feels it very much."

"I am glad he is grateful," said Rosa.

"I did n't quite mean that, my dear. I mean that he feels the degradation. There are some other geniuses that Mr. Bazzard has become acquainted with, who have also written tragedies, which, likewise, nobody will, on any account whatever, hear of bringing out; and these choice spirits dedicate their plays to one another in a highly panegyrical manner. Mr. Bazzard has been the subject of one of these dedications. Now, you know, I never had a play dedicated to me!"

Rosa looked at him as if she would have liked him to be the recipient of a thousand dedications.

"Which again, naturally, rubs against the grain of Mr. Bazzard," said Mr. Grewgious. "He is very short with me sometimes, and then I feel that he is meditating, 'This blockhead is my master! a fellow who could n't write a tragedy on pain of death, and who will never have one dedicated to him with the