One night before Yuletide, Jasper gets Durdles to show him over the Cathedral, from the crypt to the top of the tower, by lantern light, for the satisfaction of his archaeological bent. On their way thither they pass a mound of stuff which the choir-master is warned against treading on, as it is quicklime, which eats up anything brought into contact with it. Jasper has brought with him a bottle, which his companion is encouraged to pay attention to, and, nothing loath, the stonemason presently feels the need of “forty winks.” Jasper volunteers to stay by him while they are taken, but it happens that the clock is striking two in the morning when he is aroused, so that he must have slept a couple of hours. Before the evening of the supper, Rosa and Edwin have met and agreed that the idea of their marriage was a mistake. Let them be as brother and sister to each other.
Landless has it in mind to start off on a walking tour on Christmas Day, and to be away for a fortnight. He carries out the intention, but does not get far on his way when he is overtaken, surrounded and captured by a small body of men, after a struggle in which he uses his heavy stick freely and cracks a skull or two. The stupid fellows have given no intimation of the fact that they are not footpads but acting with authority, as Edwin Drood has disappeared and foul play is suspected on the part of Neville, with whom he was last seen leaving Jasper’s lodgings in the Gate House and going towards the tidal river that runs through Cloisterham. The sapient Mayor is half inclined to commit him to prison, but Mr. Crisparkle’s indignant protest and his promise to be answerable for Neville’s appearance when required bring saner counsel. Mr. Grewgious, a receiver and collector of rents, living and having his office in Staple Inn, London, is Rosa’s guardian, and devoted to her for her dead mother’s sake, whom he had loved and hoped to make his wife, but another man had been luckier than he, winning her. From him, widowed and on his deathbed, Mr. Grewgious had received her betrothal ring, and this he had given Edwin, with some fatherly advice on the seriousness of the step he and Rosa were about to take, a little while before they came to the decision that, in fact, it was too serious for them to venture on. He had been told of this, and hurrying down to Cloisterham on the news of Edwin’s disappearance, he seeks out and informs Jasper of the broken engagement, whereupon the choir-master gasps, openmouthed, and falls down in a fit. Grewgious suspects him of being in love with Rosa, and maybe of much worse. Meanwhile, diligent but vain search has been made for Edwin Drood’s body; the people of Cloisterham have jumped to the illogical conclusion that Landless is guilty, and to avoid the torture of their accusing eyes, he and his sister move to London, taking up their quarters in Staple Inn, near Mr. Grewgious, another neighbour being a retired naval lieutenant, Mr. Tartar, between whom and Neville an acquaintance is struck up. Meanwhile, at Cloisterham, Jasper has openly and violently declared his love to Rosa, who, greatly alarmed, flies to Mr. Grewgious for protection. He receives her with warm affection and comforting assurances of help and safeguard, puts her up for a night at Furnival’s Inn Hotel, and presently establishes her in Bloomsbury lodgings, with Miss Twinkleton as chaperon, at a Mrs. Billickin’s, a terror of a woman, as the school-mistress soon finds out. That Mr. Tartar feels a tender regard for the sweetly fascinating Miss Rosa Bud presently appears, as also that Crisparkle is in love with Helena Landless. At Cloisterham has arrived a Mr. Datchery, who takes up his residence at the Gate House, with Mrs. Tope, John Jasper’s landlady. Whoever he may be, he is disguised by a shock of white hair and other means, and he has a habit of chalking on the inside of a cupboard door certain marks which indicate the progress he makes from day to day in the work of investigation into the Edwin Drood mystery.
The opening chapter of the book describes a scene in an East End opium den, from which a wreck of a man creeps in the early morning. It is kept by a hag who has listened without learning much to the mutterings of this customer, as he lies in a half stupor from the effects of the drug. The last chapter tells of a visit stealthily paid to this den by the choir-master, so that there is little doubt that he was the visitor of whom we read in the first. At this point the unfinished story halts.
S. B. JEVONS.