First published in Vassar Miscellany, Volume XXXVI, Number 9, 1 June 1907

SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS I-XXIII

The story centers about the mysterious disappearance of Edwin Drood, the nephew of John Jasper, choirmaster of Cloisterham cathedral. Jasper and Drood are most devoted to each other. Edwin is promised in marriage to a young girl named Rosa Bud, who is at school in Cloisterham, a small town not far from London. The two young people are not really in love with each other, but being orphans they accept as decisive the wish of their deceased fathers that they marry. Mr. Crisparkle, the Minor Canon of the cathedral, lives with his mother, a dainty little woman called by Dickens a china shepherdess. The Minor Canon takes to live with him a youth, Neville Landless, of a rather fiery disposition, but who is essentially honest and very fond of Mr. Crisparkle. Neville and his sister Helena have been left orphans and their education has been much neglected. Neville is being instructed by the Minor Canon and Helena is sent to the same school with Rosa Bud, with whom she strikes up a warm friendship. Durdles is the stonecutter of the town; a very eccentric character, who spends his time rummaging among the tombs in the cathedral close, the keys to all of which he keeps. Mr. Jasper cultivates his acquaintance and the two make a gruesome midnight expedition among the ruins of the old tombs, during which expedition Jasper drugs Durdles and apparently takes something from him. Deputy is a very ugly small boy with a great dislike for Jasper. Mr. Jasper lives in an old gatehouse with Mr. Tope, the verger of the cathedral, and his wife. Neville and Edwin have a violent discussion about Rosa, almost coming to blows, but are persuaded to be reconciled. They meet at Jasper's house on Christmas eve for that purpose. The night is stormy and the two young men go out to watch the wind over the water. Next morning Edwin is not to be found; no traces are discovered except his watch and chain found near the water's edge. Neville is suspected. Although nothing is proved, he leaves town of his own free will. Before his disappearance, Edwin and Rosa have decided not to marry, but have told no person of this decision except Mr. Grewgious, who is Rosa's guardian. After Edwin's disappearance a strange white-haired gentleman named Datchery appears in Cloisterham. A wretched old woman with a racking cough, who is known to be an opium smoker and to live in London and to know something of Jasper, also appears in Cloisterham. Datchery is evidently watching Mr. Jasper, who confesses to Rosa that he is passionately in love with her. Rosa is much afraid of Jasper and flees to London to her guardian. Mr. Tartar, an ex-lieutenant of the navy and friend of Mr. Crisparkle, falls much in love with Rosa and dislikes Jasper immensely.

CHAPTER XXIV

A CLUE AND A CONFESSION.

Having made way with an excellent breakfast, Mr. Datchery sallies forth for a morning stroll with his hat under his arm. At this time of the morning the little cathedral town of Cloisterham is at its busiest, and on this particular morning Mrs. Tope's boarder finds the inhabitants all much engaged in attending to their various duties, with the single exception of Deputy whom, on turning a corner, he finds stoning the loose stones in the roadway. That extremely ugly young person on catching sight of Mr. Datchery advances rapidly toward him by turning many successive cartwheels with the greatest rapidity until he lands on his feet immediately in front of that gentleman. Then diving into the depths of his disreputable trousers, he produces after much squirming a marvelously dirty scrap of paper on which are scribbled a few almost illegible words.

"That's 'im," says Deputy, "that's where it is. I learned it offen her this mornin'." This scrap of writing is apparently of much value to Mr. Datchery, for after examining it with a quiet smile he carefully folds it, places it in his pocketbook and stows that away in the breast pocket of his jacket; after which he carefully buttons up the same. Then producing half a crown he holds it meditatively between his thumb and forefinger while he remarks, "I have to leave here for a few days and should our friend, Mr. John Jasper, wish to take a journey to London it will be easy, I suppose, to follow him and report all movements to Mr. Grewgious, Staple's Inn, London?"

With that he flips the half-crown into the air, turns, and walks off briskly. With a quick dexterous movement, the hideous small boy catches the coin and giving a shrill whistle of assent and understanding, disappears in the opposite direction.

Mr. Datchery turns his white head in the direction of Minor Canon corner and after ascending the front steps, he knocks vigorously at the door of Mr. Crisparkle's house by means of the shining brass knocker gleaming thereon. Being admitted, he is a long time closeted with the worthy curate and does not come forth again till nearly noon, when he hastens to take the stage for London.

When Mr. Crisparkle appears at the luncheon table after this interview, the china shepherdess notices, with some surprise, lines of deep thought between his usually smiling eyes and an expression of unwonted severity about the corners of his mouth, while he seems distracted in his conversation. She immediately suspects indigestion, but her son is so far from being himself that when, after the meal, she produces her usual remedies from the closet on the stairs, he actually refuses to take them, and as he departs to his study, remarking that he is "perfectly well, perfectly well," leaves the poor lady in a state of great bewilderment. That same evening the second coach for London bears among its passengers a wretched woman with a racking cough and a ruddy faced curate with an abstracted manner.

It is nearly nine in the evening in Staple's Inn, London, and the wind is blowing the dark clouds over the face of the moon, now steeping the court in pitchy blackness and now allowing the moonbeams to render it almost mysterious, almost attractive. Suddenly from the doorway of J. P. T. 1747 there emerge three figures, and as the moon is allowed to peep out at that particular moment, we discover them to be Mr. Grewgious, Mr. Crisparkle and Mr. Tartar.

Let us follow them and see on what errand they are bent this late hour of the night. Issuing from the court, they proceed eastward through many miserable streets and alleys till they finally arrive at a miserable court, especially miserable among many such, and stop before the entrance to a broken staircase. All this is not accomplished without much reference to a dirty scrap of paper in the possession of Mr. Tartar.

The three hesitate only for an instant to make sure that they are right, before ascending the stair. At the top, Mr. Tartar, taking the lead, pushes open the door of a very small, very squalid chamber lighted only by the flickering gleams from a smoldering fire on the dirty hearth. He pushes open the door and asks, "Are you alone here?" A querulous voice answers in the affirmative from the further side of the hearth and the three enter softly.

"Ay, I'm most allus alone now, deary, the business is so bad, so bad; sit ye down, and I'll have a pipe ready for ye soon, deary, very soon, —what's that? Are there more on ye nor one?"

The dark figure of a haggard woman rises out of the shadow with a startled cry, as the three men become more distinguishable in the firelight. But Mr. Tartar (for he seems to be the leader in this expedition) calms her, perhaps with money, and assures her that the three are come for no bad purpose, until she finally sinks, down again by the hearth, overtaken by a fit of coughing. "Now," says Mr. Tartar, when the coughing has subsided, "let us understand each other. We have not come to harm you nor to smoke your opium, but to learn the answers to a few questions, to hear a story which, I think, you will be able to tell us." '

There is silence for a moment then; "Ay, but I tell no stories to the likes o' you. I save 'em for my customers. Ay, deary, and many a pretty story I know, too." As the fire flames up a film is seen to pass over her eyes and she mutters, "Stories of death, mostly, stories of death —but I keep 'em for my customers. I don't tell 'em to the likes of you."

"Not for gold, much gold?" remarks Mr. Tartar quietly, as he stretches out toward her his hand filled with coins which gleam fitfully in the uncertain light.

The woman makes a quick greedy movement forward but Mr. Tartar's hand closes on the money and he says, "The story first and then we will pay you well."

The woman eyes him like an animal, furtively, suspiciously, but the sight of the money again disclosed to view is too much for her and she murmurs: "I'll tell'ee, deary, I'll tell, but take a bit of a smoke, yell like a smoke, and my stories is pleasanter when ye're resting, deary."

"No, we want no opium as I said before, but if you will answer our questions truthfully we'll pay you well. There's something to begin on," tossing her a coin. "Now tell me, do you have one Mr. John Jasper among your customers ?"

The woman starts and asks: "Are ye a friend to him?"

"No. Enemy," is the quiet answer.

"Oh! I hate him too, deary. I hate him, too. Oh, I'll tell 'cc o' him. I knows 'im, I knows 'im well, I do, better nor all the folks in London," and she nods her head at the fire as it burns, casting red splashes of light upon the broken hearth, that might be spots of blood, except that they disappear in an instant. "I'll tell 'ee o' 'im, I will," she continues, "See this 'ere," pulling aside her ragged garment, she discloses an ugly, livid scar across her withered shoulder. '"E did that, 'e did. 'E was mad with the opium and 'e struck me with a knife from off a Chinaman, 'e did. 'E struck me just as 'e 'as so often struck the empty air with 'is fist when 'e's going into 'is opium dreams. I'll not forgive 'im that; I'll not."

Mr. Tartar presses near her and lays another coin in her palm, saying, "Tell us of those opium dreams of his. Tell us and we'll revenge you."

So she tells them, in short snatches with horribly realistic illustrations, interrupted now and again by violent fits of coughing, when she rocks to and fro, whimpering that her "lungs is so bad, so bad." In this squalid hole, from the lips of such a wretch, they learn of the tragedy enacted in the cathedral close that boisterous, windy Christmas eve in Cloisterham. From the woman's words they can picture the scene. They can see in the darkness the figures of nephew and uncle. They can hear the soft words, "Dearest Ned, let us go home through the close, 'twill be shorter that way." Then that blow with some murderous instrument, so readily illustrated by the woman's skinny arm. They see the murdered and the murderer for an instant all alone in the night; then the ghastly hiding of the body, the removal of the watch, chain and shirt pin; the locking of the ponderous doors and the destruction of the key. Yes, she insists 'tis a key which he has talked about. Can it be the key to some tomb, some monument of death in that ruined church yard? Who can tell? For there were no witnesses. The wind alone caught the one cry, the one word, "Jack," and it whisked that away and about till it has become the mere ghost of a cry.

The three men rise dazed with horror, and after paying liberally for their story, betake themselves silently back through the many miserable streets and alleys, ever westward till they enter again in under the archway of J. P. T. 1747

CHAPTER XXV

IN THUNDER, LIGHTNING AND IN RAIN.

Toward noon of the second day after the strange expedition of our three friends, we discover Mr. Grewgious seated by his open window apparently in deep thought. He has just seen Rosa and Helena depart with Mr. Tartar for a day's expedition on that worthy sailor's yacht. He is thinking over the events of the last few days, when suddenly a piercingly shrill whistle breaks the stillness of Staple's Inn court and a cry of "widdy, widdy wake-cock warning!" followed by a few rattling stones usher in a very dirty, very hideous small boy who enquires of a porter lounging near, "Hi you, do Mister Grewgious live 'ere?"

"If 'e do 'e'd not see you at any rate," retorts the lounging porter, shifting his position more easily to look his contempt at the hideous small boy.

"You lie, he will," is the answer, and catching sight of Mr. Grewgious' sign over the door opposite, Deputy, for it is he, drives into J. P. T's. doorway without paying the least attention to that gentleman's initials above his head. Mr. Grewgious receives his strange visitor with much more interest than might be expected from so very angular a man toward so ugly a bit of humanity. Deputy informs him that Mr. Jasper is at that moment in London and might be expected to make a visit to "Her Royal Highness, the Princess Puffer" that very evening.

"And have you seen her? Does she know of his arrival?" questions Mr. Grewgious.

"Yep. I've saw her," replies Deputy, twisting himself into the most awful contortions indicative of his uneasiness at being in a spot where there are no stones to throw and nothing to throw them at. "But," he adds, "she's a dead 'un, you bet. 'Smoked 'erself out, she did," with more contortions horrible to see.

Mr. Grewgious starts, "Does Mr. Jasper know this?"

"Not 'e," says Deputy.

"Thank you, thank you," meditatively from Mr. Grewgious. "Here, take this coin and see that you let us know when Mr. Jasper leaves his lodgings this evening."

Deputy snatches the money and disappears instantly, relieving his strained nerves with an extra volley of stones as he darts from the court.

The morning and early afternoon have been bright although sultry, but as the hours pass a great leaden mass of clouds gathers in the west and advances slowly toward the zenith, slowly but so steadily as to depress one with a sense of impending calamity, of an inevitable doom which sweeps all before it. The sun sets some two hours before his usual time, after which the storm advances with greater rapidity, heralded by low mutterings of distant thunder.

Mr. Tartar and his two fair companions, in order to avoid a wetting, return therefore rather earlier than they had expected. Rosa is safely delivered over to Miss Twinkleton's care, and Mr. Tartar and Helena proceed to Staple's Inn to find awaiting them, instead of Neville, Mr. Crisparkle, come up to town by the afternoon coach. From Helena's expression one could guess that to her this is certainly not an unpleasant surprise. Neville, it seems, had gone for a walk not expecting his sister to return so soon. Therefore Mr. Crisparkle obligingly offers to bear Helena company while Mr. Tartar and Mr. Grewgious attend to some very important business which engages their attention.

As night draws on Neville Landless who has sought distraction in an aimless ramble through the worst parts of the great metropolis, finds that he is unable immediately to locate the position of his lodgings. He hurries on, too proud to ask his way, and as he vainly seeks for a familiar street or alley the storm clouds hasten to cover the whole sky and a few large drops splash down, all of which renders Neville's quest the more difficult.

Suddenly the storm breaks furiously. The rain descends in sheets, not drops, and the thunder follows so immediately the livid flashes of lightning that the very ground seems to shake. Neville dashes into a squalid court in search of shelter, and seeing for an instant during a flash, a doorway near at hand, he dives into it regardless of consequences. It is a very dirty, very ruinous doorway which leads to a rickety stair, but it serves him for a shelter from the storm. As he stands there waiting for a lull, a man dashes into the doorway and up the stairs without perceiving his presence.

Storms of such violence seldom last a great length of time, and already the thunder is growing more distant. Neville is about to issue forth and resume his search for Staple's Inn court when a wild figure rushes past him out the door and stands for an instant in the court as though uncertain where to go. A vivid flash of lightning — and he sees before him the white face of John Jasper distorted with passion and rendered doubly ghastly in the strange light. At that instant three men spring out of the darkness toward that wild figure, and a strangely familiar voice cries, "John Jasper, I arrest thee in the name of the law for the murder of thy nephew, Edwin Drood." For an instant Jasper stands like a fox driven to bay, then, before anyone of the three figures can prevent it, there is a quick movement of his hand, the report of a pistol awakes the echoes in the squalid court, and John Jasper, former choirmaster in Cloisterham Cathedral, pitches forward dead at the feet of Mr. Grewgious, shot through the heart by his own hand.

CHAPTER XXVI

CONCERNING THE ORDINARY COURSE OF TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES

It is customary among ladies when they have expressed themselves strongly on a certain subject and find on later evidence, that they are entirely mistaken in their view; it is customary, I say, for such ladies never to admit themselves in the wrong, but to impress upon those around them that whatever they may have said they knew from the very beginning that affairs would turn out as they did; yes, they knew from the very beginning, only they didn't wish to say. Such is the consistency of the feminine intellect. Thus we find dainty little Mrs. Crisparkle claiming that she never could abide that horrible Mr. Jasper. She had always said he would come to no good end, and as for Neville Landless — why young blood will have its way, and though she couldn't say she entirely approved of his hasty temper, yet she did like spirit, and the young man was very fond of his tutor; which last quality made up for many little failings. The opinion of her son was hers in regard to Helena, which opinion, I may say, was so favorable as to finally bring about the solemnizing of a very quiet little wedding in Cloisterham cathedral and the introduction of a second Mrs. Crisparkle into the curate's house in Minor Canon Corner.

If one had attended this quiet little wedding one might have seen among those sitting in the old carved pews, a very angular gentleman who plentifully smoothed his head and beamed upon a blushing young rosebud of a girl who clung tenderly and affectionately to the strong arm of Lieutenant Tartar, late of Her Majesty's navy, who in his turn watched with the pride of ownership every movement of his pretty bride. Also there was present the brother of Helena, a little pale, a little worn-looking, but with a determined manly expression of countenance which presaged well for his coming university career. He looked perhaps a little sadly at Mrs. Tartar, but then life was all before him and he was yet very young.

After the fateful night when London was struck by that terrifically violent thunder storm, the like of which the oldest inhabitant could not recall, since that night when John Jasper, murderer, shot himself through the heart; the old town of Cloisterham has settled back to its old quiet rut and the days again pass smoothly.

Some stir and excitement there was when Jasper's rooms were searched for that mysterious key of which the wretched opium woman had spoken; and then Mr. Durdles discovered (rather late, as it seemed to Crisparkle) that the key to the late Mrs. Sapsea's monument was no longer in his possession and could not be found anywhere. And, if, dear reader, you should ever visit Cloisterham and behold that noble monument erected by Mr. Sapsea in memory of his beloved wife, you may wonder of what scene that monument was a silent witness on a certain stormy Christmas eve. But it is doubtful whether the secret which is shut in behind those keyless doors will ever be disclosed.