First published in Pall Mall Magazine, Vol. 37 (1906)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a story, or, to speak more correctly, the half of a story, that has excited so much general interest and so many speculations as to its ultimate disclosures, that it has given rise to various imaginary theories on the part of several clever writers; and to much discussion among those who are not writers, but merely fervent admirers and thoughtful readers of my father’s writings. All these attach different meanings to the extraordinary number of clues my father has offered them to follow, and they are even more keen at the present day than they were when the book made its first appearance to find their way through the tangled maze and arrive at the very heart of the mystery. Among the numerous books, pamphlets, and articles that have been written upon Edwin Drood, there are some that are extremely interesting and well worth attention, for they contain many clever and possible suggestions, and although they do not entirely convince us, yet they add still more to the almost painful anxiety we all feel in wandering through the lonely precincts of Cloisterham Cathedral, or along the banks of the river that runs through Cloisterham town and leads to the Weir of which we are told in the story.

In following these writers to the end of their subtle imaginings as to how the mystery might be solved, we may sometimes be inclined to pause for an instant and ask ourselves whether my father did not perhaps intend his story to have an ending less complicated, although quite as interesting, as any that are suggested. We find ourselves turning to John Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens to help us in our perplexity, and this is what we read in his chapter headed ‘Last Book.’ Mr. Forster begins by telling us that Edwin Drood was to be published in twelve illustrated monthly parts, and that it closed prematurely with the sixth number, which was itself underwritten by two pages; therefore my father had exactly six numbers and two pages to write when he left his little châlet in the shrubbery of Gad’s Hill Place on 8th June 1870, to which he never returned. Mr. Forster goes on to say: ‘His first fancy for the tale was expressed in July (meaning the July of 1869), in a letter which runs thus:

‘“What should you think of the idea of a story beginning in this way?—Two people, boy and girl, or very young, going apart from one another, pledged to be married after many years—at the end of the book. The interest to arise out of the tracing of their separate ways and the impossibility of telling what will be done with that impending fate.”’

This idea my father relinquished, although he left distinct traces of it in his tale; and in a letter to Mr. Forster, dated 6th August 1869, tells him:

‘I laid aside the fancy I told you of, and 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.’

Mr. Forster then says that he immediately afterwards learnt that the story was to be ‘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, when its temptations were to be dwelt upon as if not he, the culprit, but some other man, were the tempted. 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. Discovery by the murderer of the utter needlessness of the murder for its object, was to follow hard upon commission of the deed; but all discovery of the murderer was to be baffled till towards the close, when, by means of a gold ring which had resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which he had thrown the body, not only the person murdered was to be identified, but the locality of the crime and the man who committed it.’

Mr. Forster adds a little information as to the marriages at the close of the book, and makes use of the expression ‘I think’ in speaking of Neville Landless, as though he were not quite certain of what he remembered concerning him. This ‘I think’ has been seized upon by some of Mr. Forster’s critics, who appear to argue that because he did not clearly recollect one detail of the story he may therefore have been mistaken in the whole. But we see for ourselves that Mr. Forster is perfectly well informed as to the nature of the plot, and the fate of the two principal characters concerned, the murdered and the murderer; and the only thing upon which he is not positive is the ending of Neville Landless, to which he confesses in the words ‘I think,’ thus making his testimony to the more important facts the more impressive. If we have any doubts as to whether Mr. Forster correctly stated what he was told, we have only to turn to the story of Edwin Drood, and we find, as far as it goes, that his statement is entirely corroborated by what we read in the book.

If those who are interested in the subject will carefully read what I have quoted, they will not be able to detect any word or hint from my father that it was upon the Mystery alone that he relied for the interest and originality of his idea. The originality was to be shown, as he tells us, in what we may call the psychological description the murderer gives us of his temptations, temperament, and character, as if told by another; and my father speaks openly of the ring to Mr. Forster. Moreover, he refers to it often in his story, and we all recognise it, whatever our other convictions may be, as the instrument by which Jasper’s wickedness and guilt are to be established in the end. I do not mean to imply that the mystery itself had no strong hold on my father’s imagination; but, greatly as he was interested in the intricacies of that tangled skein, the information he voluntarily gave to Mr. Forster, from whom he had withheld nothing for thirty-three years, certainly points to the fact that he was quite as deeply fascinated and absorbed in the study of the criminal Jasper, as in the dark and sinister crime that has given the book its title. And he also speaks to Mr. Forster of the murder of a nephew by an uncle. He does not say that he is uncertain whether he shall save the nephew, but has evidently made up his mind that the crime is to be committed. And so he told his plot to Mr. Forster, as he had been accustomed to tell his plots for years past; and those who knew him must feel it impossible to believe that in this, the last year of his life, he should suddenly become underhand, and we might say treacherous, to his old friend, by inventing for his private edification a plot that he had no intention of carrying into execution. This is incredible, and the nature of the friendship that existed between Mr. Forster and himself makes the idea unworthy of consideration.

Mr. Forster was devotedly attached to my father, but as years passed by this engrossing friendship made him a little jealous of his confidence, and more than a little exacting in his demands upon it. My father was perfectly aware of this weakness in his friend, and although the knowledge of it made him smile at times, and even joke about it when we were at home and alone, he was always singularly tenderhearted where Mr. Forster was concerned, and was particularly careful never to wound the very sensitive nature of one who, from the first moment of their acquaintance, had devoted his time and energy to making my father’s path in life as smooth as so intricate a path could be made. In all business transactions Mr. Forster acted for him, and generally brought him through these troubles triumphantly, whereas, if left to himself, his impetuosity and impatience might have spoilt all chances of success; while in all his private troubles my father instinctively turned to his friend, and even when not invariably following his advice, had yet so much confidence in his judgment as to be rendered not only uneasy but unhappy if Mr. Forster did not approve of the decision at which he ultimately arrived. From the beginning of their friendship to the end of my father’s life the relations between the two friends remained unchanged; and the notion that has been spread abroad that my father wilfully misled Mr. Forster in what he told him of the plot of Edwin Drood should be abandoned, as it does not correspond with the knowledge of those who understood the dignity of my father’s character, and were also aware of the perfectly frank terms upon which he lived with Mr. Forster.

If my father again changed his plan for the story of Edwin Drood the first thing he would naturally do would be to write to Mr. Forster and inform him of the alteration. We might imagine for an instant that he would perhaps desire to keep the change as a surprise for his friend, but what I have just stated with regard to Mr. Forster’s character renders this supposition out of the question, as my father knew for a certainty that his jealousy would debar him from appreciating such a surprise, and that he would in all probability strongly resent what he might with justice be allowed to consider as a piece of unnecessary caution on my father’s part. That he did not write to Mr. Forster to tell him of any divergence from his second plan for the book we all know, and we know also that my eldest brother, Charles, positively declared that he had heard from his father’s lips that Edwin Drood was dead. Here, therefore, are two very important witnesses to a fact that is still doubted by those who never met my father, and were never impressed by the grave sincerity with which he would have given this assurance.

It is very often those who most doubt Mr. Forster’s accuracy on this point who are in the habit of turning to his book when they are in the search of facts to establish some theory of their own; and they do not hesitate to do this, because they know that whatever views they may hold upon the work itself, or the manner in which it is written, absolute truth is to be found in its pages. Why should they refuse, therefore, to believe a statement made upon one page of his three volumes, when they willingly and gratefully accept the rest if it is to their interest to do so? This is a difficult question to answer, but it is not without importance when we are discussing the subject of Edwin Drood. On pages 425 and 426 of the third volume of Mr. Forster’s Life is to be found the simple explanation of my father’s plot for his story, as given to him by my father himself. It is true that Mr. Forster speaks from remembrance, but how often does he not speak from remembrance, and yet how seldom are we inclined to doubt his word? Only here, because what he tells us does not exactly fit in with our preconceived views as to how the tale shall be finished, are we disposed to quarrel with him, for the simple reason that we flatter ourselves we have discovered a better ending to the book than the one originally intended for it by the author. And so we put his statement aside and ignore it, while we grope in the dark for a thing we shall never find; and we obstinately refuse to allow even the little glimmer of light my father has himself thrown upon the obscurity to help us in our search. It was not, I imagine, for the intricate working out of his plot alone that my father cared to write this story; but it was through his wonderful observation of character, and his strange insight into the tragic secrets of the human heart, that he desired his greatest triumph to be achieved.

I do not write upon these things because I have any fresh or startling theories to offer upon the subject of Edwin Drood. I cannot say that I am without my own opinions, but I am fully conscious that after what has been already so ably said, they would have but little interest for the general public; so I shrink from venturing upon any suggestions respecting the solution of my father’s last book. My chief object in writing is to remind the readers of this paper that there are certain facts connected with this story that cannot lightly be put aside, and these facts are to be found in John Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens, and in the declaration made by my brother Charles. Having known both Mr. Forster and my brother intimately, I cannot for a moment believe that either of them would speak or write that which he did not know to be strictly true; and it is on these grounds alone that I think I have a right to be heard when I insist upon the assertion that Edwin Drood was undoubtedly murdered by his uncle Jasper. As to the unravelling of the mystery, and the way in which the murder was perpetrated, we are all at liberty to have our own views, seeing that no explanations were as yet arrived at in the story; but we should remember that only vague speculations can be indulged in when we try to imagine them for ourselves.

It has been pointed out, and very justly, that although Jasper removed the watch, chain, and scarf-pin from Edwin’s body, there would possibly remain on it money of some kind, keys, and the metal buttons on his clothes, which the action of the quicklime could not destroy, and by which his identity would be made known. This has been looked upon as an oversight, a mere piece of forgetfulness on my father’s part. But remembering, as I do very well, what he often said, that the most clever criminals were constantly detected through some small defect in their calculations, I cannot but think it most probable that this was not an oversight, but was intended to lead up to the pet theory that he so frequently mentioned whenever a murder case was brought to trial. After reading Edwin Drood many times, as most of us have read it, we must, I think, come to the conclusion that not a word of this tale was written without full consideration; that in this story at least my father left nothing to chance, and that therefore the money, and the buttons, were destined to take their proper place in the book, and might turn out to be a weak spot in Jasper’s well-arranged and complicated plot, the weak spot my father insisted upon, as being inseparable from the commission of a great crime, however skilfully planned. The keys spoken of need not be taken seriously into account, for Edwin was a careless young fellow, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that he did not always carry them upon his person; he was staying with his uncle, and he may have left them in the portmanteau, which was most likely at the time of the murder lying unfastened in his room, with the key belonging to it in the lock. It would be unfair to suggest that my father wrote unadvisedly of this or that, for he had still the half of his story to finish, and plenty of time, as he thought, in which to gather up the broken threads and weave them into a symmetrical and harmonious whole, which he was so eminently capable of completing.

That my father’s brain was more than usually clear and bright during the writing of Edwin Drood, no one who lived with him could possibly doubt; and the extraordinary interest he took in the development of this story was apparent in all that he said or did, and was often the subject of conversation between those who anxiously watched him as he wrote, and feared that he was trying his strength too far. For although my father’s death was sudden and unexpected, the knowledge that his bodily health was failing had been for some time too forcibly brought to the notice of those who loved him, for them to be blind to the fact that the book he was now engaged in, and the concentration of his devotion and energy upon it, were a tax too great for his fast-ebbing strength. Any attempt to stay him, however, in work that he had undertaken was as idle as stretching one’s hands to a river and bidding it cease to flow; and beyond a few remonstrances now and again urged, no such attempt was made, knowing as we did that it would be entirely useless. And so the work sped on, carrying with it my father’s few remaining days of life, and the end came all too soon, as it was bound to come, to one who never ceased to labour for those who were dear to him, in the hope of gaining for them that which he was destined never to enjoy. And in my father’s grave lies buried the secret of his story.

The scene of the Eight Club, which Mr. Forster discovered after his death, in which there figure two new characters, Mr. Peartree and Mr. Kimber, bears no relation as we read it to the unfolding of the plot; and although the young man Poker, who is also introduced in this fragment for the first time, seems to be of more significance, we see too little of him to be certain that we may not already have made his acquaintance. In Mr. Sapsea my father evidently took much pleasure, and we are here reminded of the note made for him in the first number-plan of Edwin Drood: ‘Mr. Sapsea. Old Tory jackass. Connect Jasper with him. (He will want a solemn donkey by and by.)’ My father also wanted the solemn donkey, and not only brought him in for the purposes of his story, but because, as in the case of ‘the Billickin,’ he took delight in dwelling upon the absurdities of the character.

As to the cover of Edwin Drood, that has been the subject of so much discussion there is very little to tell. It was designed and drawn by Mr. Charles A. Collins, my first husband. The same reasons that prevented me from teasing my father with questions respecting his story made me refrain from asking any of Mr. Collins; but from what he said I certainly gathered that he was not in possession of my father’s secret, although he had made his designs from my father’s directions. There are a few things in this cover that I fancy have been a little misunderstood. In the book only Jasper and Neville Landless are described as dark young men. Edwin Drood is fair, and so is Crisparkle. Tartar is burnt by the sun; but when Rosa asks ‘the Unlimited head chambermaid’ at the hotel in Furnival’s Inn if the gentleman who has just called is dark, she replies:

‘No, Miss, more of a brown gentleman.’

‘You are sure not with black hair?’ asked Rosa, taking courage.

‘Quite sure of that, Miss. Brown hair and blue eyes.’

Now in a drawing it would be difficult to make a distinction between the fair hair of Edwin and the slightly darker hair of Tartar; and in the picture, where we see a girl—Rosa we imagine her to be—seated in a garden, the young man at her feet is, I feel pretty sure, intended for Tartar. Edwin it cannot be, nor Neville, as has been supposed, for he was decidedly dark. Besides this, Neville would not have told his affection to Rosa, for Helena was far too quick-witted not to understand from Rosa’s first mention of Tartar that she is already in love with him, and she would have warned and saved the brother to whom she was so ardently attached from making any such confession. The figure is not intended for Jasper, because we know that Jasper did not move from the sun-dial in the scene where he declares his mad passion for Rosa, and Jasper had black hair and whiskers. And, again, the drawing cannot be meant to represent Helena and Crisparkle, for the young man is not in clerical dress. The figures going up the stairs are still more difficult to make out; but there can be little doubt that the active higher one is the same young man we see at Rosa’s feet, and must therefore be Tartar. Of the remaining two, one may be Crisparkle, although there is still no clerical attire, and the other either Grewgious or Neville, though the drawing certainly bears but little resemblance to either of those characters.

The lower and middle picture is, of course, the great scene of the book; but whether the young man standing calm, and inexorable as Fate, is intended to be the ghost of Edwin as seen by Jasper in his half-dazed and drugged condition, or whether it is Helena dressed as Datchery, as one writer has ingeniously suggested (although there are reasons in the story against the supposition that Helena is Datchery, and many to support the theory that the ‘old buffer’ is Bazzard),—these are puzzles that will never be cleared up, except to the minds of those who have positively determined that they hold the clue to the mystery, and can only see its interpretation from one point of view. The girl’s figure with streaming hair, in the picture where the word ‘Lost’ is written, has been supposed to represent Rosa after her parting from Edwin; but it may more likely, I think, indicate some scene in the book which has yet to be described in the story. This is another enigma; but my father, it may be presumed, intended to puzzle his readers by the cover, and he had every legitimate right to do so, for had his meaning been made perfectly clear ‘the interest of the book would be gone.’ Some surprise has been expressed because Mr. Forster did not ask Mr. Collins for the meaning of his designs; but if he already knew the plot, why should he seek information from Mr. Collins? particularly as my father may have told him that he had not disclosed the secret of his story to his illustrators, for I believe I am right in affirming that Mr. Luke Fildes was no better informed as to the plan of the book than was Mr. Collins.

I am unfortunately not acquainted with much that has been written about Edwin Drood, for the story was so painfully associated with my father’s death and the sorrow of that time that after first reading it I could never bear to look into the book again till about two months ago, when I found myself obliged to do so; and then my thoughts flew back to the last occasion when my father mentioned it in my hearing.

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There is one other fact connected with my father and Edwin Drood that I think my readers would like to know, and I must be forgiven if I again speak from my own experience in order to relate it. Upon reading the book once more, as I have already told, after an interval of a great number of years, the story took such entire possession of me that for a long time I could think of nothing else; and one day, my aunt, Miss Hogarth, being with me, I asked her if she knew anything more definite than I did as to how the ending was to be brought about. For I should explain that when my father was unusually reticent we seldom, if ever, attempted to break his silence by remarks or hints that might lead him to suppose that we were anxious to learn what he had no doubt good reasons for desiring to keep from us. And we made it a point of honour among ourselves never, in talking to him on the subject of Edwin Drood, to show the impatience we naturally felt to arrive at the end of so engrossing a tale.

My aunt said that she knew absolutely nothing, but she told me that shortly before my father’s death, and after he had been speaking of some difficulty he was in with his work, without explaining what it was, she found it impossible to refrain from asking him, ‘I hope you haven’t really killed poor Edwin Drood?’ To which he gravely replied, ‘I call my book the Mystery, not the History, of Edwin Drood.’ And that was all he would answer. My aunt could not make out from the reply, or from his manner of giving it, whether he wished to convey that the Mystery was to remain a mystery for ever, or if he desired gently to remind her that he would not disclose his secret until the proper time arrived for telling it. But I think his words are so suggestive, and may carry with them so much meaning, that I offer them now, with my aunt’s permission, to those who take a delight in trying to unravel the impenetrable secrets of a story that has within its sadly shortened pages a most curious fascination, and is 'gifted with invincible force to hold and drag.'