'The watch found at the Weir was challenged by the jeweller as one he had wound and set for Edwin Drood, at twenty minutes past two on that same afternoon; and it had run down, before being cast into the water; and it was the jeweller’s positive opinion that it had never been re-wound. This would justify the hypothesis that the watch was taken from him not long after he left Mr. Jasper’s house at midnight, in company with the last person seen with him, and that it had been thrown away after being retained some hours. Why thrown away? If he had been murdered, and so artfully disfigured, or concealed, or both, as that the murderer hoped identification to be impossible, except from something that he wore, assuredly the murderer would seek to remove from the body the most lasting, the best known, and the most easily recognisable, things upon it. Those things would be the watch and shirt-pin.

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Wendy S. Jacobson in the commentary on the sixteenth chapter of her book The Companion to the Mystery of Edwin Drood makes the following remark regarding the discovery of Edwins’s watch and a shirt-pin made by Reverend Crisparkle:

'For those who believe Edwin is dead, the watch, chain and shirt-pin discovered in the weir are evidence that an attempt was made on his life. If he had escaped, his taking no steps to bring wrongdoer to justice woud incur grave responsibility, in law and to Neville.'

I dare disagree with the above statement. In fact, it is quite the contrary—it is the discovery of the watch and a shirt-pin, which proves Neville’s innocence, especially considering the circumstances under which they were found — and there is no way Mr Jasper could be ignorant about that fact.

However, before even trying to justify my claim, let’s first talk about the riddle solving methodology, used by readers of detective stories. It goes without saying that every detective story has a certain point at which the author has already introduced all the evidence needed to solve the mystery. Perhaps, even the detective himself has not figured it out who the culprit is or how the crime was committed, but the reader—if he puts the books aside just to ponder over it for a moment—can most certainly find the answer himself, without any detective’s help. In the case of The Mystery of Edwin Drood the question is, whether Dickens has reached the point of no return or whether certain evidences were yet to be discovered. I want to believe that Dickens has told us everything and absolutely everything we need to solve the mystery, and that we should simply gather the pieces of evidence scattered across the story and interpret them correctly.

The evidence has to be specific. If, for example, a character of a detective novel is mindlessly walking through a city, paying no attention whatsoever to the current time, environment or location, not even the names of the streets he is in right now (in other words, the author does not offer his readers information on space, distance or location), and then all of a sudden we might come across the following passage, ‘John has noticed a peculiar looking shadow about sixteen feet ahead. He then instinctively cast a brief glance at his watch—it was three minutes past three’ —no doubt about it, this is the exact time and distance to the culprit which will be needed later in the novel to expose the villain. In other words, this sudden and vaguely motivated shift to specificity serves as a signal for an attentive reader to look for a major clue or an important evidence in the immediate vicinity. Shouldn’t there be a reason why the author is so specific about the distance between the protagonist and the shadow? And that is how you know exactly where the truth of the matter is.

So, what clues do we have in the case of Edwin’s watch?

Edwin is walking through the city, and we have no idea where he is—Dickens does not let us know. Obviously, Edwin’s location is of no significance to the plot. Furthermore, he then notices, that his watch has stopped. What does Edwin do? He then tries to set his watch matching the time on the tower clock and wind it up. He walks-in a jewellery shop and hands in the watch. Apparently, he assumes that his watch isn’t working because something might have stuck in the mechanism. He by no means considers the possibility that the watch might have stopped simply because he was all grave and distracted after the break-up last evening and forgot to wind it.

Dickens does not offer us information about the jewellery shop or its location nor he says anything about the appearance of the jeweller, but then he gives this weird sudden and vaguely motivated shift to specificity—he tells us the exact time of the discourse, it was twenty minutes past two. This sudden change in narrative should ring an alarming bell in our mind—this specificity is not an accident.

Dickens repeats the same piece of information again just ten pages later (apparently, for those readers who did not get this clue the first time).

'The watch found at the Weir was challenged by the jeweller as one he had wound and set for Edwin Drood, at twenty minutes past two on that same afternoon; and it had run down, before being cast into the water; and it was the jeweller’s positive opinion that it had never been re-wound.'

Have you noticed? Not only are we reminded of the time (twenty minutes past two), but we also are given an extra piece of information, the information related to the jeweller’s words two chapters earlier—now we know that the watch had wound down before it was dropped in the water.

And what does it mean? It looks like John Jasper has got an answer.

'If he had been murdered, and so artfully disfigured, or concealed, or both, as that the murderer hoped identification to be impossible, except from something that he wore, assuredly the murderer would seek to remove from the body the most lasting, the best known, and the most easily recognisable, things upon it. Those things would be the watch and shirt-pin. As to his opportunities of casting them into the river; if he were the object of these suspicions, they were easy. For, he had been seen by many persons, wandering about on that side of the city—indeed on all sides of it—in a miserable and seemingly half-distracted manner. As to the choice of the spot, obviously such criminating evidence had better take its chance of being found anywhere, rather than upon himself, or in his possession.'

So many words! Note that this is only one third of what the choirmaster says during the inquest!

Where would a wise man hide a leaf? In a forest of course. And where would a wise man, and John Jasper most certainly is a wise man, hide the truth? In a pile of words of course. These words would also be true, however they would have very little relevance with the fact of the current matter.

Let’s read it again.

'As to his opportunities of casting them into the river; if he were the object of these suspicions, they were easy.'

Are those real opportunities? Of course they are. As soon as the clock strikes midnight, he hits Edwin Drood with his heavy walking-stick, removes his watch and a shirt-pin, gets rid of the corpse, walks (forty minutes) about three kilometres to the Weir, drops the watch in the river (or perhaps hangs them on a log), then takes another forty minutes to cover the same distance back, and at about half past one returns to Reverend Crisparkle’s house. Or could it have happened in the morning? So he takes Edwin’s watch and a shirt-pin with him, then as he is passing the Weir, he drops them and goes ahead, thus by seven thirty he would have covered thirteen kilometres already. Could it be? Of course it could. There are so many possibilities, as the matter of fact there are two. So, can we suspect him too?

Hold on for a second, and what about the jeweller’s testimony? Let’s not forget that he says that ‘he had wound and set for Edwin Drood, at twenty minutes past two on that same afternoon; and it had run down, before being cast into the water; and it was the jeweller's positive opinion that it had never been re-wound.’

Thus, the jeweller winds up Edwin’s watch and sets it to twenty past two the previous day, so when does the watch stop, considering the fact that the winding is sufficient for twenty four hours? Undoubtedly, it is supposed to wind down at about twenty minutes past two the next day!

And now they are ready to be thrown in a river. Otherwise they would have been thrown while they were still working.

What are chances that Neville might have thrown them into the water after 2:30 on December 25^th the next day after the murder? There are none—he was grounded at Minor Canon’s house, and therefore was sitting in his room around this time. He is caught and returned back in town at about eight o’clock in the morning. The watch, wherever it was, was still ticking. So, he is locked in his room and stays there till the watch is found, and after that he goes straight to jail.

In other words, the young Landless (if we choose to suspect him) does not have a single opportunity to drop the watch in a river. Mr Jasper understands everything clearly at the very beginning and therefore decides to conceal that conclusion in a flood of irrelevant information, totally deceiving both the townsfolk and the readers for the rest 150 years.

I was so frustrated that Dickens has not hinted at the time of Neville’s return on the day of the murder. It turns out that that information would simply be redundant. Indeed, whatever the time was it would make no difference since Neville does not throw Edwin’s watch and a shirt-pin in the water and therefore is innocent.

And now the watch is found. Crisparkle, taking both Neville and the watch with him heads towards Mr Sapsea. And what does he do? That’s right, he sends for Jasper so he would identify the watch.

Mr Jasper is brought in, the watch and a shirt-pin is identified and Neville gets arrested.

It’s all nice and smooth, but how does the jeweller appear in the town hall or whatever the place is called? Why is he needed? Who sends for him and why? Who even knows that Edwin has visited the jewellery shop to repair his watch? Nobody knows it—Jasper does not know it, nor Crisparkle, neither does Sapsea. Uncle Jasper is perfectly capable of identifying a watch with the letters E.D. engraved on it without the help of a jeweller. So, how does the jeweller end up being involved?

We might assume that he is just lolling around until he decides to walk in. Come on!

It was Dickens who needed the jeweller, he needed him to remind Jasper of ‘twenty past two’ and that the watch had stopped working before it was dropped. Wise Jasper knows how to join two pieces of a puzzle together, and thus understands that the jeweller’s testimony proves Neville innocent, so he decides to create as big of a word dazzle as it is required to deceive everyone and make them forget the jeweller’s actual statement.

Hence, if it is not Neville who dropped the watch, then who? Speculating for a moment, we might assume it is the murderer who dropped it, isn’t it?

Let’s reread Jasper’s testimony one more time:

'This would justify the hypothesis that the watch was taken from him not long after he left Mr. Jasper’s house at midnight, in company with the last person seen with him, and that it had been thrown away after being retained some hours. Why thrown away? If he had been murdered, and so artfully disfigured, or concealed, or both, as that the murderer hoped identification to be impossible, except from something that he wore, assuredly the murderer would seek to remove from the body the most lasting, the best known, and the most easily recognisable, things upon it. Those things would be the watch and shirt-pin.'

It all makes sense, doesn’t it? It felt like Jasper know what he is saying. So, who had the watch if it wasn’t Neville Landless?

Technically speaking, there are a lot of people we may suspect, including not only Jasper, but Sapsea, Durdles, Deputy and half a dozen of others. Theoretically, all of them are capable of approaching the Weir at night in order to throw the watch. And all of them—except for Jasper—get eliminated by a vaguely comprehensible statement excerpted from the testimony:

‘it was the jeweller's positive opinion that it had never been re-wound.’

Why would it matter, one might think? What difference would it make? The truth of the matter is it changes a lot. The jeweller’s testimony with that tiny addition transforms into a legitimate formula:

The watch was dropped no earlier than twenty four hours, but at the same time no later than forty eight hours since winding up.

Because, if they had been thrown, let’s say, three days after the winding, it would have made no difference whether they were wound or not—the spring would have come completely loose. Therefore, the jeweller’s remark regarding the watch not being re-wound, inserted by Dickens, would have lost its meaning and became useless. And since it is there, it has to be important.

Sapsea, Durdles, Deputy and the rest had opportunities to throw the watch in the river at any night, and only Jasper (which I am going to prove further) had one and only opportunity to get rid of the watch at the night after the murder. I mean to throw it in the water, not just to hang it on a log, so that Crisparkle could find it. The discovery of the watch is against Jasper’s plans. On the contrary, it even might have spoiled his plans (and almost spoils them, as we could see from the second part of the book).

From a psychological standpoint, it’s quite sensible. It’s a simple scenario where a murderer tries to get rid of the evidence, so nobody will ever find it. Couldn’t he have thrown the watch under a bush, have buried it or bricked it up? No, the watch would have remained accessible for him, and thus for everyone else! One should dispose of the evidence so he himself is unable to get it back, and so the simplest and the most logical way to do this was by throwing it into a river.

Let’s look at the scheme, where I highlighted the most significant events of the night of the murder and the following days.

The jeweller winds Edwin’s watch at twenty past two on December 24 (Mark No 1). The watch has a 24-hour winding and is going to keep ticking (follow the Bold Solid Line) till the next midday (Mark No 4) after which it stops (follow the Pale Solid Line). Reverend Crisparkle finds it on the morning of December 28 (Mark No 8). The further fate of that watch is of no importance.

Neville (Solid Bold Line, second from top) gets arrested on the morning of December 25 (Mark No 3), gets locked inside Crisparkle’s residence where he is to spend the rest of his days up till the imprisonment (Dotted Line). The scheme clearly shows that Neville gets arrested before the watch stops and therefore he could not have thrown it in the water after the spring came loose.

Edwin disappears off the stage from the moment of murder (Mark No 2) and appears offline from that moment onwards (Dashed Line). His lifeline is included for descriptive purposes only and is of no significance for the time being. There could have been line for Durdles, Tope or Deputy instead, it woud make no difference, since all of them (Edwin included, if we consider the possibility of his survival) could have thrown the watch away at any time.

Mr Jasper, however, is a whole different story. He does not start looking for his nephew’s body immediately after he gets Neville arrested, but hesitates without having a clear reason. The search begins no earlier than the next morning (Mark No 5) and lasts till the evening of December 27. Meanwhile Jasper is always in the public eye, as the public is actively involved in the search. Mr Grewgious arrives on the evening of December 27 and tells the choirmaster about his decision to put an end to the betrothal. He then faints (Mark No 6). The minor canon finds the watch on the Weir on the morning of December 28 (Mark No 8).

Mr Sapsea brings the evidence and summons Jasper for identification. The jeweller is wandering nearby with his ‘positive opinion that it had never been re-wound.’ There is only one step left to make before Neville’s innocence becomes obvious to the public. So, what about Jasper’s alibi? Does he have a chance to dispose of the watch? He surely does.

Consider this, he can’t do it on the night of the murder—the clock is still ticking. He can’t do it on the night of December 26-27, since he is being the centre of attention. The night after fainting, of course, in theory, Jasper could have sneaked out of the house and to the Weir to throw the watch away, but Dickens eliminates that possibility (closes the plot hole) by sending the minor canon there in the dark of the night. The only reason for this strange evening stroll which Crisparkle decides to take is plot convenience, in other words, to eliminate the possibility of Jasper throwing the watch after fainting. Let’s think of Mr Crisparkle’s behaviour at the Weir and we will realise that he notices the watch under the starlight using his peripheral vision on that very evening, that is why he returns to that very place the next morning. Did you expect Dickens to make him swim and dive in the dead of the night?

In other words, there could have been a gap between marks seven and eight, during which time span Mr Jasper is not in the public eye, however Dickens covers that gap by making Crisparkle notice the watch late in the evening, to catch a glimpse of it under the starlight, not even realising what that might be.

Thus, the night after the murder happens to be the only night when Jasper could have got rid of the evidence (Question Mark). During this night only Jasper has an opportunity to walk to the deepest part of the river in order to bury this ‘poor, mean and miserable’ inheritance he was able to gain through the criminal ways—not the shares of the company as he planned, but mere old watch and a shirt-pin, which belongs to his nephew. Off they go, into the water!

‘Look down, look down! You see what lies at the bottom there?! […] And yet I never saw that before!’

This is exactly the night between mark No 4 (the moment Edwin’s watch stops) and mark A (the moment the watch might have stopped was it re-wound). This is the very night which the jeweller’s remark ‘the watch had not been re-wound’ is hinting at. For all other nights and all other suspects that statement would have been unnecessary.

Unfortunately for Jasper, when he attempts throwing the watch away, it is pitch dark, and he doesn’t even notice that it ends up on a log stuck by its fixture. Jasper wants to drown them as deep as possible and the deepest place is surely not the middle part of the pond, but the closest part to the Weir itself…

Well, we have basically proven Neville’s innocence. Does it also prove that it is Jasper who killed Edwin? No, it doesn’t. All we have done was prove that Jasper does not have an alibi that he does not dispose of the evidence. Neville, on the other hand, does have an alibi (thanks to the jeweller) unlike Jasper. It by no means proves him guilty, however it is a crucial step towards solving the case, which will lead the choirmaster to the condemned cell, and that’s what Dickens’s plan had been right from the start.

There is one more evidence against Jasper—it’s a ring which belongs to Rosa’s mother, which was left at Mrs Sapsea’s monument.

Jaspser is sent to the gallows with the help of the ring of Rosa’s mother and the watch of Edwin’s father. What a poetic justice! As if the parents took care of their children from their graves forging a ‘chain riveted to the foundations of heaven and earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold and drag.’ That chain shall hold on tightly to villainous choirmaster and send him mercilessly straight to the gallows.