The Puzzle of Dickenss Last Plot | Page 5

Edwin visits Grewgious in his London chambers; is
lectured on his laggard and supercilious behaviour as a lover, and
receives the engagement ring of the late Mrs. Bud, Rosa's mother,
which is very dear to Grewgious--in the presence of Bazzard,
Grewgious's clerk, a gloomy writer of an amateur unacted tragedy.
Edwin is to return the ring to Grewgious, if he and Rosa decide not to
marry. The ring is in a case, and Edwin places it "in his breast." We
must understand, in the breast-pocket of his coat: no other
interpretation will pass muster. "Her ring--will it come back to me?"
reflects the mournful Grewgious.
THE UNACCOUNTABLE EXPEDITION
Jasper now tells Sapsea, and the Dean, that he is to make "a moonlight
expedition with Durdles among the tombs, vaults, towers, and ruins
to-night." The impossible Durdles has the keys necessary for this,
"surely an unaccountable expedition," Dickens keeps remarking. The
moon seems to rise on this night at about 7.30 p.m. Jasper takes a big
case-bottle of liquor--drugged, of course and goes to the den of Durdles.
In the yard of this inspector of monuments he is bidden to beware of a
mound of quicklime near the yard gate. "With a little handy stirring,
quick enough to eat your bones," says Durdles. There is some
considerable distance between this "mound" of quicklime and the crypt,

of which Durdles has the key, but the intervening space is quite empty
of human presence, as the citizens are unwilling to meet ghosts.
In the crypt Durdles drinks a good deal of the drugged liquor. "They are
to ascend the great Tower,"--and why they do that is part of the
Mystery, though not an insoluble part. Before they climb, Durdles tells
Jasper that he was drunk and asleep in the crypt, last Christmas Eve,
and was wakened by "the ghost of one terrific shriek, followed by the
ghost of the howl of a dog, a long dismal, woeful howl, such as a dog
gives when a person's dead." Durdles has made inquiries and, as no one
else heard the shriek and the howl, he calls these sounds "ghosts."
They are obviously meant to be understood as supranormal
premonitory sounds; of the nature of second sight, or rather of second
hearing. Forster gives examples of Dickens's tendency to believe in
such premonitions: Dickens had himself a curious premonitory dream.
He considerably overdid the premonitory business in his otherwise
excellent story, The Signalman, or so it seems to a student of these
things. The shriek and howl heard by Durdles are to be repeated, we see,
in real life, later, on a Christmas Eve. The question is--when? More
probably NOT on the Christmas Eve just imminent, when Edwin is to
vanish, but, on the Christmas Eve following, when Jasper is to be
unmasked.
All this while, and later, Jasper examines Durdles very closely,
studying the effects on him of the drugged drink. When they reach the
top of the tower, Jasper closely contemplates "that stillest part of it"
(the landscape) "which the Cathedral overshadows; but he contemplates
Durdles quite as curiously."
There is a motive for the scrutiny in either case. Jasper examines the
part of the precincts in the shadow of the Cathedral, because he wishes
to assure himself that it is lonely enough for his later undescribed but
easily guessed proceedings in this night of mystery. He will have much
to do that could not brook witnesses, after the drugged Durdles has
fallen sound asleep. We have already been assured that the whole area
over which Jasper is to operate is "utterly deserted," even when it lies
in full moonlight, about 8.30 p.m. "One might fancy that the tide of life

was stemmed by Mr. Jasper's own gate-house." The people of
Cloisterham, we hear, would deny that they believe in ghosts; but they
give this part of the precinct a wide berth (Chapter XII.). If the region is
"utterly deserted" at nine o'clock in the evening, when it lies in the
ivory moonlight, much more will it be free from human presence when
it lies in shadow, between one and two o'clock after midnight. Jasper,
however, from the tower top closely scrutinizes the area of his future
operations. It is, probably, for this very purpose of discovering whether
the coast be clear or not, that Jasper climbs the tower.
He watches Durdles for the purpose of finding how the drug which he
has administered works, with a view to future operations on Edwin.
Durdles is now in such a state that "he deems the ground so far below
on a level with the tower, and would as lief walk off the tower into the
air as not."
All this is apparently meant to suggest that Jasper, on Christmas Eve,
will repeat his expedition, WITH EDWIN, whom