The Puzzle of Dickenss Last Plot | Page 9

"pursue her to the death," if she will not; he frightens her so
thoroughly that she rushes to Grewgious in his chambers in London.
She now suspects Jasper of Edwin's murder, but keeps her thoughts to
herself. She tells Grewgious, who is watching Neville,--"I have a fancy
for keeping him under my eye,"-- that Jasper has made love to her, and
Grewgious replies in a parody of "God save the King"!

"On Thee his hopes to fix Damn him again!"
Would he fool thus, if he knew Jasper to have killed Edwin? He is not
certain whether Rosa should visit Helena next day, in Landless's rooms,
opposite; and Mr. Walters suggests that he may be aware that Helena,
dressed as Datchery, is really absent at Cloisterham. However, next day,
Helena is in her brother's rooms. Moreover, it is really a sufficient
explanation of Grewgious's doubt that Jasper is lurking around, and that
not till next day is a PRIVATE way of communication arranged
between Neville and his friends. In any case, next day, Helena is in her
brother's rooms, and, by aid of a Mr. Tartar's rooms, she and Rosa can
meet privately. There is a good deal of conspiring to watch Jasper when
he watches Neville, and in this new friend, Mr. Tartar, a lover is
provided for Rosa. Tartar is a miraculously agile climber over roofs and
up walls, a retired Lieutenant of the navy, and a handy man, being such
a climber, to chase Jasper about the roof of the Cathedral, when Jasper's
day of doom arrives.
JASPER'S OPIUM VISIONS
In July, Jasper revisits the London opium den, and talks under opium,
watched by the old hag. He speaks of a thing which he often does in
visions: "a hazardous and perilous journey, over abysses where a slip
would be destruction. Look down, look down! You see what lies at the
bottom there?" He enacts the vision and says, "There was a fellow
traveller." He "speaks in a whisper, and as if in the dark." The vision is,
in this case, "a poor vision: no struggle, no consciousness of peril, no
entreaty." Edwin, in the reminiscent vision, dies very easily and rapidly.
"When it comes to be real at last, it is so short that it seems unreal for
the first time." "And yet I never saw THAT before. Look what a poor
miserable mean thing it is. THAT must be real. It's over."
What can all this mean? We have been told that, shortly before
Christmas Eve, Jasper took to wearing a thick black-silk handkerchief
for his throat. He hung it over his arm, "his face knitted and stern," as
he entered his house for his Christmas Eve dinner. If he strangled
Edwin with the scarf, as we are to suppose, he did not lead him,
drugged, to the tower top, and pitch him off. Is part of Jasper's vision

reminiscent--the brief, unresisting death--while another part is a
separate vision, is PROSPECTIVE, "premonitory"? Does he see
himself pitching Neville Landless off the tower top, or see him fallen
from the Cathedral roof? Is Neville's body "THAT"--"I never saw
THAT before. Look what a poor miserable mean thing it is! THAT
must be real." Jasper "never saw THAT"--the dead body below the
height--before. THIS vision, I think, is of the future, not of the past, and
is meant to bewilder the reader who thinks that the whole represents the
slaying of Drood. The tale is rich in "warnings" and telepathy.
DATCHERY AND THE OPIUM WOMAN
The hag now tracks Jasper home to Cloisterham. Here she meets
Datchery, whom she asks how she can see Jasper? If Datchery is Drood,
he now learns, WHAT HE DID NOT KNOW BEFORE, THAT
THERE IS SOME CONNECTION BETWEEN JASPER AND THE
HAG. He walks with her to the place where Edwin met the hag, on
Christmas Eve, and gave her money; and he jingles his own money as
he walks. The place, or the sound of the money, makes the woman tell
Datchery about Edwin's gift of three shillings and sixpence for opium.
Datchery, "with a sudden change of countenance, gives her a sudden
look." It does not follow that he is NOT Drood, for, though the hag's
love of opium was known to Drood, Datchery is not to reveal his
recognition of the woman. He does what any stranger would do; he
"gives a sudden look," as if surprised by the mention of opium.
Mr. Walters says, "Drood would not have changed countenance on
hearing a fact he had known six months previously." But if Drood was
playing at being somebody else, he would, of course, give a kind of
start and stare, on hearing of the opium. When he also hears from the
hag that her former benefactor's name was Edwin,