e have to consider _The
Mystery of Edwin Drood_. This does not mean, of course, that the details
are not often admirable in their swift and penetrating humour; to say
that of the book would be to say that Dickens did not write it. Nothing
could be truer, for instance, than the manner in which the dazed and
drunken dignity of Durdles illustrates a certain bitterness at the
bottom of the bewilderment of the poor. Nothing could be better than the
way in which the haughty and allusive conversation between Miss
Twinkleton and the landlady illustrates the maddening preference of some
females for skating upon thin social ice. There is an even better
example than these of the original humorous insight of Dickens; and one
not very often remarked, because of its brevity and its unimportance in
the narrative. But Dickens never did anything better than the short
account of Mr. Grewgious's dinner being brought from the tavern by two
waiters: "a stationary waiter," and "a flying waiter." The "flying
waiter" brought the food and the "stationary waiter" quarrelled with
him; the "flying waiter" brought glasses and the "stationary waiter"
looked through them. Finally, it will be remembered the "stationary
waiter" left the room, casting a glance which indicated "let it be
understood that all emoluments are mine, and that Nil is the reward of
this slave." Still, Dickens wrote the book as a detective story; he
wrote it as _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_. And alone, perhaps, among
detective-story writers, he never lived to destroy his mystery. Here
alone then among the Dickens novels it is necessary to speak of the plot
and of the plot alone. And when we speak of the plot it becomes
immediately necessary to speak of the two or three standing explanations
which celebrated critics have given of the plot.

The story, so far as it was written by Dickens, can be read here. It
describes, as will be seen, the disappearance of the young architect
Edwin Drood after a night of festivity which was supposed to celebrate
his reconciliation with a temporary enemy, Neville Landless, and was
held at the house of his uncle John Jasper. Dickens continued the tale
long enough to explain or explode the first and most obvious of his
riddles. Long before the existing part terminates it has become evident
that Drood has been put away, not by his obvious opponent, Landless, but
by his uncle who professes for him an almost painful affection. The fact
that we all know t