his, however, ought not in fairness to blind us to
the fact that, considered as the first fraud in a detective story, it
has been, with great skill, at once suggested and concealed. Nothing,
for instance, could be cleverer as a piece of artistic mystery than the
fact that Jasper, the uncle, always kept his eyes fixed on Drood's face
with a dark and watchful tenderness; the thing is so told that at first
we really take it as only indicating something morbid in the affection;
it is only afterwards that the frightful fancy breaks upon us that it is
not morbid affection but morbid antagonism. This first mystery (which is
no longer a mystery) of Jasper's guilt, is only worth remarking because
it shows that Dickens meant and felt himself able to mask all his
batteries with real artistic strategy and artistic caution. The manner
of the unmasking of Jasper marks the manner and tone in which the whole
tale was to be told. Here we have not got to do with Dickens simply
giving himself away, as he gave himself away in _Pickwick_ or _The
Christmas Carol_. Not that one complains of his giving himself away;
there was no better gift.

What was the mystery of Edwin Drood from Dickens's point of view we
shall never know, except perhaps from Dickens in heaven, and then he
will very likely have forgotten. But the mystery of Edwin Drood from our
point of view, from that of his critics, and those who have with some
courage (after his death) attempted to be his collaborators, is simply
this. There is no doubt that Jasper either murdered Drood or supposed
that he had murdered him. This certainty we have from the fact that it
is the whole point of a scene between Jasper and Drood's lawyer
Grewgious in which Jasper is struck down with remorse when he realises
that Drood has been killed (from his point of view) needlessly and
without profit. The only question is whether Jasper's remorse was as
needless as his murder. In other words the only question is whether,
while he certainly thought he had murdered Drood, he had really done it.
It need hardly be said that such a doubt would not have been raised for
nothing; gentlemen like Jasper do not as a rule waste good remorse
except upon successful crime. The origin of the doubt about the real
death of Drood is this. Towards the latter end of the existing chapters
there appears very abruptly, and with a quite ostentatious air of
mystery, a character called Datchery. He appears for the purpose of
spying