ed his nephew if he
wanted to. And there seems even less reason why Drood, if unsuccessfully
murdered, should not have raised the alarm. Happy young architects,
when nearly strangled by elderly organists, do not generally stroll away
and come back some time afterwards in a wig and with a false name.
Superficially it would seem almost as odd to find the murderer
investigating the origin of the murder, as to find the corpse
investigating it. To this problem two of the ablest literary critics of
our time, Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. William Archer (both of them persuaded
generally of the Proctor theory) have especially addressed themselves.
Both have come to the same substantial conclusion; and I suspect that
they are right. They hold that Jasper (whose mania for opium is much
insisted on in the tale) had some sort of fit, or trance, or other
physical seizure as he was committing the crime so that he left it
unfinished; and they also hold that he had drugged Drood, so that Drood,
when he recovered from the attack, was doubtful about who had been his
assailant. This might really explain, if a little fancifully, his coming
back to the town in the character of a detective. He might think it due
to his uncle (whom he last remembered in a kind of murderous vision) to
make an independent investigation as to whether he was really guilty or
not. He might say, as Hamlet said of a vision equally terrifying, "I'll
have grounds more relative than this." In fairness it must be said that
there is something vaguely shaky about this theory; chiefly, I think, in
this respect; that there is a sort of farcical cheerfulness about
Datchery which does not seem altogether appropriate to a lad who ought
to be in an agony of doubt as to whether his best friend was or was not
his assassin. Still there are many such incongruities in Dickens; and
the explanation of Mr. Archer and Mr. Lang is an explanation. I do not
believe that any explanation as good can be given to account for the
tale being called _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, if the tale practically
starts with his corpse.

If Drood is really dead one cannot help feeling the story ought to end
where it does end, not by accident but by design. The murder is
explained. Jasper is ready to be hanged, and every one else in a decent
novel ought to be ready to be married. If there was to be much more of
anything, it must have been of anticlimax. Nevertheless there are
degrees of anticlimax. Some of the mor