of the most significant passages in the story, has been very little noticed, if noticed at all :

"It fell out"-whenever Dickens begins in this key we know something important is coming (as could be shown by a hundred instances) "it fell out that Mr. Crisparkle, going away from this conference very uneasy in his mind

took a memorable night walk." Observe, a memorable walk-though nothing seems to happen, except that strange thoughts come into his mind. "A familiar passage in his reading, about 'airy tongues that syllable men's names,' rose so unbidden to his ear, that he put it from him with his hand, as if it were tangible." He can neither see nor hear aught unusual; yet he has "a strange idea that something unusual hung about the place. He strains his keen ears and his hawk's eyes.. Nothing in the least unusual was remotely shadowed forth." But he resolved that he would come back early in the morning.

In the morning he finds the watch, chain, and pin. In a sense, his walk overnight was made memorable by the morning's discovery. But was that all which made the walk memorable ?

He might have found these things without that night walk. I take it the walk was memorable for other reasons. Jasper was there. Probably Grewgious was also there, watching Jasper, when Crisparkle had that strange sense of something unusual. Jasper waited till Crisparkle had gone, and then-under the very eyes of Grewgious-placed the watch and chain among the interstices of the timbers, and flung the shirt-pin into the pool. If it could be proved that the watch was kept unwound from Christmas night, when it ran down, to midnight on the 27th, much would be made thereafter of the events of that memorable night.

93

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE WATCH.

SIX months pass and we find Crisparkle waiting at the office of the Haven of Philanthropy for Mr. Honeythunder. We notice in this interview enough to show that Grewgious has not yet confided to Crisparkle his knowledge of Drood's safety. If we could feel any doubt on this point it would be removed by the interview between Crisparkle and young Landless.

The interview between Crisparkle and Grewgious is still more significant. We find that Grewgious is keeping a watch upon Neville Landless, obviously in the young man's interests. Can one doubt-seeing this-that Grewgious

knows that about the disappearance of Drood which no one but Drood himself could have told him? In passing, note that Mr. Grewgious could not possibly maintain this watch alone, and that undoubtedly Bazzard would be the man he would employ to share the work with him. This would fully account for what he afterwards tells Rosa about Bazzard being "off duty in the office."

Grewgious sits at the window watching, and even while Crisparkle is with him, detects the slinking figure of Jasper, who has followed Crisparkle to town. The two agree that Jasper's object is to keep a watch on Neville, haunting and torturing his life, and exposing him to perpetually reviving suspicion. Grewgious begs Crisparkle to leave him-for "I entertain," he says, "a fancy for having our local friend under my eye to-night "-as well as Neville, and not in Jasper's interests. Mr. Grewgious's

watch is maintained till late. Even when he retires to his bedroom, he looks out on Neville's chambers. Grewgious is thoughtful and anxious about Neville, and looks at the stars as if he would have read from them something that was

hidden from him.* He feels naturally anxious after what Crisparkle has told him about Neville's state, and after what they have both seen of

*It has been objected to my interpretation of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" that Mr. Grewgious, a kindly man, would not have allowed Neville Landless to be exposed to the suspicion of murder under which he suffered so terribly if it had been possible to clear Neville by calling on Drood himself to denounce Jasper. But in reality the action of Grewgious in regard to Neville Landless is one of the strongest arguments in favour of the interpretation I have suggested. There is absolutely nothing to explain the interest taken in Landless by Grewgious, to whom Landless had been almost a stranger, unless we note that events have come to Grewgious's knowledge which convince him that Neville has been grievously wronged by Jasper. Knowing Drood to be alive, Grewgious may well conceive that the trial to which Neville is for a while exposed will be beneficial to his fiery nature and that, at any rate, if Neville is carefully watched no harm can come of it. But he could not, in that case, but be most anxiously interested in his watch on Neville, as, in fact, we find he is. On any other assumption but that which it is my object in this little work to justify, Grewgious's anxiety about Neville, shown even so far back as during his interview with Jasper after Drood's disappearance, is altogether inexplicable. It has been suggested also that Edwin Drood should have freed Landless from suspicion. But he had been for months prostrated by illness following Jasper's desperate attack.