AFTER THE LIGHTNING SPURT of subliminal transmission, a prolonged silence descends upon the room. One by one, with slow, somnolent movements, the participants take off their headphones and sit as if stunned, their eyes glassy, their lips tight. Dr Wilmot is the only one not to make use of the miraculous appliance, because, of course, he knows the MED by heart; he looks about him in surprise, wondering at the sudden lack of loquacity in the audience.
This austere literary scholar, cut off from the practicalities of life, and in particular from the manifestations of modern technology, has no idea that the people around him are in fact communicating among themselves – mentally. The reader may know something of the phenomenon: after an intense subliminal bombardment, a sort of telepathic network establishes itself, however briefly, between the subjects, especially if it is their first experience of the kind. In this particular case, the text itself, with its allusions to the paranormal talents that Jasper and the twins possess, may have contributed to the intensity of the effect.
But mental conversation has its drawbacks. The interlocutors’ thoughts become so interwoven and entangled – far more than in any spoken debate – that it is impossible to sort out who is thinking what. Here, for example, is how this morning’s session opens (as reported in the verbal transcriptions provided later by the technicians):
i dont like that rosa one bit and i wouldnt be surprised if * but what did jasper put in the wine? opium doesnt have that effect at all * on the other hand helena * on the other hand rosa * the timing does correspond in fact, which means that gleam of fire * come off it! dickens cant expect * id pick loredana over either helena or rosa * but he really did believe in telepathy just as he did in premonitions and such phenomena as * mamma mia! * clairvoyance * mamma mia! now i see it all! i understand everything! thats why the dogs didnt * remember they came from ceylon * that loredana really * i didnt get a wink last night with that mattress * i tell you, i see it all! the false vagabond! the jug by the window! the hand that * that loredana, id love to * but ceylon isnt * and yet from the literary point of view * the murderer! thats how * india is still india: the sikhs, the thugs, and god knows what other * come you back, you british soldier, come you back to mandalay * underneath that lavender dress of hers * now look here! * thats how the deed was done! because my brother once told me * and that sharp knife he used to cut off her hair? * damned pâté they gave us last night * a malay kriss perhaps * because from the literary point of view, as i was saying * we could do it on the bed in the opium-den * now look here, thats enough of those porno thoughts * the marvellous character of grewgious, which also inspired stevenson * come on, honey, dont get uptight * the cathedral in the * i see it all! the dogs, the window, the * the cathedral in the twilight
A hopelessly ravelled babble, as one can see, and not merely because various contributions to the discussion come spilling out one on top of the other. There is, in addition, the unwelcome intrusion of mental remarks that have nothing whatsoever to do with the case, quite apart from being in questionable taste, some of them. And what is to be made of the repeated reference to certain dogs, a jug by the window, and a ‘false vagabond’, who may be the real murderer? No, that is surely some kind of hallucination, triggered in an overheated mindfn1 by the talk of clairvoyance. The clairvoyant claims to ‘see everything’. But what this hallucinatory ‘everything’ may be, is anyone’s guess. There is no shortage of vagabonds in Cloisterham, as we know, but in the whole of the MED there is not a single dog, and no jug situated near a window.
Fortunately the record of this session is not all chaos. Here and there, through the static, voices become recognisable, and the progress of the debate can be followed, more or less. But (the reader will understand) we must use caution in attributing thoughts to persons. The opinions of the Drood work-group, after the imprinting of the second number, can be roughly catalogued as follows:
THE PORFIRIANS: Immense admiration for the character of Grewgious, who among other things would inspire R. L. Stevenson in his creation of the immortal figure of Mr Utterson in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Dickens is here at the height of his powers, observes Magistrate Petrovich. Wolfe, whose taste is the best, expresses his appreciation of other memorable passages: the description of the cathedral ‘in double perspective’ at sunset; Miss Twinkleton’s address to her pupils, which plays down the news of the altercation between Drood and Neville.
FATHER BROWN: And so the author was by no means exhausted, or ‘at a crisis’, as some have claimed. Those who have considered and those who still do consider the MED to be not only an incomplete novel but an inferior one don’t know what they’re talking about. In the case of Wilkie Collins, who privately judged it as ‘Dickens’s last laboured effort, the melancholy work of a worn-out brain’, one must bear in mind the fact that the two writers had been on bad terms for some time.
THE AGATHISTS: It is not the literary value of the work that is in question but its detective plot. From that point of view, Collins could well have been right. Because if Dickens’s intention was that the murderer turn out to be the prime suspect, well then, to put it frankly, this so-called mystery . . .
But here there is a divergence of opinion, and the group of Agathists must be divided into pessimists and optimists.
PESSIMISTS: The second (May) issue leaves us with no alternative to Jasper’s guilt. The arrival of the twins merely reinforces it. Up to that point, the reader could imagine the uncle’s crime remaining in its Platonic state of intention, an opium-induced flight of fantasy. This is no longer possible. Because it is perfectly clear that Neville, with or without Helena, is a character of convenience, brought in with the sole purpose of providing the villain with an innocent person on whom suspicion can be diverted. And indeed, Jasper sets to work without wasting a minute: i) With diabolic intuition he gathers that his nephew and the newcomer dislike each other on sight. 2) He follows them furtively in the darkness, and as soon as he hears them arguing, he steps in, ostensibly to pacify, but 3) when he discovers that the dispute is over Rosa, he smiles in a patiently devilish manner and at once prepares a drugged wine, which stirs the two young men up again, rousing them almost to violence. 4) Immediately afterwards, he hurries round to Crisparkle to tell him about the quarrel, making it sound as dramatic as possible, and putting him on his guard against the homicidal temperament of that young man and his ‘dark blood’. 5) By now he is so certain that his murder will go undetected, that in Grewgious’s presence he quite openly and ominously plays on the words ‘bless’ and ‘save’. The only trouble is that 6) a perfect crime to him can only be a disappointment to us!
HOLMES: Better a disappointment than . . . I don’t know, I’m more convinced than ever that we would do best to leave these things alone, not to pry any more deeply into this matter . . . Someone here has raised an issue that perturbs me greatly.fn2
OPTIMISTS: The ending is not so obvious, and the twins are by no means characters of convenience. Dickens has taken care to give them not only a wonderful aura of the picturesque but also all the qualifications for possible guilt. Both have a mysterious past of suffering, humiliation, cruel treatment, and rebellion. The brother used to go round armed with a knife, and quite possibly still does so, and by his own admission he can be provoked into killing someone, even if only in the heat of the moment. He is surly, touchy to an extreme, and tormented by a racial and social inferiority complex. His sister is equally fearsome. A girl able to tear out her own hair in order to disguise herself as a man will stop at nothing; and she herself says that she is afraid of nobody. The twins are fully convincing as ‘reserve’ villains.
MAIGRET: If they convince me at all, it is as providers of coups de théâtre of the (puff, puff)fn3 classic kind. Their arrival from Ceylon is the first of such coups. Their mysterious past presages more to come. They are orphans, but we are told nothing else of their family. That cruel step-father of theirs (puff, puff), will he turn up again? Perhaps some amazing disclosure of relationship is in the offing, some extraordinary scene of recognition. And a dark complexion, it leaves the way open for highly exotic developments, things that have to do with the secrets, sects, rites (puff, puff) of the Far East.
DUPIN: A real coup could come about through telepathy. The twins, though not together, may flare up with implacable hatred against Edwin at the same moment, may plan and carry out their crime by telepathic accord. This would catch the reader completely by surprise, who would then thank Dickens for putting him off the scent with all that evidence pointing to Jasper – poor Jasper, as we would then have to call him.
TOAD: Putting one off the scent is one thing; cheating is another! Forget about the telepathy and consider the milkman. You’ll have noticed there’s a milkman in this second instalment. What could be easier than to find a motive for him – he, too, is madly in love with Rosa, or Edwin once caught him watering down the milk and is blackmailing him – and have the modus operandi involve, say, his cart and bottles? I would be perfectly satisfied with a solution of that sort – provided the author also explains to me, in meticulous detail, just why Jasper has behaved in the peculiar way he’s been made to behave. Because, and I’ll say it again, putting one off the scent is one thing . . .
FATHER BROWN and/or PORFIRY PETROVICH: It never entered Dickens’s head to cheat as a writer. His plots, true, are often complicated to the point of incoherence. Which means that the culprit could turn out to be Neville, after all. But involving Helena would be really too far-fetched; the motive of telepathically shared hatred just doesn’t hold water.
MARLOWE or ARCHER: These prigs just won’t admit that the girl, who’s clearly lesbian as well as telepathic, has taken a fancy to sweet swooning Rosa. And this gives her a wonderful extra motive. Dickens, of course, with his fuddy-duddy, whiskered readers, couldn’t spell all that out.
ARCHER or MARLOWE: But the winks and nods are like semaphore signals. All the hugging and kissing and you’re so fascinating, you give me courage, hold me, stay with me. No, this is not your usual sweet-sixteen soppiness. One woman is tough, authoritarian, protective, clearly butch in looks and manners; the other never misses a chance to play cutesy coquette kitten, who constantly needs to be saved and cuddled. Old Boz knew more about life than some think! And he knew enough about his public of hypocritical moralists to be sure that there were plenty of readers out there who would get the idea.
HASTINGS: Well, maybe I’m a hypocritical moralist myself, but this seems to me a bit strong. What do you think, Poirot!
POIROT: . . . . . . . . .fn4
LOREDANA, aloud, passing a hand over her forehead: What . . . where . . . what time is it?
WILMOT, still without the foggiest idea of what is happening: It is exactly nine minutes past eleven. But . . .
So only three minutes have elapsed, reader, since the beginning of this singular session, and the members of the Drood work-group have practically nothing left to say to one another. Archer and Marlowe stand up, humming softly, sure that a coffee-break, fully merited, is in the offing. But Watson, who has observed Dr Wilmot’s bewilderment, realises that the scholar was left out of the telepathic circuit and proceeds to fill him in. Loredana, meanwhile, has gone to the technicians’ room and now returns with the print-out of the debate.
WILMOT, looking through the pages: Fine . . . I’d say that we could pass on to the third issue, that is, the June number.
But the proposal is met with a general tramping of feet; the idea of a coffee-break has clearly infected everyone. And it is a break which flows on into lunch and aperitifs, then spills over into the garden-paths and the lobby’s arm-chairs. There are even those who adopt the Roman custom of siesta and return to their rooms.
The technicians use this intermission to make some adjustments in the equipment, so that the side-effects produced by the subliminal imprinting that morning can be avoided. The frequency of the impulses is reduced, the transmission-time lengthened. Thus, when the conference resumes in the afternoon, the transmission of the third number – that is, Chapters Ten, Eleven, and Twelve – takes a full minute.
fn1 Most likely the lady whose brother is a senior consultant in Arezzo. Note that the moment she leaves the room, quite clearly in a state of mental disturbance, the phenomenon ceases. The lady is not seen again at the U&O.
fn2 We attribute this snatch to Holmes, on account of his declaration the previous evening. But the meaning of the last sentence is not clear to us.
fn3 It is interesting to note that Maigret, while thinking, continues to pull on his pipe mentally.
fn4 Poirot hasn’t contributed to the debate so far, and even now he doesn’t reply. One might conclude that the Drood case no longer interests him. Or, instead, could it be that his ‘little grey cells’ are working so fast that not even the ultrahigh frequencies of the Japanese psycho-receivers can pick them up?