WE HAD REACHED THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS and the smoke-wreathed scene in the opium-den, amidst which Toad’s last hopes evaporated.
‘It’s either the one,’ our uncompromising aesthete of crime says, ‘or the other. Either Jasper relives the murder of his nephew in an opium haze, the murder he so often dreamt of and finally committed; or Aylmer’s right and Jasper doesn’t relive anything, but continues to imagine that he has killed the unknown assassin, who in fact fled after strangling Drood and either hiding the corpse or destroying it.fn1 Whichever the truth, the Drood case loses all its appeal – at least for me.’
Dupin and Cuff do not give up so easily.
‘The only thing that’s clear,’ says Dupin, ‘is that the author has prevented, and continues to prevent, any of the protagonists from engaging in a discussion of the case. Jasper, first of all, has sworn that he will not discuss it again “with any human creature” until he finds the murderer himself. Crisparkle refuses on principle to harbour such suspicion against anyone. Rosa can’t prevent herself from suspecting Jasper, but has scruples about admitting it even to herself. Grewgious does not hide his “implacable dislike” of that shady character, but he “never referred it, however distantly, to such a source” as murder. Helena, for her part, has decided not to talk to her friend about her brother’s “infatuation”, and the author uses this excuse to have her say nothing at all on the subject. As for the brother himself, he has set so keenly to his studies that he never lifts his head from his books, except to pay homage to Crisparkle and declare himself “marked and tainted, but innocent”. Now,’ Dupin continues, ‘this state of affairs has lasted six months. At which point, Dickens himself, as Cuff quite rightly says, must have realised that he couldn’t continue like this without arousing suspicion. Hence his promise of a “private conversation” between Helena and Rosa. But Cuff also foresaw . . .’
A chorus of maddened car-horns interrupts the speaker and makes the whole work-group jump up from their seats. What’s happened? The driver has been paying more attention to the Drood case than to the vehicles in front of him, and has thus drawn the understandable ire of those behind him. But the momentary gap is quickly filled, and now they are motionless again, in Piazza di Porta Capena. The coach (Antonia tells them) will try to turn into Via dei Cerchi, along the valley of the Circus Maximus, where, as everyone knows, the Rape of the Sabine Women took place.
‘Yes,’ says Cuff. ‘I also foresaw that the author would wriggle out of it with another trick, another display of his extraordinary conjuring talent. What happens in fact? He manages to pass off as a private conversation between Helena and Rosa what is actually a very public one, for though it takes place between two windows, everyone else is listening in, including “poor Neville”. The result? A merry little operetta scene, in which they talk about everything and everybody – except the reason they’re all there. Drood’s mysterious disappearance is never mentioned. His very name seems to have become taboo.’
DRIVER: Obviously, Professor, this Dickens doesn’t want to tie himself down.
CUFF: Exactly. The circumstances in which Drood disappears are far from clear, and the author makes quite sure that the subject is not brought up again. All the information we have comes from that first interrogation of Neville, from which we learnt that he returned home at ten past midnight, after spending a few minutes with Drood on the river bank. The rest is a total mystery. The official inquiry took place without our even knowing it: we learn that it did take place only because, six months later, Rosa says in passing that she, too, was called to testify.
DRIVER: I’d say, Professor, the author didn’t call us so he wouldn’t have to answer our questions.
DUPIN: Quite. Why, we could have asked at the inquiry, did Crisparkle not wait up for his charge? Could it be that he suddenly felt a great drowsiness after drinking the herb tea that his mother (or so he believed) left on his bedside table? And ever-anxious Jasper, whose window remained illuminated until dawn. Why did he wait so long before hurrying out in search of his nephew? Could he, too, have fallen irresistibly asleep? As for Helena, we are told that she normally shared a room with Rosa; therefore, if she went out that night, Rosa would have certainly noticed. But the college is empty for the Christmas holidays, so perhaps Helena found some pretext for changing rooms . . . These are circumstances that any inquiry, even one conducted by Sapsea, could not have failed to clear up. Instead . . .
It’s always a mistake to engage any taxi- or coach-driver in conversation. He’s turned round again to contribute to the discussion and neglected to nudge forwards another six feet. When the honking dies down, Superintendent Battle speaks.
‘In the last chapter of the last number, Dickens himself sums up the situation and blandly concludes: “This was the condition of matters, all round, at the period to which the present history has now attained.” In fact, he’s given us no all-round picture of the condition of matters, and we haven’t attained anything. Cuff and Dupin put their finger on the problem we’re faced with: To find circumstantial proof of someone’s guilt, when all the evidence has been kept hidden and practically every party is prevented from speaking.’
‘An unusual problem,’ says the driver as he starts to turn into Via dei Cerchi.
‘A common problem, in Mafia-related crimes,’ the colonel of the Carabinieri answers him sharply.
The Mafia hypothesis cheers the trippers, and their mood brightens, also because the turning manoeuvre into Via dei Cerchi is executed with complete success. The coach now proceeds at a fair speed between the slopes of the Palatine and those of Aventine Hill, which, however, on this side offers nothing of greater interest than the absurd Monument to Gius. Mazzini Sitting in Meditation (1949) on a huge marble plinth with statues and high-reliefs.
‘Dickens,’ Wilmot says, ‘was an admirer of the great Genoese idealist, whom he knew in person and whose Clerkenwell School (for Italian organ-grinder boys in the streets of London) he supported generously.’
But we are now approaching the Forum Boarium (the most ancient market in Rome, predating its own foundation) and the immediate problem is how to reach the Roman Forum. Should they cross this market (now Piazza della Bocca della Verità, one of the most interesting and picturesque sights of the city, but also one of the most congested), and continue along Via del Teatro di Marcello, to face the unknown hazards of Piazza Venezia? Or would it be better to attempt a daring short cut along Via S. Giovanni Decollato, Via della Consolazione, and Via del Carcere Tulliano?
The Bocca della Verità (the Mouth of Truth, an ancient drain-cover carved in the shape of a great face; it is traditionally supposed to bite off the hands of liars) appears to attract many of the party, including Loredana, who remarks that if only they could get Jasper to put his hand inside, the case would be solved.
‘Not necessarily,’ Wolfe objects, ‘since the Jekyllians claim there are two Jaspers: a good and honest one, and a wicked liar. How would the old drain-cover distinguish between them?’
It is therefore decided to attempt the road towards S. Giovanni Decollato. It is extremely narrow, but the sixteenth-century church (which belonged to the Florentine Fraternity, who tended those under death-sentence) is of interest to the Drood group for its Historic Chamber.
‘This chamber,’ Antonia explains, ‘contains objects relating to various executions, including that of Beatrice Cenci (called the “beautiful parricide”) and her brother Giacomo. And who knows, that dark family history (the subject of Shelley’s famous tragedy) might inspire someone with some new idea on the Landless twins.’
The driver manages to pull up in a little lay-by off the road, but unfortunately the church turns out to be closed. Antonia thus has to content herself with pointing out the façade and informing the group that the cloisters hold seven mass-graves for executed paupers: six for men, one for women.
‘Happy days,’ Marlowe and Archer remark, neither of them pleased with the necrological turn the sight-seeing has taken.
Dr Wilmot then calls attention to the wall opposite and a rusty grating behind which an ancient ruined courtyard can be seen.
‘It was probably there,’ he tells them, ‘that on March 8, 1845, Dickens climbed on to a heap of old cart-wheels to witness the execution of a country robber who’d beaten a German countess to death.’
‘Bavarian,’ specifies the Carabinieri colonel, who remembers the case perfectly. ‘The poor woman was on a pilgrimage to Rome, inadvisedly on foot and alone, and the murderer, a young man from near Viterbo, with no previous convictions, killed her with a stick in order to possess himself of her money and valuables. He made the mistake of giving some of the valuables to his wife, who in her worry told her confessor about it. Who in turn . . . I don’t know if Dickens mentions this . . .’
‘He does,’ Wilmot assures him.
‘. . . who in turn, then, spoke to our officers in Viterbo. After which the law obviously had to take its course.’
‘The beheading took place on this very spot,’ the editor of The Dickensian continues, ‘and in his Pictures from Italy, Dickens describes it in macabre, even sadistic, detail. He notes, for example, that although the guillotine worked perfectly, the victim’s neck disappeared, having retracted partly into the head and partly into the trunk.’
‘How awful!’ Loredana and Antonia exclaim in disgust, while the driver gives a quick shudder and drives off.
The uneasy silence that follows is broken by Magistrate P. Petrovich.
‘I know Pictures from Italy very well,’ he says, ‘and I must confess that the description of the execution of that poor wretch has always disturbed me. Not only because Dickens, once an opponent of capital punishment, later became a firm advocate of it. And not only because of the silly little joke he makes, probably due to his anti-Papism, about St John the Baptist. No, what unsettles me is his moralistic contempt for the crowd who came there to “abandon themselves wholly to pleasure”. But, then, why did he come, actually arriving three hours early to be sure of a good view? “Ah, but I’m not like them!” he must have said to himself on that occasion, as he did on so many other – too many other – occasions in his life. Which, of course, does not diminish my boundless admiration for him as an artist.’
‘These are difficult things to discuss in a coach . . .’ Wilmot begins, with understandable discomfort.
But Inspector Bucket, who has been reflecting on the murder of the Bavarian countess, brings them back to the Drood case.
‘After killing Edwin with his heavy stick,’ he observes (lifting his index finger to his ear, as if to hear suggestions), ‘Neville might have stripped the body of its valuables in order to simulate a robbery. Then, after throwing the shirt-pin and watch into the Weir, he might have given the ring to Helena, knowing that she would never do what the peasant woman from Viterbo did, and go and confess everything to the Reverend Crisparkle. But perhaps the author did intend to have her confess in the end?’
This ingenious perhaps wins Toad’s immediate approval. There can be no doubt about it, he says with satisfaction; it’s clear that Dickens based the case of the pseudo-Cingalese twins on that of the man from Viterbo, the only difference being that in this instance Helena, too, will mount the scaffold. Let’s not forget – he adds – that in the cloisters for the executed there’s a grave for women as well.
The colonel of the Carabinieri is not so sure.
‘The jewel that the Viterbo villain gave his wife was a ring,’ he says, ‘but probably of little value, certainly without any diamonds or rubies. Besides, when I said that he killed her with a stick, I didn’t make myself clear: in committing his crime, the murderer of the Teutonic tourist did not employ some makeshift offensive weapon in his possession; he used the victim’s own pilgrim’s staff. The differences between the two cases are considerable.’
‘Ah,’ rejoins Toad, ‘but when Neville shows his stick to his alleged sister, he says that it’s a pilgrim’s staff. The sinister allusion is all too clear.’
Meanwhile, the coach has come out into Piazza della Consolazione, under the south slope of the Capitol, and Antonia points to a rocky outcrop on the western cliff.
‘It was from that place,’ she says, ‘that they hurled those found guilty of treason and other infamies. Scholars are agreed that Tarpeian Rock was named after the daughter of the consul Sp. Tarpeius, the first to be so hurled before he was crushed beneath the shields of the Sabines.’
LOREDANA smiles: And whose body would we see shattered on the ground if we could share Jasper’s dreams in the opiumden? I remember he says ‘It’s over!’ presumably as he looks down from the top of the tower.
CUFF recalls: Doesn’t he also say: ‘So soon’? Or is that the woman in the opium-den? At any rate they are also the words Helena uses, when she talks to Neville before the crime: ‘Think how soon it will be over.’
P. PETROVICH: If it’s of any interest, that is similar to what Dickens writes in at the end of the description of the Roman execution: ‘The show was over.’
The more serious Dickensians find this interesting, but Marlowe and Archer are getting irritated: ‘This is a sightseeing tour, isn’t it? Do we have to drag Dickens and the MED into everything?’
ANTONIA reassures them: If the traffic in Via della Consolazione permits, we’ll soon be arriving at the famous Tullianum, also known as the Mamertine Prison: the name of which does not derive, as was once believed, from Servius Tullius, but from a tullus (spring of water) which issued and in fact still issues there, for which reason it was originally used as a cistern. The Tullianum wasn’t converted into a prison until Republican days, when they added a cell on top for those condemned to death, among whom were Vercingetorix (who was beheaded), Jugurtha (strangled) and Catiline’s accomplices (‘vixerunt’, said Cicero). All this has nothing to do with Dickens or the MED.
DR WILMOT smiles: Up to a point. According to his illustrator, Fildes,fn2 it would seem that Dickens’s idea was to set the novel’s final scene in a condemned cell, and that he was planning to visit the jail in Maidstone by way of research. There is no doubt, however, that he visited the Mamertine, the upper cell of which (later converted into the Chapel of S. Pietro in Carcere) particularly attracted him for the ‘rusty daggers, knives, pistols, clubs, divers instruments of violence’ that had been employed for various murders, and were hung there still ‘fresh from use’ to propitiate Heaven.
Everyone laughs at Antonia’s error, including Antonia herself, and she instructs the driver to bear right and turn into Via della Grazie, forgetting about the Mamertine. They draw up at a side entrance (normally closed, but open now at Antonia’s bidding) to the Roman Forum.
fn1 In Aylmer’s ‘reconstruction’, the unknown assassin believes he has killed Drood, having strangled him with the silk scarf he previously removed from Jasper. But Drood then regained consciousness and, finding the scarf round his neck, concluded it was his uncle who had tried to kill him, so he fled immediately to Egypt, not to return until the happy ending.
fn2 We will see, later, the cover Fildes designed for the MED (p. 393), as well as the famous engraving (p. 390) ‘The Empty Chair’.