‘WATING FOR POIROT,’ jokes Loredana while Dr Wilmot looks meaningfully at his pocket-watch, which tells him it is a quarter past three.
Poirot, usually so punctual, is late for the afternoon session. This is all the more annoying, since, as Toad once again remarks, ‘Time is running out! We have to present our conclusions by tomorrow evening. Mind you, if the culprit turns out to be Jasper or the unknown assassin, don’t expect my signature.’
But it is not only Poirot (whose friend Hastings denies all knowledge of his whereabouts) who is late. Dr Thorndyke and the colonel of the Carabinieri are also missing. As is . . . no, here comes the Collinsian Latinist, together with Antonia.
At three-twenty the chairman opens the session regardless, nodding to the attendant to take up his position at the projector, as he did this morning.
‘The last document we must examine,’ he says, ‘is the cover illustration, which Fildes drew for the MED to precise instructions from the author. The illustration is the same for all the numbers, as I believe I’ve already told you. To make up for this, as J. Cuming Walters put it so concisely, “No two Droodists have ever given the same explanation of it.”fn1 Figure 2, please.’
After the sense of melancholy that the ‘Empty Chair’ left in everybody, the cover of the MED, with its cluster of animated scenes, has more of a humorous effect. Maigret’s and Dupin’s remarks, however, which open the discussion, are less frivolous than one might expect.
MAIGRET: The young couple leaving the cathedral, in the top left-hand corner, would seem to reassure the Victorian reader that the story will have a happy and matrimonial ending. But who are the happy couple? If we are to judge by Jasper’s expression, as he watches them, gnawing his fingers (assuming it is Jasper, on the right, next to the Dean and the Minor Canon), then the bride must be Rosa, who has crowned her dream of love with Mr Tartar. Except that, traditionally, the wedding takes place after the murderer has been unmasked. What, then, is Jasper doing there? He should have been executed by now, or at least be sitting in the condemned cell.
DUPIN: If we take up the suggestions of the last issue, a truly happy ending would have to be doubly matrimonial: Rosa and Tartar on one side, Helena and Crisparkle on the other. The illustrator would hardly have missed such an opportunity! From which we can conclude that things go very differently, and that the condemned cell contains not Jasper but Helena and her wretched alleged brother.
TOAD: Pray to God it be so!
P. PETROVICH: But note that all the episodes illustrated on the cover, apart from the one in the middle at the bottom, are literally set in an opium-haze, for they are all framed by the clouds rising from the pipes of the two smokers in the lower corners, the opium-den woman and, symmetrically, the Chinaman from the rival den. The scene at the top, therefore . . .
WILMOT: Yes, almost all the Jekyllians make this point, at least as far as the scene at the top is concerned. That is to say, it isn’t a real scene but Jasper’s nightmare: under the influence of the opium, he’s oppressed by the thought of Rosa’s and Edwin’s wedding day, and so begins to plan his crime. As for the two little scenes on the left, it makes no difference whether they’re dreams or not: in the first, a girl, probably Rosa, is reading one of the ‘LOST’ notices posted in and around Cloisterham after Drood’s disappearance; in the second, Jasper is kneeling at Rosa’s feet, declaring his love for her.
LIEUTENANT: What about the scene on the right?
The lights come back on, allowing us to pick out the Lieutenant in the first row; he entered in the dark and took the seat usually occupied by his superior officer. (‘Lieutenant Mattei,’ he says, introducing himself with a courteous bow. ‘The Colonel apologises, but official duties have detained him in the barracks. He sent me to keep him up to date with the course of the inquiry.’) We take the opportunity to look around the room, but neither Poirot nor Thorndyke has turned up. The lights dim again.
WILMOT: In the scene on the right, it can’t be Jasper taking his nephew up the tower to strangle him and throw him down, either in a dream or reality. Because in that case who would the third man be? Therefore it must be a true scene set at the end of the investigation, although Datchery is not recognisable. According to Wilson, whose theory we’ve already discussed, the three on the spiral staircase are Neville, Crisparkle, and Grewgious, and they’re following Datchery to the top of the tower, where they intend to surprise Jasper, who has compulsively returned to the scene of the crime.
BUCKET: These Jekyllians pull out the opium whenever it suits them, but forget all about it when it doesn’t.
BATTLE: Exactly. Wasn’t it Wilson who used the opium to argue Jasper’s split-personality, but who said that the final confession would be torn from him by Helena, through hypnosis, because otherwise the plagiarism from Collins would be too obvious? It’s the same here: the scene at the top is explained by the opium clouds at the bottom; but not the scene on the right, because that doesn’t fit his interpretation. No, this makes things too easy!
LIEUTENANT MATTEI, instantly winning Toad’s approval: Yes, too easy.
WILMOT: Let’s go to the drawing in the middle at the bottom. This is the favourite of those who believe Jasper is the murderer: the anti-Jasperians, you might say. They are by no means all Jekyllians; many of them feel that Jasper is simply a villain, a ‘wicked man’ whose drug-addiction serves as no excuse.
LIEUTENANT MATTEI, at once losing Toad’s approval: Quite right.
SERGEANT CUFF: I can imagine how the anti-Jasperians read this, and up to a point I agree. The man with the lantern is Jasper, and he’s entering Mrs Sapsea’s tomb, to open the coffin and check its contents.
WILMOT: Yes, he’s worked out that Datchery is an investigator whom Grewgious has put on his track, and he’s also learnt about the ring, thanks to his habit of constant spying and eavesdropping. He rightly fears that the ring may have remained intact amidst the calcified remains that he hid in the tomb, so he’s come to remove it.
DUPIN: But Datchery, who is of course Bazzard, was not so clumsy as to let this crucial secret out by mistake. It was by design that he conferred with Grewgious near the Cathedral, raising his voice enough for Jasper to overhear. So when Jasper takes the bait and that very night approaches with his lantern, Datchery is there waiting for him, phantom-like and menacing.
WILMOT: Some of Jasper’s defenders wriggle out of this with various ingenious explanations,fn2 but this is in fact the interpretation of his most influential accusers. But, as I have already mentioned, they are not all agreed on the identity of the mysterious investigator. Some believe Datchery to be . . . Helena. Others say he is Bazzard. The ghostly figure in the tomb is not Bazzard, however, but Helena disguised as Drood, or, rather as Drood’s ghost. In this way she adds the effect of surprise to her hypnotic powers and so obtains the confession.
P. PETROVICH, clearing his throat: Ahem, I don’t know what the legal value would be of a confession obtained under such circumstances. But whoever the ghostly individual is, if the scene really is set in Mrs Sapsea’s tomb, Jasper’s appearance there tells very strongly against him.
CUFF: Why?
The question, delivered in a firm voice, is like a gauntlet thrown. Everyone immediately understands that the high-ranking Scotland Yard officer has his own counter-explanation. This counter-explanation (the chairman says, smiling) will certainly be less fantastic than those offered by other defenders in the past. Less fantastic but far more elaborate, which makes it a pity that Thorndyke and Poirot are not present to hear it.
‘And therefore,’ continues Wilmot, while the lights are turned back on, which confirms that the two seats are still empty, ‘as it is already late, I suggest we adjourn until tomorrow, when we may hope . . .’
‘By all means,’ says Cuff, no less courteously. ‘But what I have to say is by no means elaborate. I merely wished to remind the defenders that Jasper, as he never tires of repeating, is investigating matters too. Why, then, should his meeting another investigator in Mrs Sapsea’s tomb “tell very strongly against him”? No, my idea is that from the moment of this encounter, Datchery begins to glimpse the truth as well, and so secretly joins forces with Jasper to unmask the real murderers.
TOAD, highly excited: I move that we at once present the sponsors with this irrefutable solution! The murderers are the two sinister Cingalese twins. Jasper is as innocent as a newborn babe!
HOLMES, lugubriously: Maybe, and I would be only too happy if it were so . . . But in that case why should the author have said, in his message from beyond, that he did not wish the secret to come to light? . . . No, Drood’s disappearance conceals something far more sinister! Besides, I fail to see what connection there is . . .
He breaks off. His detective instinct is clearly struggling with the promise made to Dickens’s ghost. At last Holmes shakes his head and refuses to go on. Everyone accepts Dr Wilmot’s suggestion and prepares to leave the room.
But Loredana, who appears to be struck by a professional doubt, does not leave the platform.
‘I don’t understand,’ she says at last. ‘It’s so uncharacteristic for two such well-mannered people as Mr Poirot and Mr Thorndyke to have stayed away like this without even taking the trouble to notify us.’
ANTONIA, from her seat, to Loredana: I don’t understand either. Or maybe I do, all too well. You don’t think . . .
LOREDANA: Oh, of course!
ANTONIA: Wait here, then, while I go and see.
The participants, accustomed to the ways of big international hotels, have all guessed the truth before Antonia returns with folded slips of paper, which are recognisable as the light-blue forms for telephone messages at the reception desk. There is also a telex.
‘They’re all urgent, all addressed to Dr Frederick Wilmot in the Dickens Room,’ Loredana says, flipping through them and handing them to the chairman in order of arrival, ‘and all were sitting there at the reception desk.’
‘O tempora,’ the Latinist remarks on everybody’s behalf.
Dr Wilmot reads them aloud. ‘1415 hours, telephone message from Rome from Mr Poirot and Mr Thorndyke: Making outside inquiries on D case. Will probably arrive late. Please excuse. Proceed in our absence. 1445 hours, telephone from Spoleto, Perugia: Unable to return before evening. 1530 hours, telephone from Monte S. Savino, Arezzo, from Mr Poirot: Returning tomorrow morning. 1600 hours, telex from Pisa: Hope to return tomorrow afternoon – Thorndyke.’
Everyone naturally turns to Hastings and Thorndyke’s colourless lawyer-companion, Astley.
What do they mean by ‘outside inquiries’? And why at Spoleto? And why at Monte San Savino? And Pisa? Could there be some connection between its famous tower, so brilliantly described in the Pictures, and the tower of Cloisterham? Furthermore, why does Poirot announce his return for tomorrow morning, while Thorndyke ‘hopes’ to return tomorrow afternoon?
Hastings repeats, though with embarrassment (he is probably not telling the truth), that he did not even know Poirot intended to leave the U&O; and Astley limits himself to a formal ‘no comment’.
Suspicions then fall on the Latinist, who had been seen talking at length with Poirot after the morning session, and on Antonia as well. (The two had a ‘rather sheepish air’, according to Popeau, when they arrived late for the afternoon session.) Others, noting the simultaneous disappearance of the colonel, accost Lieutenant Mattei; but the latter announces that he must return to barracks at once and takes his leave with a curt military bow.
The remainder of the evening passes in wild and playful conjectures: such as Maigret’s idea that Spoleto, with its festival, might throw light on some of the MED’s many allusions to theatrical works. But most people apparently decided to keep their theories to themselves. Monte San Savino, after all, must have suggested something to somebody. And who could have failed to notice the unusual speed with which the two investigators travelled, indicating some extraordinary means of transportation. As for Pisa, its significance is perfectly clear – at least to us – in the light of Thorndyke’s movements and his ‘hope’ of returning before tomorrow afternoon.
As for the rest, all we can do is wait until tomorrow morning.
fn1 J. Cuming Walters, The Complete MED, London, 1912.
fn2 Aylmer, for example, claims that this scene does not take place in the Sapsea tomb but at some other location, where Jasper meets Neville or a different individual whom he suspects is the unknown assassin.