“ It may not be for nothing that this man has been reserved for this very strange destiny, to have the moral guilt of murder on his head, to have all the remorse for murder in his heart, and yet by a strangely marvellous fate to keep his hand actually free from human blood. Perhaps He who created John Jasper intended for him a destiny more terrible than human punishment, some expiation more terrible than the gallows; and I ask you to give the benefit of the doubt to the prisoner in the dock. ”

“ If you reject Helena Landless, there is only one alternative. You must put Thomas Bazzard in her place. Is this Mr. Bazzard, the man who fell asleep while his employer was discussing crucial matters with a client, one who was likely to appear as the elderly Mr. Datchery in Cloisterham? This man, who thinks more of his drama than his law work, is he a likely man to have devoted himself to confronting a man already suspected of murder? ”

“ Is it possible for opium to make a person half commit a murder? or Is it possible for quicklime so to destroy all traces, including buttons, and so that the disappearance of the body is evidence of the murder? That is the question I shall leave entirely to you—as to whether there is enough of what I may truly call “quicklime evidence” to warrant you regarding Jasper as a real murderer, or enough of “opium evidence” to warrant you saying that it was a visionary or dream murder. ”

“ Drood answered “It is sometimes called so.” “You be thankful your name is not Ned,” she next replied, “because it is a threatened name: a dangerous name.” “Threatened men live long,” he assured her. Her reply was—
“Then Ned—so threatened is he, wherever he may be while I am a-talking to you, deary—should live to all eternity!”
Now, gentlemen, it is a striking and amazing fact that Jasper, and he only, called Edwin Drood “Ned”—the threatened name. ”

“ This clever criminal, who kills a man, is content with his own memory that that man had nothing on him but a watch and chain and pin; drags them out; never thinks he might have some money, although he is staking his neck, or chance of survival, entirely on the assumption that everything will be destroyed by quicklime. He never takes the ordinary precaution to see if there is anything else. It is so amazingly absurd that it would be incredible if we did not know, as we do know, that he was under the influence of a drug and was not master of his faculties when the crime was being committed. ”

“ If he be lying it is impossible to believe that he is not a man of very remarkable ability. The fact that he is a man of low ability is my friend’s only reason for calling him a liar! I ask you to believe the testimony of Bazzard; and you must then acquit the prisoner.
But, as I was saying just now, Miss Helena Landless does not produce any evidence; nor does Durdles; nor Canon Crisparkle; not a shred of evidence to show that the murder took place. ”

“ John Jasper was a lasting danger to all who remained behind. Edwin Drood could not so entirely disappear from the realms of civilisation that he would not possibly know what was going on in Cloisterham, and yet you are asked to believe, Gentlemen, that this man upon whom a murderous attack had been made, went away at a convenient moment, leaving his friends to the persecution of the man who had assailed him, and leaving the way clear for the assailant to pursue his own evil courses! ”

“ I must therefore ask the Gentlemen of the Jury to put themselves for one moment in the position of such a person. You must forget that you are solid and good citizens summoned to decide a serious matter, nay, I must forget that I am an experienced Judge seated on this Bench for many years; and we must all try to think—both the Jury and myself—try to think we are authors. Supposing that to be the case, it is all the easier, of course, to imagine oneself the author of a crime. I will, therefore, very rapidly divide up the evidence, as I see it, on the two sides, and then leave the matter to you. ”

“ I am going to say at once that we are not out to attempt to dispute in any way that the prisoner desired the death of Edwin Drood or that he intended to murder him, nor that he planned to murder him, nor that he actually attempted to murder him, nor indeed, my Lord, that at one time, and for some time, he did believe that he had actually murdered him. What we do say, however, is that no murder took place. For any murder there must be, not only a murderer, but a murdered man. Now, granted for a moment that in the prisoner at the bar you have a potential murderer, where is the murdered man? ”

“ Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: After you installed yourself in the Tope’s lodgings, how did you propose to keep a record of your successes?
Witness: I rather amused myself by opening the cupboard door in my room, and chalking it up as is done in taverns which on occasions I have visited in Ceylon—I mean Norfolk. ”

“ He told you he “placed” the ring in the crypt for any passer-by to pick up, and that, knowing Drood was alive, he still allowed Neville Landless to be accused of murder and Rosa Bud to be persecuted by Jasper. This from a man connected with law! It is an absurd story, and utterly incredible. I ask you to reject it.
Gentlemen, a solemn duty rests on you in this crisis which I am sure gentlemen of your ability and intelligence will faithfully discharge. It is with infinite pain that I have to ask that this man shall pay the penalty of his sin. But John Jasper himself showed no mercy. ”

“ That ring would hold the murderer, and bring him to his doom. It would not be destroyed by the quicklime, and would be there intact and the means of bringing him to the scene of his desperate crime. Remember, he courted inquiry immediately after Drood’s disappearance—a sign of his supreme confidence and his colossal audacity. The man who has the slightest doubt that the murder may not have been completed does not at once set the law into motion, go to the magistrate and bring a charge. But if he knows it is completed and the body has gone, he can afford to do so. ”

“ I do not ask for vengeance, but only for the fulfilment of the law, that justice may be trusted to maintain the sanctity of human life. If you fail in your duty this man will henceforth be free. I charge you, in the name of humanity and human rights, to quit you as men, to act on the facts which have been placed before you. This mystery, Gentlemen, has lasted long enough. ”

“ Now, under the influence of that observation, my Lord, the more extreme characters, if they will allow me to say so, in this Jury, were at first inclined to find a verdict of Not Guilty, because there was no evidence of a murder having been committed; but on the other hand, the calmer and more judicious spirits among us felt that to allow a man who had committed a cold-blooded murder of which his own nephew was the victim, to leave the dock absolutely unpunished, was a proceeding which would probably lead to our all being murdered in our beds. ”

“ Yours is an enviable opportunity, and to-day you may strike a very great blow for the truth. The eyes of the nation are upon you, the whole world is anxiously awaiting your decision. I beg you, Gentlemen, resolutely and earnestly to sweep away all this fantasy which has been placed before you by my learned friend, to [Pg 77] forget his extraordinary story of a half murder, which I think I have shown to be impossible, and by one bold and emphatic stroke to solve for ever the Mystery of Edwin Drood. ”

“ Walters: You never saw Jasper taking opium?
Witness: No.
Mr. Walters: And you watched him in Cloisterham?
Witness: In the street. He never took any there.
Mr. Walters: You believe that possibly he made a desperate attack on Edwin Drood?
Witness: Yes, I think so.
Mr. Walters: He would possibly make an attack on someone else?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Don’t you think, therefore, you were in some danger?
Witness: I don’t think I was.
Mr. Walters: You don’t think you were in danger from a man who might make an attack? Are you a man of very great nerve? ”

“ May it please you, My Lord, Gentlemen of the Jury—
Although this case has many complications, the issue itself is an extremely simple one. Was Edwin Drood killed? If so, was Jasper the murderer? The defence has made one amazing, and I think fatal admission. It admits that John Jasper attacked Drood, attacked him with the intention of murdering him, and by that admission it consents that John Jasper’s character has gone—that he is a monster, that he is a hypocrite, that he is a man of no moral pretension, that he is a scheming criminal, and that murder was actually in his heart. ”

“ I certainly do not know how quick opium confuses the mind, or how quick quicklime destroys the body, and if the Jury know it, I, in the best traditions of the Bench and Bar, command that they dismiss it from their minds. ”

“ May I placate my friend and say, have we a murdered man? We say John Jasper did not murder Edwin Drood on the Christmas Eve of 1860. We have every reason to believe that Edwin Drood is still alive, and in that case, of course, it follows that you cannot legally convict John Jasper for murder. ”

“ Crisparkle, started his theory that Neville Landless was the person to be charged—and a man who does all those things cannot be accurately described as a bungler.
Canon Crisparkle told you the part Jasper played in fomenting quarrels between Drood and Landless. It is exactly the course that a calculating murderer would pursue. And you have heard the evidence of Durdles, a man who probably scarcely understood the purport of his own remarks. How valuable his testimony was! Jasper had spoken to him of quicklime and of tombs, and Jasper had gone with him on a midnight expedition. ”

“ Bazzard has no motive—no motive whatever—for attempting to secure the release of the prisoner. Miss Helena Landless has admitted in that box on her oath that her hatred of Jasper had nothing whatever to do with the assassination of Edwin Drood. Her hatred of Jasper does not rest on the fact that Jasper has killed Edwin Drood at all. It rests on the fact that Jasper has treated in an unfortunate way her brother, and her friend, Miss Rosa Bud. So there you have her confession that she had a very real motive for hunting down the prisoner. Miss Helena Landless has told her story. ”

“ Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: There was no question of catching a glimpse of it. You could go straight to it if you wanted to?
Witness: If you are quoting from the book.
Mr. Chesterton: We are quoting from something that is admitted as evidence. Every statement made here must be taken as being true.
Witness: But that was a blind.
Mr. Chesterton: I want to carry you further, Miss Landless—“with a general impression on his mind that Mrs. Tope’s was somewhere very near it.” Is that the general impression on your mind?
Witness: I knew exactly where to go to Mrs. Tope’s. ”

“ Well, there’s always quicklime lying about the crypt. Always.
Mr. Walters: You noticed it. Did Jasper happen to notice it?
Witness: He did. He asked me what it was for.
Mr. Walters: Oh, he asked you what it was for. And did you tell him?
Witness: Yes; I told him it ’ud burn anything; burn your boots, and with a little handy stirring, it ’ud burn your bones.
Mr. Walters: It would burn your bones with handy stirring. And when he put that curious question to you, did it occur to you there was a reason for it?
Witness: Durdles thinks everybody ’as a reason for everything they says and does. ”

“ Gentlemen, it is our painful duty to produce evidence to prove that Edwin Drood was murdered by his Uncle, the Prisoner. We contend that Jasper divested him of his watch and chain and his scarf pin, articles the Prisoner had, on another occasion, explained to the local jeweller he knew Drood to possess. ”

“ On December 23rd Jasper visited the Opium Den in London. Next day he returned to Cloisterham, and was followed thither by the Opium Woman, who had heard him use threatening language in his sleep towards someone called “Ned” (Jasper’s nickname for Edwin Drood) .
At night (Christmas Eve) the three men met and dined. It was a night of wild storm. The next morning Jasper hastened to Canon Crisparkle’s house shouting excitedly that his dear nephew had disappeared, and that he was convinced he had been murdered. ”

“ A stranger defence could scarcely be conceived, and yet there is [Pg 74] something in it, because it tries to ride off upon a side issue, and says that “Whereas you may convict this man of a certain attempt, we say that half way there he failed.” It is our duty, therefore, to try to prove to you that this man must inevitably have succeeded, and that he knew he had succeeded, and acted as if he had. What are the facts that demonstrated to you most conclusively that John Jasper committed the murder, and that Edwin Drood could not escape? ”

“ It is not necessary to the character of an old buffer that she should drink a pint of sherry. But her whole story! I asked her where she learned to keep tavern scores. Gentlemen, you know what the way of keeping tavern scores means. It is the notorious old English custom of “scoring a man up.” As many of you may know, and as Mr. Bazzard has sworn, in evidence, it is a custom particularly of Norfolk. That is a perfectly natural action for Bazzard. Had Miss Landless said a Norfolk man or a countryman had told her, we might have believed her. But she said she learned it in Ceylon! ”