St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-02-27
? DICKENS DEATH SECRET.
Some Light on "U,e Mystery of Edo
DrOOd.'

Some Light on "tIte Mystery of Edtcin
Brood"
In the February Century Miss Alice Mey-
nell tells Chow Edwin brood was Illustrated"
by E. l.. Fides, several of whose studies for
was in degree a confident of the novelist.
and to some extent he anticipated the mys-
terry of the story, as we learn in the follow
ing: cover the type of Jasper there was some
consultation. Mr.. Fildes made three shots,
one of them proved to be palpable hit. But
as to the story itself and the mystery, no con-
fdence were made by Dickens. The often
repeated assertion that he told no one his
intentions as to the intrigue is true in so far
as he volunteered no such telling. But a
part of the mystery was, as matter of fact,
surprised out Of him by Mr.. Fildes' kneeness
and care in taking up suggestion. 1t hap
pened in the following way: The artist had
taken special note of change in the descrip-
ton of Jasper's dress. Not only did the fact
that Jasper wore in the last scenes a large
black silk scarf, muffiing Herewith his throat
and keeping his beautiful voice from cold,
appear duly in the drawing, but Dickens saw
that the thing had been drawn with kind of
emphasis. Mr.. Fildes confessed that he had
OWNED its significance, whereupon Dickens
was somewhat troubled with the misgiving
that he was telling his story too fast. The
scarf was, in fact, the instrumen of murder.
After fostering the notes of the even-song
anthem, and hanging lightly about the throat
of the murderer as he talked with his victim,
it strangled the young breath of Edwin
brood on the night of the great gale.
Charles Dickens was probably wrong, how
ever, in supposing that too marked a
point would be made of this by the reader;
the dreadful use to which the thing was to be
put has probably been guessed by few. It
was, of course, otherwise with the clew Of the
ring given by Grewgious to Edwin. That
this one indestructible piece of gold was up
on the young mans person, unknown to the
murderer, who had withdrawn the watch and
the pin, and that it was to remain and bear
witness after quicklime had destroyed the
murdered body in the cathedral tower, must
have been obvious enough to every careful
reader The central crime OF the book (and
no fictitious wickedness was ever more
fraught with powerful and pen
etrating horror than is this onc) can
never have been intended by the author to
be mystery; the secret that Charles Dickens
intendedto keep, and kept in effect, was the
M nner of the discovery. He is a keen reade
who has ever found out who and what was
Mr.. Datchery, and of this Mr.. Fildes knows
no more than does the public. Some com
mentators, more interprising than attentive,
hazarded the conjecture that this strange fig
ure was disguise of Edwin brood himself,
who had escaped death and was on the track
of his would-be destroyer. This idea was
childish, and might have been corrected by
an ordinarily careful reading of the book. But
finding that Mr.. Fildes knew great deal,
Charles Dickens went on to make the princi-
pal revelation which concerned the central
figure; he told his illustrator that Jasper was
to be brought to justice in the end Of the
story. drawing of this originally and
most strongly conceived criminal locked
up in the condemned cell (Which waf to have
been studded at Rochester) was then
planned between the two as one of the final
subjects. By means of this design the CON
demned cells of two generations of artists
Fagin's, as conceived by George Cruikshank
and Jasper's as conceived by Luke Fildes-
would have been brought into interesting
com parison.''