quicklime, "his face fortunately protected by the strong silk shawl
with which Jasper has intended to throttle him."


A MISTAKEN THEORY


This is "thin," very "thin!" Dickens must have had some better
scheme than Mr. Proctor's. Why did Jasper not "mak sikker" like
Kirkpatrick with the Red Comyn? Why did he leave his silk scarf?
It might come to be asked for; to be sure the quicklime would
destroy it, but why did Jasper leave it? Why did the intoxicated
Durdles come out of the crypt, if he was there, enter the
graveyard, and begin tapping at the wall of the vault? Why not
open the door? he had the key.

Suppose, however, all this to have occurred, and suppose, with Mr.
Proctor, that Durdles and Deputy carried Edwin to the Tramps'
lodgings, would Durdles fail to recognize Edwin? We are to guess
that Grewgious was present, or disturbed at his inn, or somehow
brought into touch with Edwin, and bribed Durdles to silence,
"until a scheme for the punishment of Jasper had been devised."

All this set of conjectures is crude to the last degree. We do not
know how Dickens meant to get Edwin into and out of the vault.
Granting that Edwin was drugged, Jasper might lead Edwin in,
considering the licence extended to the effects of drugs in novels,
and might strangle him there. Above all, how did Grewgious, if in
Cloisterham, come to be at hand at midnight?