JASPER. Then I’m trapped like a wolf in a cage. You filthy hag, this is your doing. (_Seizes candlestick on stool to strike her_; _she crouches down_. _Knocking at door now so fierce as to arrest his attention_, _and he turns towards it_, _weapon in his hand_.) (_Voice at door_. Open in the Queen’s name!) (JASPER _drops stool or whatever he has seized upon to attack_ SAL _with_, _staggers back_, _tears open his shirt-sleeve_, _where a small phial is seen fastened to left wrist_, _drags it from his wrist and holds it convulsively in right hand_, _as door is violently burst open_.) (_Enter_ Inspector of Police, _handcuffs in hand_, DURDLES, NEVILLE, CRISPARKLE, and GREWGIOUS.) GREW. (_to_ Officer, _pointing to_ JASPER). There is your prisoner. JASPER. Never! Do you think I was not prepared for this always! (_Takes poison_, _and flings phial down_.) Now I defy you! Hush! I did kill him! Ha! ha! The fellow-traveller! Yes. For love. For a mad wild passion. Killed him as I would have killed you and you—as I would have swept you all from the path that led to her. Ha! ha! what fools you were not to see it, not to see my love, how it burned, how it consumed me. She knew it! Rosa knew it. (_Then speaking as though none but he and_ ROSA _were present_.) Rosa! Rosa! My Rosa! Come! You must! You shall! (_Wildly_.) Back! Back! She’s mine I tell you! (_Passes hand over eyes_, _and staggers_, _then once more half realises the situation_.) What’s that? (_Looks round_, _and sees_ NEVILLE.) You here! You who think to reap the harvest for which I have sold my soul to hell! Vile wretch! I’ll kill you! (_Rushes to_ NEVILLE, _who stands forward_. _In act of raising arm to strike him_, JASPER _is seized with death spasm_, _trembles_, _shudders_, _and_, _flinging up arms_, _falls dead_. _Picture_: OPIUM SAL _crouching still in fear_, _Officer_, GREWGIOUS, DURDLES, NEVILLE, _and_ CRISPARKLE _near the body_.) END OF DRAMA THE TESTIMONY OF SIR LUKE FILDES A reviewer in the _Times_ Literary Supplement, 27th October 1905, wrote: ‘Nor do we attach much importance to any of the hints Dickens dropped, whether to John Forster, to any member of his family, or to either of his illustrators. He was very anxious that his secret should not be guessed, and the hints which he dropped may very well have been intentionally misleading.’ This called forth the following letter from Sir Luke Fildes: TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES Sir,—In an article entitled ‘The Mysteries of Edwin Drood’ in your issue of to-day, the writer, speculating on the various theories advanced as solutions of the mystery, ventures to say:—