The first time Jasper learnt the fact was on the day following the murder, when he heard it from Mr. Grewgious. He then instantly “gasped, tore his hair, shrieked,” swooned and “fell a heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor.” From this we infer that the information was unexpected and a shock to him. Sometime afterwards the Revd. Canon Crisparkle found the watch and chain and scarf pin, when walking near the weir, and he will be called to give evidence on this and other facts. Now, gentlemen, let me read to you an extract from the diary of Jasper entered after this discovery. It reads thus— “My dear boy is murdered. The discovery of the watch and shirt pin convinces me that he was murdered on that night, and that his jewellery was taken from him to prevent identification by its means.” The word “murdered” was frequently in the mind of Jasper at this time, and he made use of it in several phrases in his diary, which clearly demonstrates that he was attempting to create the impression that his nephew was murdered, and, by using the words, hoped to divert attention from himself. But he became so nervous of what he had written, that he declared to the Revd. Canon that he meant to “burn this year’s diary at the year’s end” and by so doing, as he evidently thought, destroy all evidence of his guilty conscience. There is one more phase to touch upon. It is admitted that John Jasper was secretly addicted to opium smoking and frequented a certain opium den in London kept by a person known as the “Princess Puffer.” Whilst under the influence of opium he babbled strangely, moaned, and uttered significant words in the hearing of the opium woman. This woman followed him more than once to Cloisterham and on one of these occasions, the fateful 24th December, she accosted Edwin Drood, and for the price of three and sixpence offered to tell him something. He paid her the money and she asked him first his name, and when he told her Edwin, she wanted to know, “Is the short of that name Eddy?...” 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. That very night Edwin Drood disappeared, and he has “never revisited the light of the sun.”