What buffer, blackguard, or mountebank was behind the ghastly disappearance and presumptive murder of the blessed innocent Edwin Drood? Was it the cadaverous old stonemason Stony Durdles? The “sullen, angry, and wild” orphan boy Neville Landless, dead set on making the gentlefolk of the cathedral town of Cloisterham answer for the bad sign under which he was born? The “Angular” pettifogger and foiled swain Hiram Grewgious?