Lyrics Out on a Limerick: Neville Landless - Rupert Holmes

Thank God for that!
I gladly unmask.
To wear this coat in June
Is too great a task.
There lies Dick Datch'ry,
Born on a whim.
We can dispense with
Last rites for him!

My motive in taking the role
Of a wigg'd and white-whiskered soul
Was to get myself back
To the city, and track
Down the culprit. With that as my goal,
I had also intended to find
Just what Jasper had had on his mind,
Much too eager is he
That all Cloisterham see
Me the murderer? God, are they blind!
All of these people suspicious
That I had killed Edwin Drood,
And with their anger so vicious,
I wore this costume so crude,
Stepping out on a limerick,
Out on a limerick,
Out on a limerick air!

I found a theatrical kit,
And as Datchery I did my bit.
So to clear my good name
From the blemish of blame.
('Twas for Helena, too, I admit.)
I followed John Jasper high low,
Found the dens he descends to below,
And when Puffer came here
'Twas immediately clear:
My suspicions were quite apropos.
So I crept in the lodgings of Jasper,
Dressed in this garb (what a sight!)
There I found Rosa Bud's clasp?
Her mother's she gave Drood that night!
Jasper took it from Ned
After hurling him dead
Towards the weir riverbed, I suppose!

Tell him that Datchery knows!
And the proof is quite clear,
Let us bring Jasper here
To be tried and then tied up and strung!

And from this limerick,
Let him be hung!