The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
more she became convinced that he would never have given utterance to it
if he had not felt perfectly sure it would be fulfilled, and so she got
comforted, and once again resolved to play her part in that dreadful
drama of real life, in the vortex of which, with the purest and the
holiest of motives, she had plunged recklessly, we will admit, but yet
from motives entitling her to sympathy on earth, and protection in
heaven.
Todd remained for a considerable time in the parlour; and when he came
out, Johanna saw that he had made some alteration in his apparel. The
first words he uttered were--
"Keep a good fire, Charley."
"Yes, sir."
"Did you ever see a house on fire, my boy?"
"I never did, sir."
"Ah! It must be an amusing sight--a very amusing sight, especially if
the conflagration spreads, and one has an opportunity of viewing it from
the water. Talking of water, the lady who was here this morning--Mrs.
Lovett--was very fond of water, and now she has got plenty of it. Ah!"
"Really, sir? Has she gone to the sea-side?"
Johanna looked Todd rather hard in the face as she spoke these words,
and the close observation seemed to anger him, for he spoke hastily and
sharply--
"What is it to you? Get out of my way, will you? and you may begin to
think of shutting up, I think, for we shall have no more customers
to-night. I am tired and weary. You are to sleep under the counter, you
know."
"Yes, sir, you told me so. I daresay I shall be very comfortable there."
"And you have not been peeping and prying about, have you?"
"Not at all."
"Not looking even into that cupboard, I suppose, eh? It's not locked,
but that's no reason why you should look into it--not that there is any
secrets in it; but I object to peeping and prying upon principle."
Todd, as he spoke, advanced towards the cupboard, and Johanna thought
that in another moment a discovery would undoubtedly take place of the
two officers who were there concealed; and probably that would have been
the case, had not the handle of the shop door been turned at that
moment, and a man presented himself, when Todd turned quickly, and saw
that he was a substantial-looking farmer, with dirty top-boots, as if he
had just come off a journey.
"Well, master," said the visitor, "I wants a clean shave."
"Oh," said Todd, not in the best of humours, "it's rather late; but I
suppose you would not like to wait till morning, for I don't know if I
have any hot water."
"Oh, cold will do."
"Cold? Oh, dear no; we never shave in cold water; and if you must, you
must; so sit down, sir, and we will soon settle the business."
"Thank you, thank you. I can't go to bed comfortable without a clean
shave, do you see? I have come up from Braintree with beasts on
commission, and I'm staying at the Bull's Head, you see."
"Oh, indeed," said Todd, as he adjusted the shaving cloth, "the Bull's
Head."
"Yes, master; why I brought up a matter o' 220 beasts, I did, do you
see, and was on my _pooney_, as good a stepper as you'd wish to see; and
I sold 'em all, do you see, for 550 _pun_. Ho, ho! good work that, do
you see, and only forty-two on 'em was my beasts, do you see; I've got a
missus at home, and a daughter; my girl's called Johanna--a-hem!"
Up to this point Johanna had not suspected that the game had begun, and
that this was no other than Sir Richard himself, most admirably
disguised, who had come to put an end to the mal-practices of Sweeney
Todd; but his marked pronunciation of her name at once opened her eyes
to that fact, and she knew that something interesting must soon happen.
"And so you sold them all?" said Todd.
"Yes, master, I did, and I've got the money in my pocket now, in
bank-notes; I never leaves my money about at inns, do you see, master;
safe bind, safe find, you see; I carries it about with me."
"A good plan, too," said Todd; "Charley, some hot water; that's a good
lad--and--and--Charley?"
"Yes, sir."
"While I am finishing off this gentleman, you may as well just run to
the Temple to Mr. Serjeant Toldrunis and ask for his wig; we shall have
to do it in the morning, and may as well have it the first thing in the
day to begin upon; and you need not hurry, Charley, as we shall shut up
when you come back."
"Very good, sir."
Johanna walked out, but went no further than the shop window, close to
which she placed her eyes, so that, between a pomatum jar and a lot of
hair brushes, she could clearly see what was going on.
"A nice-looking little lad, that," said Todd's customer.
"Very, sir; an orphan boy; I took him out of charity, poor little
fellow; but then, we ought to try to do all the good we can."
"Just so; I'm glad I have come to be shaved here. Mine's rather a strong
beard, I think, do you see."
"Why, sir, in a manner of speaking," replied Todd, "it is a strong
beard. I suppose you didn't come to London alone, sir?"
CHAPTER CX.
TODD'S HOUR HAS COME.
The hideous face that Todd made above the head of his customer at this
moment, was more like that which Mephistopheles might have made, after
achieving the destruction of a human soul, than anything human. Sir
Richard Blunt quickly replied to Todd's question, by saying--
"Oh, yes, quite alone; except the drovers I had no company with me; why
do you ask?"
"Why, sir, I thought if you had any gentleman with you who might be
waiting at the Bull's Head, you would recommend him to me if anything
was wanting in my way, you know, sir; you might have just left him,
saying you were going to Todd the barber's, to have a clean shave, sir."
"No, not at all; the fact is, I did not come out to have a shave, but a
walk, and it wasn't till I gave my chin a stroke, and found what a beard
I had, that I thought of it; and then passing your shop, in I popped, do
you see."
"Exactly, sir, I comprehend; you are quite alone in London?"
"Oh, quite; but when I come again, I'll come to you to be shaved, you
may depend, and I'll recommend you, too."
"I'm very much obliged to you," said Todd, as he passed his hand over
the chin of his customer, "I'm very much obliged; I find I must give you
another lather, sir, and I'll get another razor with a keener edge, now
that I have taken off all the rough, as one may say, in a manner of
speaking."
"Oh, I shall do."
"No, no, don't move, sir, I shall not detain you a moment; I have my
other razors in the next room, and will polish you off now, sir, before
you will know where you are; you know, sir, you have promised to
recommend me, so I must do the best I can with you."
"Well, well, a clean shave is a comfort, but don't be long, for I want
to get back, do you see."
"Not a moment, not a moment."
Sweeney Todd walked into his back-parlour, conveying with him the only
light that was in the shop, so that the dim glimpse that, up to this
time, Johanna from the outside had contrived to get of what was going
on, was denied to her; and all that met her eyes was impenetrable
darkness.
Oh, what a world of anxious agonising sensations crossed the mind of the
young and beautiful girl at that moment. She felt as if some great
crisis in her history had arrived, and that she was condemned to look in
vain into darkness to see of what it consisted.
We must not, however, allow the reader to remain in the same state of
mystification, which came over the perceptive faculties of Johanna
Oakley; but we shall proceed to state clearly and distinctly what did
happen in the barber's shop while he went to get an uncommonly keen
razor in his back-parlour.
The moment his back was turned, the seeming farmer who had made such a
good thing of his beasts, sprang from the shaving chair, as if he had
been electrified; and yet he did not do it with any appearance of
fright, nor did he make any noise. It was only astonishingly quick, and
then he placed himself close to the window, and waited patiently with
his eyes fixed upon the chair, to see what would happen next.
In the space of about a quarter of a minute, there came from the next
room a sound like the rapid drawing back of a heavy bolt, and then in an
instant, the shaving chair disappeared beneath the floor; and the
circumstances by which Sweeney Todd's customers disappeared was evident.
There was a piece of the flooring turning upon a centre, and the weight
of the chair when a bolt was withdrawn by means of simple leverage from
the inner room, weighed down one end of the top, which, by a little
apparatus, was to swing completely round, there being another chair on
the under surface, which thus became the upper, exactly resembling the
one in which the unhappy customer was supposed to be 'polished off.'
Hence was it that in one moment, as if by magic, Sweeney Todd's visitors
disappeared, and there was the empty chair. No doubt, he trusted to a
fall of about twenty feet below, on to a stone floor, to be the death of
them, or, at all events, to stun them until he could go down to finish
the murder, and--_to cut them up for Mrs. Lovett's pies!_ after robbing
them of all the money and valuables they might have about them.
In another moment, the sound as of a bolt was again heard, and Sir
Richard Blunt, who had played the part of the wealthy farmer, feeling
that the trap was closed again, seated himself in the new chair that had
made its appearance with all the nonchalance in life, as if nothing had
happened.
It was a full minute before Todd ventured to look from the parlour into
the darkened shop, and then he shook so that he had to hold by the door
to steady himself.
"That's done," he said. "That's the last, I hope. It is time I finished;
I never felt so nervous since the first time. Then I did quake a little.
How quiet he went: I have sometimes had a shriek ringing in my ears for
a whole week."
It was a large high-backed piece of furniture that shaving chair, so
that, when Todd crept into the shop with the light in his hand, he had
not the remotest idea it was tenanted; but when he got round it, and saw
his customer calmly waiting with the lather upon his face, the cry of
horror that came gurgling and gushing from his throat was horrible to
hear.
"Why, what's the matter," said Sir Richard.
"O God, the dead! the dead! O God!" cried Todd, "this is the beginning
of my punishment. Have mercy, Heaven! oh, do not look upon me with those
dead eyes."
"Murderer!" shouted Sir Richard, in a voice that rung like the blast of
a trumpet through the house.
In an instant he sprang upon Sweeney Todd, and grappled him by the
throat. There was a short struggle, and they were down upon the floor
together, but Todd's wrists were suddenly laid hold of, and a pair of
handcuffs most scientifically put upon him by the officers who, at the
word 'murderer,' that being a preconcerted signal, came from the
cupboard where they had been concealed.
"Secure him well, my men," said the magistrate, "and don't let him lay
violent hands upon himself."
Johanna rushed into the shop, and clung to the arm of Sir Richard,
crying--
"Is it all over! Is it indeed all done now?"
"It is, Miss Oakley."
The moment Todd heard these few words addressed to Charley Green as he
thought him, he turned his glassy blood-shot eyes upon Johanna, and
glared at her for the space of about half a minute in silence. He then,
although handcuffed, made a sudden and violent effort to reach her, but
he was in too experienced hands, and he was held back most effectually.
He struck his forehead with his fettered hands, making a gash in it from
which the blood flowed freely, as in infuriated accents, he said--
"Oh fool--fool, to be cheated by a girl! I had my suspicions that the