The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
against me. It is not true that she is dead. Some of you are chargeable
with allowing that woman to escape. I tell you that she is a fiend and
not a woman. But she has had gold at her disposal, and she has bribed
you all--I say she has bought you all."
"Prisoner," said the judge, "this cannot be permitted. You only deeply
prejudice your own case by this conduct."
"That is impossible. I know that you are all in one large conspiracy
against me, and you have let that woman escape, in order that the last
drop should not be wanting to fill my cup of bitterness to the
overflowing."
"It will be impossible," said the Attorney-General, "to proceed with the
case, if the prisoner at the bar continues these interruptions."
"Prisoner," said the judge, "I, and all here present, are disposed to
give any allowance and indulgence to a man in your situation; but let me
beg of you to be silent."
"I am done," said Todd, "but it is false to say that she is dead. That
fiend cannot die. She is a devil, I tell you all, and if there be any
here who fancy that she is dead, I tell them that they are mistaken. She
cannot be killed. I know that well. Go on with what you call your
proceedings; I have no more to say to you."
CHAPTER CXXVII.
THE TRIAL OF SWEENEY TODD CONTINUED.
This ebullition of feeling upon the part of Sweeney Todd was by some of
the spectators looked upon as a vague indication of insanity, while some
of the members of the bench looked very mysterious, and asked themselves
if it were not the first step in the direction of some very clever
defence. But then they were gentlemen who never exactly saw anything as
the world in general agrees to see it.
The judge shook his head as if he rather doubted Sweeney Todd's implicit
promise that he would not again interrupt the proceedings; and among the
whole of the spectators of that most extraordinary trial, the most
intense interest was evidently rather on the increase than the
diminution.
The judge finding that Todd did not again say anything for a few
moments, slightly inclined his head to the Attorney-General, as much as
to say--"Pray get on, now that there seems an opportunity of so doing;"
and that personage, learned in the law, accordingly rose again, and
having adjusted his gown, addressed himself again to the case before
him, with his usual skill.
"My lords, and gentlemen of the jury--
"If this were only some ordinary everyday proceeding, I should not sit
so calmly under the indecorous interruptions of the prisoner at the bar;
but when I feel, in common with all here present, that that person has
so great a stake as his life upon the issue of this investigation, I am
disposed in all charity to allow a latitude of action, that otherwise
would not, and could not, be endured.
"Gentlemen of the jury, I yet hope that these unseemly interruptions are
over, and that I shall be permitted in peace to make those remarks to
you, which it is my duty to make on behalf of the crown, who prosecutes
in this serious case.
"Nothing can be further from my wish than to heighten by any strength of
phraseology or domestic detail the case against the prisoner at the bar.
I shall confine myself to a recital of the bare facts of the case,
feeling that, while I cannot detract from them, they are of such a
character of horror, as to require no adventitious aid from the art of
the orator.
"Gentlemen, it appears that the prisoner at the bar is arraigned for the
wilful murder of Francis Thornhill. From what information we have been
able to collect, the prisoner, Sweeney Todd, is a native of the north of
England. He came to London about eighteen years ago, and was in very
great poverty, when he opened a small barber's shop in Crutched Friars.
He remained in that shop about seventeen months, and then paid one
hundred and twenty-five pounds for the lease of a house in Fleet Street,
for which he was thus only to pay a rental to the Skinners' Company of
seventeen pound ten per annum, he consenting to keep the premises in
ordinary repair.
"The lower part of this house had been a small hosier's; but the
prisoner at the bar altered it into a barber's shop, and he has there
continued to reside until his arrest upon the serious charge which we
are brought here to investigate.
"What were the pursuits of the prisoner during his occupancy of that
house, it is not our province just now to inquire, as all our attention
must be directed to a consideration of the one charge, to answer to
which he stands at the bar of this court; and I shall, therefore,
proceed to detail the evidence upon which the prosecution founds that
charge:--
"It appears that upon the third day of August last, a ship of 400 tons
burthen, called the Star, arrived in the London Docks. On board of that
ship was the captain, and a crew of nine seamen, and two boys. As
passengers, there was a Colonel Jeffery, and a Mr. Thornhill, whose
death is the motive of the present proceedings. There was likewise a
large dog named Hector on board the vessel, which was very much attached
to Mr. Thornhill.
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, it had so happened that Francis Thornhill
had been commissioned, during the progress of a wreck at sea by a young
gentleman named Mark Ingestrie, to take a certain String of Oriental
Pearls, valued at somewhere about sixteen thousand pounds sterling, to a
young lady in London, named Johanna Oakley; and this Francis Thornhill,
fully believing that Mark Ingestrie had perished at sea, was most
anxious to fulfil his request regarding this valuable and important
String of Pearls.
"As early as possible he landed from the ship, taking the String of
Pearls with him, and his faithful dog Hector accompanied him on shore."
At this moment, Hector, who was in court, having for the second time
heard his name mentioned, began to think probably that something was
going on concerning him, and he set up a loud bark of defiance.
The effect of this was greatly to interest some of the auditory, while
it brought a smile to the faces of others. Todd turned deadly pale, and
in a voice of alarm, he cried--
"Keep off the dog--keep off the dog, I say!"
"Bow!--wow!--wow!" barked Hector again.
"That dog," said the judge, "must be immediately removed from the court.
Officers, see to it."
"I beg, my lord," said the Attorney-General, "that you will allow him to
remain, for I assure your lordship that he is a witness in this most
important case."
"A witness?"
"Yes, my lord; I speak advisedly, and as a favour I hope your lordship
will permit him to remain."
"Will anybody keep him quiet?"
"Oh, yes, your worship," cried the ostler. "I'll keep Pison like a mouse
as has fainted clean away."
"Who is that man, and what does he say?" said the judge.
"My lord," said the Attorney-General, "he says he can keep the dog quite
quiet if you will allow him to remain."
"Oh, very well. Pray proceed, Mr. Attorney."
The Attorney-General then resumed.
"With the String of Pearls then, and the dog, which the jury have seen,
Mr. Francis Thornhill went into the City to fulfil the request of Mark
Ingestrie. The address he had was to Mr. Oakley, a spectacle-maker in
the City, with whom Miss Oakley, who was to have the String of Pearls,
resided.
"Gentlemen of the jury, neither Francis Thornhill nor the String of
Pearls ever reach their destination. It appears that on his route,
Thornhill went into the shop of the prisoner at the bar to be shaved,
and no one ever saw him come out again. The dog though was found sitting
at the door of the shop, and when Todd opened his shop-door, the dog
rushed in and brought out his master's hat.
"Gentlemen, the captain of the ship and Colonel Jeffery, both became
very anxious concerning the fate of Mr. Thornhill, and they made every
inquiry. They questioned the prisoner at the bar, who at once admitted
that he had shaved him, but stated that he had left his shop when that
operation was over. The captain of the Star was compelled to go to
Bristol with his ship, but Colonel Jeffery, in conjunction with a
friend, pressed his inquiries about Mr. Thornhill without success. The
matter appeared to be involved in the most profound mystery, and the
only hope of an elucidation of it, consisted in the probability that
such a valuable piece of property as the String of Pearls would be sure
to turn up some day in some one's possession. Gentlemen, it did so turn
up. It appeared that at Hammersmith resided a Mr. John Mundell, who lent
money upon securities, and it will be deposed in evidence, that one
evening the prisoner at the bar, magnificently attired, and in a
handsome coach, went to this Mr. Mundell, and pawned a string of pearls
for some thousands of pounds.
"It is to be regretted that this Mundell cannot be brought before the
jury. He is dead, gentlemen; but a confidential clerk of his, who saw
the prisoner at the bar, will depose to the facts.
"We thus then, gentlemen of the jury, commit the prisoner with the
disappearance of Thornhill, and now we come to the strongest features of
this most remarkable case.
"It appears that for a considerable time past, the church of St.
Dunstan's had become insufferable from a peculiar stench with which the
whole of that sacred edifice appeared to be constantly filled, and it
baffled all the authorities to account for it.
"No one had been entombed in any of the vaults beneath the church for a
considerable time, and in fact, there was no apparent reason for the
frightful miasmatic odour that upon all occasions filled the edifice,
and day by day got worse instead of better. Scientific men, gentlemen of
the jury, were consulted with regard to this stench in the church, and
various very learned theories were broached upon the subject; but no one
thought of making an accurate examination of the vaults beneath the
church, until Sir Richard Blunt, the well-known magistrate, privately
undertook it.
"Gentlemen, Sir Richard Blunt found that almost every vault was full of
the fresh remains of the dead. He found that into old coffins, the
tenants of which had mouldered to dust, there had been thrust fresh
bodies with scarcely any flesh remaining upon them, but yet sufficient
to produce the stench in the church, by the effluvia arising from them,
and finding its way into the pews. In one vault, too, was found the
contents of which were too horrid for description; suffice it that it
contained what butchers, when speaking of slaughtered animals, call the
offal. The stench in St. Dunstan's Church was no longer a mystery.
"Well, gentlemen of the jury, Sir Richard Blunt persevered in his
investigations, and found that there was an underground connection from
exactly beneath the shaving shop of the prisoner at the bar, and the
cellarage of a house in Bell Yard, Temple-bar, which was his property;
and which was in the occupation of a female, named Lovett, who this day
would have stood at the bar by the side of the prisoner, had she not,
despite every vigilance used to prevent such an act, succeeded in
poisoning herself, while in prison in Newgate.
"Gentlemen of the jury, it will be shown in evidence that the way the
larger portion of the flesh of Todd's victims was got rid of was by
converting it into meat and pork pies upon the premises of Mrs. Lovett.
"Beneath Todd's shop was found a diabolical contrivance, by which he
could make any one he pleased fall through the floor upon the chair they
sat on to be shaved, while an empty chair, in all respects similar, took
the place of the one that had been occupied by the unfortunate victim.
If the unhappy man, thus betrayed in a moment of confidence, was not
killed by the fall, he would, at all events, be sufficiently stunned to