The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
"We cannot allow such language here, sir. I call upon the court for its
protection against the insolence of this witness."
"The court does not think proper to interfere," said the judge, quietly.
"Oh, very well. Then I am done."
"But I am not," said the colonel. "I can inform you, and all whom it may
concern, that the proprietor of the lunatic asylum, in which the boy,
Ragg, was so unjustly confined, is now in Newgate, awaiting his trial
for that and other offences, and that I have succeeded in completely
breaking up the establishment."
The counsel did not think proper to say anything more to the colonel,
who was permitted, after firing this last shot at the enemy, to quit the
witness-box.
Sir Richard Blunt was the next witness called, and as his evidence was
expected to be very important indeed, all attention was paid to it.
There was that buzz of expectation throughout the court, which is always
to be heard upon such occasions, when anything very important is about
to take place, and every one shifted his place, in order the more
correctly to hear what was going on.
The Attorney-General himself arose to pursue the examination of Sir
Richard Blunt.
It was evident that the appearance of this witness roused Sweeney Todd
more than anything else had done since the commencement of the
proceedings. His eye lighted up, and setting his teeth hard, he prepared
himself, with his left hand up to his ear, to catch every word that
should fall from the lips of the man who had been his great enemy, and
who had wound around him the web in which he had been caught at last.
The appearance of Sir Richard Blunt was very attractive. There was
always about him an air of great candour, and the expression of his
features denoted generosity and boldness in a most astonishing degree.
CHAPTER CXXIX.
THE TRIAL OF SWEENEY TODD CONTINUED.
The peculiar circumstances under which Sir Richard Blunt had found out
all the villany of Todd, and overtook him and Mrs. Lovett in the midst
of their iniquities, were well-known to the people assembled in the
court, and some slight manifestations of applause greeted him as he
stood up in the witness-box.
This exhibition of feeling was not noticed by the court, and the
Attorney-General at once began his examination in chief.
"Sir Richard," he said, "will you have the kindness to put into the form
of a narration, what you have to say concerning the charge upon which
the prisoner at the bar is arraigned?"
"I will do so," replied Sir Richard, and then after a moment's pause,
during which you might have heard a pin drop in the court, so intense
was the stillness, the magistrate gave his important testimony against
the now trembling wretch at the bar of that solemn court.
"A considerable time ago," he said, "my attention was drawn to the
circumstance that a number of persons had disappeared, who were
residents about the neighbourhood of Fleet Street, and its vicinity.
Such disappearances were totally and perfectly unaccountable. Not a
trace could be found of very many respectable men, who had left their
houses upon various objects, and never returned to them.
"The most striking peculiarity of this affair was, that the men who
disappeared were for the most part great substantial citizens, who were
far from likely to have yielded to any of those temptations that at
times bring the young and the heedless in this great City into fearful
dangers.
"I saw the Secretary of State upon the subject; and it was agreed that I
was to have a _carte blanche_, as regarded expenses, and that I was to
give nearly the whole of my time and attention to the unravelling of the
mystery. It was then, that after my careful inquiry I found that out of
thirteen disappearances no less than ten had declared their intention to
be to get shaved, or their hair dressed, or to go through some process
which required them to visit a barber. I then, personally, called at all
the barber's shops in the neighbourhood, but never alone. To this fact
of having some one waiting for me in the shop, I no doubt owe my life,
for I have been eight times shaved and dressed by the prisoner at the
bar."
Todd uttered a deep groan, and looked at Sir Richard as though he would
have said--
"Oh, that I had you the ninth time so much at my mercy!"
There was quite a sensation, and a shudder through the court, as Sir
Richard then stated how many times he had run the fearful risk of death
at the hands of such a man as Todd; and then Sir Richard went on with
his narration, which deeply and powerfully interested the judge,
counsel, jury, and spectators.
"I did not find anything suspicious in the shop itself of the prisoner
at the bar; although each of these times that I was within it, I looked
at it narrowly; but I did find that he always made an effort to get the
person who was with me to leave the shop upon some pretext or another,
which, of course, never succeeded; and then without, in the least,
appearing vexed at the failure, he would go on with his shaving in the
coolest possible manner.
"This, however, was only suspicion, and I could take no advantage of it,
unless something else developed itself likewise; but that was not long
in happening. My attention was directed to the peculiar odour in St.
Dunstan's Church, and from the moment that it was so, I in my own mind
connected it with Sweeney Todd, and the disappearances of the persons
who had so unaccountably been lost in the immediate neighbourhood of
Fleet Street. In the midst of all this then, I had a formal application
made to me concerning the disappearance of Mr. Francis Thornhill, who
had been clearly traced to the shop of the prisoner at the bar, and
never seen by any one to leave it.
"From that moment I felt that it was in the prisoner's shop that the
parties disappeared, but the means by which they were murdered remained
a profound mystery, and I felt, that unless these means could be very
distinctly proved, a conviction would be difficult. I instituted a
careful search of the vaults beneath St. Dunstan's Church, and I found a
secret passage communicating with the cellar of the pie shop in Bell
Yard, and afterwards I found a similar passage communicating with the
cellar under the prisoner's shop.
"Upon reaching the latter cellar, the first object that presented itself
to me was, a chair fixed to the roof by its legs. That chair I at once
recognised as identically like the one in the shop, in which I had so
frequently sat, and in a moment the whole truth burst upon me. The plank
upon which the shaving chair rested, turned upon a centre, and could be
so made to turn by a simple contrivance above, so that any unfortunate
person could be let down in a moment, and the vacant or supplementary
chair would come up and take the place of the one that had been above.
"Prosecuting my researches, I found the skeleton of many persons in the
vaults, and much putrid flesh, which fully accounted for the odour in
St. Dunstan's Church. I found likewise that no meat from any butcher or
salesman ever found its way to the pie-shop in Bell Yard. So upon
research actuated by that fact, I found that the supply of flesh was
human, and that was the way the prisoner at the bar got rid of a great
portion of his victims.
"Measures were taken to prevent any more murders, by some persons in my
pay always following any one into the shop; and then, when the evidence
was all ready by the finding and identification of Mr. Francis
Thornhill's leg bone, I took measures to apprehend the prisoner at the
bar. I shall, of course, be happy to answer any questions that may be
asked of me."
The Attorney-General then spoke, saying--
"Have you found out by what means the shaving-chair in the shop of the
prisoner was prevented from falling at the moment any one sat in it?"
"Yes. By a simple piece of mechanism which communicated with the
parlour, he could release the swinging board or keep it firm at his
pleasure. I have had a model of the whole of the apparatus and building,
which will be laid before the jury. It is here in the hands of an
officer."
"Here you is," said Crotchet, coming forward with a large parcel in his
hands, which, upon being taken from its case, was found to be an
accurate representation of Todd's house, with the diabolical
contrivances he had got together for the purpose of murder.
The model was handed to the jury, and excited immense and well deserved
commendation.
"I have no further questions to ask of you, Sir Richard," said the
Attorney-General; "but I am sure the court and jury cannot but feel much
indebted to you for the very lucid manner in which you have given your
evidence."
"One moment, Sir Richard, if you please," said Todd's counsel as the
magistrate was about to leave the witness box. "I will not detain you
for long."
"I am quite at your service, sir," said Sir Richard Blunt.
"How was it then that after you felt convinced of the guilt of the
prisoner at the bar, as you state that you were, although I think upon
very insufficient grounds, that you did not at once arrest him? Does it
not seem very strange that you permitted him for some weeks to go on
just as usual?"
"I did not permit him to go on just as usual. I took every precaution to
prevent him from adding to the list of his offences. It is well known
that a person in my situation must not act upon his own convictions of
the guilt of any party. It was absolutely necessary that I should be
able to bring satisfactory proof before a jury of the guilt of the
prisoner at the bar, and it would have been quite premature to arrest
him until I had that proof."
"And pray, Sir Richard, when did you consider you had that proof?"
"When the surgeon was able to swear to a portion of the remains of Mr.
Francis Thornhill."
"Oh, then I am to understand that you rest the case for the prosecution
upon a bone?"
"I do not prosecute."
"But you took the prisoner into custody, sir; and am I to believe that
you did so solely on account of the finding a bone in some of the vaults
of St. Dunstan's?"
"You can conclude so."
"Oh, I can conclude so? Very well then. Gentleman of the jury, it
appears that the whole case against the prisoner at the bar, my worthy
and exemplary client, rests upon a bone. That will do, Sir Richard; we
will not trouble you any further. Perhaps the court will stop the case,
as it only rests upon a bone."
"Not exactly," said the judge.
The next witness was the surgeon, and his evidence was listened to with
great attention. He said--
"I was in the vaults of St. Dunstan's church, and I looked over a great
quantity of osteological remains. Among those remains I found a male
femur."
"A what, sir?" said Todd's counsel.
"It would be better," said the judge, mildly, "if the witness would be
so good as to give the vulgar names to what he may have to speak of, as
the jury may well be excused for not being in possession of anatomical
and scientific nomenclature."
"I will endeavour to do so," said the surgeon. "I beg to assure the
court, that it was from no feeling of pedantry that I used the
scientific terms; but they are so common professionally, that they are
used without thinking that they are other than the terms in common use."
"That is just the way I view it," said the judge, "and the court had not
the least idea of anything else. Pray go on, sir, with your evidence."
"I found, then, a large quantity of human bones," said the surgeon, "in
the vaults of St. Dunstan's, and among them a male thigh-bone, which I
have with me."
Here he produced from his great-coat pocket the bone he spoke of,
wrapped up in paper, and deliberately untying the string which bound the