The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
large cloak with sleeves, and placing upon his head a hat richly bound
with silver lace.
"Upon my word," said Lupin, "you almost look respectable."
"Do I?" said Todd. "It isn't then on account of the company I am in."
Lupin smiled, as he said--
"Very good--very good, but the less we cut at each other, my friend, the
better."
"You began it," said Todd.
"So I did, so we will say no more about it, as yours was the hardest
hit. How do I look in the cloak and hat?"
"Just nice," said Todd, making a frightful face.
Lupin laughed again.
"Come," he said. "Now that we have a little time to spare, let us see if
these people keep a good larder. If they do and they lock it up at
night, they will find that the cat has been at it by the morning, I
rather think. Tread as lightly as you can, Todd, and keep down your
voice as you have done. Sounds go so far in the night time."
"They do," said Todd. "I have heard them at odd times."
Lupin led the way along the hall, at the end of which was the staircase,
and to the right of that a door which was not fast, so that they passed
on quite easily to the domestic portion of the house, and soon found the
way to a kitchen, which was upon the same floor. Then they opened a door
that led into a little sort of outhouse, paved with red bricks, and in
one corner of that was a larder, or safe, well stocked with provisions.
Lupin took from it a magnificent quarter of venison, with scarcely a
quarter of a pound cut from it; and that, with some bread were the only
viands that he felt disposed to take from the larder.
"It will be wholesome," he said, "and do us a world of good, by the aid
of Providence; and we don't know what we may have to go through yet, in
this world of woe. Amen!"
"You fancy you are in the chapel again."
"Dear me; yes, I do--I do. Well, well, it don't matter--it don't matter.
Come, friend Todd. Let us recruit ourselves a little. Oh, that I could
find the way to the wine cellar of these people; and yet that should not
be a difficult matter. Let us think. It must be somewhere hereabouts."
"There is a door," said Todd, pointing to one at the end of the
outhouse. "It seems to be locked, and if so, it is no doubt that of the
cellar."
"We will try it," said Lupin.
With this he quickly opened the door, by the aid of his picklocks, which
no ordinary lock could withstand the fascinations of for a moment, and
then sure enough the supposition of Todd was found to be correct, for a
goodly collection of bottles in long rows presented themselves to the
eye. Lupin at once laid hold of a bottle, and breaking off the neck of
it he decanted a quantity of its contents into his throat, rubbing his
stomach as he did so in a most ludicrous kind of way, to indicate how
much he enjoyed the draught.
"Nectar," he said, when he took the bottle from his mouth to enable
himself to breathe; "nectar."
"Is it?" said Todd, as he seized upon another bottle. "I am partial
generally to something a trifle stronger than wine; but if it be really
good, I have no particular objection to a drop."
With this Todd finished off half a bottle of the rich and rare old port
that was in the cellar. They then worked away at the haunch of venison;
and having made a very hearty meal, they looked at each other as though
they would both say--"What next?"
"You say you have money?" said Lupin.
"True," said Todd.
"But not here of course, my friend; and who knows what difficulties we
may find in our way before we reach your nice little hoard? Where did
you say it was?"
"Hidden beneath a tree in Caen Wood, close to the village of Hampstead.
I went one night, and myself placed the cash there in case of
accidents."
"And how much do you suppose, my friend, there is?"
"I know what there is. I put away two thousand pounds, and that you know
will be a thousand pounds for you, and another for me. I purpose in that
manner equitably to share it, for I am not ungrateful for the great
assistance you have been to me in this escape from Newgate."
If Mr. Lupin had not swallowed two-thirds of a bottle of old port-wine,
the probability is that he would have detected that Todd was deceiving
him, by the whining canting tone in which he spoke. The fact was, that
Todd had not one farthing hidden in Caen Wood; but he thought it highly
desirable while there existed any danger, and while Mr. Lupin was likely
to be useful to him, to keep up such a delusion.
"Well," added Lupin, "you really are a liberal fellow; but as, I say,
there is no knowing what good a trifle may be to us before we reach your
snug two thousand pounds in Caen Wood, I propose to see what we can get
in this house. People who keep such a good cellar, and such a capital
larder, ought to have something in the place worth the taking in the way
of cash."
"Yes, but I am afraid it will be hazardous," said Todd.
"A little, perhaps; but with this carving knife, don't you think we
might make things pleasant?"
"That is possible. Well, if anything worth having is to be got, let us
set about it at once; for I think we have spent time enough in this
house; and no doubt our friends are upon the move off, if they have not
gone long before this."
"Come on, then."
They both left the kitchen, and each being armed with a knife, they
cautiously opened all the room doors on that floor; but they only found
the usual furniture of such apartments, and it was quite clear that no
cash was to be had in that portion of the premises.
"Come up stairs," said Lupin, with a look of savage determination. "Come
on, Todd; we will see what can be done up stairs."
They carefully ascended the staircase, but they only just peeped into
the drawing-room, and then they went up to the floor upon which the
bed-rooms were situated. They paused at the first door they came to, and
Lupin very carefully tried the lock. It was only on the latch, and in
the room a rushlight was burning. They both crept in, and their
footsteps made no noise upon the soft carpeting of the apartment. A bed
was in the room, and upon it lay a young lady. Lupin gave a hideous grin
as he looked at her, and then stooping down by the bed-side he said, in
a whisper--
"If you scream, everybody in this house will be murdered!--If you
scream, everybody in this house will be murdered! If you--Oh, that will
do."
The young lady awakened with a start, but the words that were twice
repeated still rung in her ears, and scream she did not, but she looked
half dead from fright.
"Now, my dear," said Lupin, "Providence has brought us to your bed-side,
and if you make any disturbance, we mean to submit you and the whole of
the family to the operation of a carving-knife, the Lord willing. All we
want is money, and if we can get that quietly, we will go and not so
much as ask your pretty little lips for a kiss."
"Oh, Heaven protect me!" said the young lady.
"A--men!" said Lupin. "Now my dear, who is in the house besides you?"
"My father, the alderman, and my mother, and the servants above
stairs.--Oh, spare my parents."
"Very good, where can any money be got hold of?"
"Will a hundred pounds content you?"
"Yes," said Todd, putting his head between the curtains at the foot of
the bed. The young lady gave a faint cry, and Mr. Lupin flourished the
carving-knife over her--"Where are the hundred pounds?" he said, "and we
will go."
"In my father's room. It is the next room. His purse is on the
dressing-table. If you will let me go and get it, I will give it to you
upon your promise then to leave the house."
"How are we to trust you not to say that we are here?"
"I swear by all that is holy--I use the name of the great God. Oh,
indeed you may trust me."
"Go," said Lupin.
The young lady got out of bed, and both Todd and Lupin followed her from
the room. She crossed the landing, and at once opened the door of a
room. Then they heard a man's voice say--"Who's that?" and the young
lady replied--"Only me, father. I want something out of your room. I
shall not be a minute." "Bless the girl," said a female voice--"What can
she want?"
In a minute or two the young lady came back to the landing where Todd
and Lupin were waiting for her.
"Now," said Lupin in a low voice--"Now, my little dear, have you got
it?"
"Quick--quick!" said Todd, "or you die. I am half a mind to cut your
throat as it is, just for the pleasure of the thing."
The young lady stood just upon the threshold of the door of her father's
room, and then as Lupin held up his light, she raised both her hands, in
each of which was a horse-pistol, and presenting one at Lupin's head and
one at Todd's, she said--
"Thieves! thieves! thieves!"
CHAPTER CXXXVII.
THE MURDER AT CAEN WOOD, HAMPSTEAD.
It would be quite impossible to describe the effect that was produced
upon Lupin and Sweeney Todd, by this heroic conduct on the part of the
young lady, from whom they did not in the least expect any such active
resistance to their proceedings.
Lupin was constitutionally, by far the greater coward of the two, and
when he saw the bright barrel of the pistol in such startling and
unexpected contiguity to his head, he at once stepped back, and missing
his footing, fell down the stairs to the landing-place immediately below
that flight.
Todd thought that there would be just a chance of dashing in upon the
young lady and disarming her of her pistols; but now that both of them
were levelled at him, and she began to cry out "Help! help! thieves!"
again, louder than before, he reluctantly abandoned the idea, and
turning, he bounded down the staircase.
The young lady leant over the stair-head and fired one of the pistols
after him, which so accelerated the movements of Todd, that he tumbled
right over Mr. Lupin, and fell down all the way to the hall with Lupin
after him.
Under any other circumstances than the dangerous and exciting ones in
which they were in, no doubt they would both of them have been too much
hurt to do anything but lie on their backs in the hall; but the feeling
that if they were taken it would be to death, was sufficient to rouse
them, and they both scrambled to their feet.
Lupin got the street-door open, and dashed out closely followed by Todd.
A watchman tried to stop them, but him they felled with a blow, and then
off went Lupin down a cross-street, that led him into Old-street Road,
and with Todd at his heels, who was very faint.
"Stop, stop!" panted Todd, "stop!"
"What for?" said Lupin.
"I cannot run so fast. Are you hurt? Oh, that I had a knife at that
girl's throat!"
Lupin paused, and held by a post at the corner of a street, and swore
dreadfully, as he too panted a little for breath, although he was by no
means so much used-up as Todd was. But then Lupin was a younger man, and
much lighter on his feet, than our old friend of murdering notoriety.
"Oh, dear," said Todd. "What's to be done now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing, did you say? But, my dear friend, something must be done. We
have positively wasted half the night, and we are without money, and
half dead. I am covered with bruises from head to foot by the fall down
the staircase, and it will be daylight in another half hour or so at the
utmost."
"Ah," said Lupin, "we must breakfast somewhere, I'm thinking, my
friend."
"And so am I."
"Well, well, we have made certainly a mess of our adventure at the
alderman's; but it can't be helped now. The idea, only to think of it
now, Todd, of you and I, two such men as we are, and as the world
refutes us to be, being beaten back, and, you may say, thrown down two
pair of stairs, by a girl of sixteen or thereabouts."
Todd growled out some malediction.