The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
was opening the door to the highest class of business in his way that he
was capable of doing.
"In what name, your grace," he said, "shall I draw a cheque upon my
banker?"
"In the name of Colonel George."
"Certainly, certainly; and if your grace will give me an acknowledgment
for eight thousand pounds, and please to understand that at the end of a
month from this time the transaction will be renewed if necessary, I
will give you a cheque for seven thousand five hundred pounds."
"Why seven thousand five hundred only, when you mentioned eight thousand
pounds?"
"The five hundred pounds is my little commission upon the transaction.
Your grace will perceive that I appreciate highly the honour of your
grace's custom, and consequently charge the lowest possible price. I can
assure your grace I could get more for my money by a great deal, but the
pleasure of being able to meet your grace's views is so great, that I am
willing to make a sacrifice, and therefore it is that I say five
hundred, when I really ought to say one thousand pounds, taking into
consideration the great scarcity of money at the present juncture; and I
can assure your grace that--"
"Peace, peace," said Sweeney Todd; "and if it be not convenient to
redeem the jewels at the end of a month from this time, you will hear
from me most assuredly."
"I am quite satisfied of that," said John Mundel, and he accordingly
drew a cheque for seven thousand five hundred pounds, which he handed to
Sweeney Todd, who put it in his pocket, not a little delighted that at
last he had got rid of his pearls, even at a price so far beneath their
real value.
"I need scarcely urge upon you, Mr. Mundel," he said, "the propriety of
keeping this affair profoundly secret."
"Indeed you need not, your grace, for it is part of my business to be
discreet and cautious. I should very soon have nothing to do in my line,
your grace may depend, if I were to talk about it. No, this transaction
will for ever remain locked up in my own breast, and no living soul but
your grace and I need know what has occurred."
With this, John Mundel showed Sweeney Todd to his carriage, with
abundance of respect, and in two minutes more he was travelling along
towards town with what might be considered a small fortune in his
pocket. We should have noticed earlier that Sweeney Todd had, upon the
occasion of his going to sell the pearls to the lapidary, in the city,
made some great alterations in his appearance, so that it was not likely
he should be recognised again to a positive certainly. For
example--having no whiskers whatever of his own, he had put on a large
black pair of false ones, as well as moustachios, and he had given some
colour to his cheeks likewise which had so completely altered his
appearance, that those who were most intimate with him would not have
known him except by his voice, and that he took good care to alter in
his intercourse with John Mundel, so that it should not become a future
means of detection.
"I thought that this would succeed," he muttered to himself, as he went
towards town, "and I have not been deceived. For three months longer,
and only three, I will carry on the business in Fleet-street, so that
any sudden alteration in my fortunes may not give rise to suspicion."
He was then silent for some minutes, during which he appeared to be
revolving some very knotty question in his brain, and then he said,
suddenly--
"Well, well, as regards Tobias, I think it will be safer,
unquestionably, to put him out of the way by taking his life, than to
try to dispose of him in a mad-house, and I think there are one or two
more persons whom it will be highly necessary to prevent being
mischievous, at all events at present. I must think--I must think."
When such a man as Sweeney Todd set about thinking, there could be no
possible doubt but that some serious mischief was meditated, and any one
who could have watched his face during that ride home from the
money-lender's, would have seen by its expression that the thoughts
which agitated him were of a dark and desperate character, and such as
anybody but himself would have shrunk from aghast. But he was not a man
to shrink from anything, and, on the contrary, the more a set of
circumstances presented themselves in a gloomy and a terrific aspect,
the better they seemed to suit him, and the peculiar constitution of his
mind. There can be no doubt but that the love of money was the
predominant feeling in Sweeney Todd's intellectual organization, and
that, by the amount it would bring him, or the amount it would deprive
him of, he measured everything. With such a man, then, no question of
morality or ordinary feeling could arise, and there can be no doubt that
he would quite willingly have sacrificed the whole human race, if, by so
doing, he could have achieved any of the objects of his ambition. And
so, on his road homeward, he probably made up his mind to plunge still
deeper into criminality, and perchance to indulge in acts that a man not
already so deeply versed in iniquity would have shrunk from with the
most positive terror. And by a strange style of reasoning, such men as
Sweeney Todd reconcile themselves to the most heinous crimes upon the
ground of what they call policy. That is to say, that having committed
some serious offence, they are compelled to commit a great number more
for the purpose of endeavouring to avoid the consequences of the first
lot, and hence the continuance of criminality becomes a matter necessary
to self-defence, and an essential ingredient in their consideration of
self-preservation. Probably Sweeney Todd had been for the greater part
of his life, aiming at the possession of extensive pecuniary resources,
and, no doubt, by the aid of a superior intellect, and a mind full of
craft and design, he had managed to make others subservient to his
views; and now that those views were answered, and that his underlings
and accomplices were no longer required, they became positively
dangerous. He was well aware of that cold-blooded policy which teaches
that it is far safer to destroy than to cast away the tools by which a
man carves his way to power and fortune.
"They shall die," said Sweeney Todd--"dead men tell no tales, nor women
nor boys either, and they shall all die; after which there will, I
think, be a serious fire in Fleet-street. Ha! ha! it may spread to what
mischief it likes, always provided it stops not short of the entire
destruction of my house and premises. Rare sport--rare sport will it be
to me, for then I will at once commence a new career, in which the
barber will be forgotten, and the man of fashion only seen and
remembered, for with this sad addition to my means, I am fully capable
of vying with the highest and the noblest, let them be whom they may."
This seemed a pleasant train of reflections to Sweeney Todd, and as the
coach entered Fleet-street, there sat such a grim smile upon his
countenance that he looked like some fiend in human shape, who had just
completed the destruction of a human soul. When he reached the livery
stables to which he directed them to drive, instead of his own shop, he
rewarded all who had gone with him most liberally, so that the coachman
and footman, who were both servants out of place, would have had no
objection for Sweeney Todd every day to have gone on some such an
expedition, so that they should receive as liberal wages for the small
part they enacted in it as they did upon that occasion. He then walked
from the stables toward his own house, but upon reaching there a little
disappointment awaited him, for he found to his surprise that no light
was burning; and when he placed his hand upon the shop-door, it opened,
but there was no trace of Tobias, although he, Sweeney Todd, called
loudly upon him the moment he set foot within the shop. Then a feeling
of apprehension crept across the barber, and he groped anxiously about
for some matches, by the aid of which he hoped to procure a light, and
then an explanation of the mysterious absence of Tobias. But in order
that we may, in its proper form, relate how it was that Tobias had had
the daring thus, in open contradiction of his master, to be away from
the shop, we must devote to Tobias a chapter, which will plead his
extenuation.
CHAPTER XV.
TOBIAS'S ADVENTURES DURING THE ABSENCE OF SWEENEY TODD.
Tobias guessed, and guessed rightly too, that when Sweeney Todd said he
would be away half an hour, he only mentioned that short period of time,
in order to keep the lad's vigilance on the alert, and to prevent him
from taking any advantage of a more protracted absence. The very style
and manner in which he had gone out, precluded the likelihood of it
being for so short a period of time; and that circumstance set Tobias
seriously thinking over a situation which was becoming more intolerable
every day. The lad had the sense to feel that he could not go on much
longer as he was going on, and that in a short time such a life would
destroy him.
"It is beyond endurance," he said, "and I know not what to do; and since
Sweeney Todd has told me that the boy he had before went out of his
senses, and is now in the cell of a mad-house, I feel that such will be
my fate, and that I too shall come to that dreadful end, and then no one
will believe a word I utter, but consider everything to be mere raving."
After a time, as the darkness increased, he lit the lamp which hung in
the shop, and which, until it was closed for the night, usually shed a
dim ray from the window. Then he sat down to think again, and he said to
himself--
"If I could now but summon courage to ask my mother about this robbery
which Sweeney Todd imputes to her, she might assure me it was false, and
that she never did such a deed; but then it is dreadful for me to ask
her such a question, because it may be true; and then, how shocking it
would be for her to be forced to confess to me, her own son, such a
circumstance."
These were the honourable feelings which prevented Tobias from
questioning his mother as regarded Todd's accusation of her--an
accusation too dreadful to believe implicitly, and yet sufficiently
probable for him to have a strong suspicion that it might be true after
all. It is to be deeply regretted that Tobias's philosophy did not carry
him a little further, and make him see, the moment the charge was made,
that he ought unquestionably to investigate it to the very utmost. But
still we could hardly expect, from a mere boy, that acute reasoning and
power of action, which depend so much upon the knowledge of the world
and an extensive practice in the usages of society. It was sufficient if
he felt correctly--we could scarcely expect him to reason so. But upon
this occasion, above all others, he seemed completely overcome by the
circumstances which surrounded him; and from his excited manner, one
might have almost imagined that the insanity he himself predicted at the
close of his career was really not far off. He wrung his hands, and he
wept, every now and then, in sad speech, bitterly bemoaning his
situation, until at length, with a sudden resolution, he sprang to his
feet, exclaiming--
"This night shall end it. I can endure it no more. I will fly from this
place, and seek my fortune elsewhere. Any amount of distress, danger, or
death itself even, is preferable to the dreadful life I lead."
He walked some paces towards the door, and then he paused, as he said to
himself in a low tone--
"Todd will surely not be home yet awhile, and why should I then neglect
the only opportunity I may ever have of searching this house to satisfy
my mind as regards any of the mysteries that it contains?"
He paused over this thought, and considered well its danger, for