The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
of mental distress had become quite a thing of habit with him now.
"Who are you?" he growled out, as Todd came into the room, and with a
show of carefulness closed the door after him. "Who are you, eh?"
"Come to shave you, sir, and dress your hair."
"Ah!" cried Mundell, as he gave a start. "Where have I heard that voice
before? Why does it put me in mind of my loss? My £8000! My money--my
money. Am I to lose another £8000? That will make £16,000. Oh, dear. Oh,
dear. Oh dear! Who are you? Speak, friend. Who are you?"
"Only a barber, sir," said Todd, "come to shave you, and dress your
hair. Ain't you well, sir? Shall I call again?"
"No--no--no! My losses distracts me. Only the barber? Ah, yes to be
sure--only the barber. I must go to court, and ask for the duke of
something. Good God, yes! I will see all the dukes, until I find out my
duke. He who had my £8000, and has left me so poor and so wretched. Oh,
dear! Oh, dear, my money--my hard-earned money. Oh, gracious, if I were
to lose another £8000, I should go mad--mad--mad!"
"Shall I begin, sir?" said Todd.
"Begin? Begin what? Oh, yes, my hair; and I must be shaved too, or they
won't let me in at all. I will have the pearls or my money. I will see
all the dukes, and pounce upon _my_ duke. Oh, yes, I will have the
pearls or the money."
"Pearls, sir?" said Todd, as he began to arrange the shaving apparatus
he had brought with him. "Did you say pearls?"
"Bah! what do you know about pearls, who, I dare say, never saw one.
Bah! You--a poor beggarly barber. But I will have them back, or my
money. I will raise London, but I will find them. I will see the queen
herself, and know what duke she gave the pearls to, and then I will find
him and have my money."
"Now, sir. A little this way." "Oh, dear--oh, dear! What do you charge?"
"Anything you please, sir. When I come to a gentleman, I always leave it
to his generosity to pay me what he pleases."
"Ah! more expense. More expense. That means that I am to pay for the
service done me, and something else besides for the sake of a compliment
upon my liberality. But I ain't liberal. I won't be generous. Where's my
money, my pearls; and now to go to all sorts of expense to go to court,
and see dukes. Oh, the devil. Eh? Eh?"
"Sir?"
"Stop. What an odd thing. Why, you are very--very--"
"Very what, sir?" said Todd, making a hideous face.
"Like the duke, or my fancy leads me astray. Wait a bit. Don't move."
Mundell placed his hands over his eyes for a moment, and then suddenly
withdrawing them he looked at Todd again.
"Yes, you are like the duke. How came you to be like a duke, the
villain. Oh, if I could but see my pearls."
"What duke, sir?"
"I would give £500--no, I mean £100, that is £50, to know what duke,"
screamed Mundell with vehemence. Then suddenly lapsing into quietness,
he added--"Shave me. Shave me, I will go to court, and St. James's shall
ring again with the story of my pearls. Lost! lost! lost! Did he abscond
from his wife with them, or was he murdered? I wonder? I wonder?--£8000
gone all at once. I might have borne such a loss by degrees, but d--n
it--"
"Really, sir, if you will go on talking about pearls and dukes, the
shaving brush will go into your mouth, and there's no such thing as
avoiding it."
"Confound you. Go on. Shave me and have done with it. Oh, dear! Oh,
dear!"
John Mundell now contented himself by uttering drawn sighs, with now and
then the accompaniment of a hideous groan, while Todd lathered his face
with great affected care. The sighs and the groans both, however, ceased
soon, and Todd became aware that the eyes of John Mundell were fixed
upon him with a steady stare. No doubt, the usurer was recalling bit by
bit to his memory the features of the sham duke, and comparing them with
Todd's. To be sure, upon the occasion of his visit to Mundell Villa,
Todd had taken every precaution to disguise his features; but then it
must be admitted that the features of the barber were rather peculiar,
and that John Mundell was professionally a more than ordinary keen
observer, and thus it was that, as Todd lathered away, he became more
and more impressed by the fact that there was a startling resemblance
between Todd and the nobleman who had borrowed £8000 upon the string of
pearls.
"What's your name?" he said.
"Todd."
"Humph! a well-to-do man?"
"Poor as Job."
"How very like you are to a great man. Do you ever go to court? I
think--I am sure I have seen you somewhere."
"Very likely," said Todd, "for I often go there."
"What, to court?"
"Nay, sir, not to court, but somewhere. Will you have the whiskers left
just as they are, or taken off entirely, sir?"
Tap! tap! came at the chamber door, and a boy peeped in, saying--
"Please, sir, the tailor has brought the things."
CHAPTER LIII.
THE MURDER OF THE USURER.
"Come in! Come in! More expense. More losses. As if an honest man, who
only does what he can with his own, could not come to the court with a
hope of meeting with a civil reception, unless he were decked out like a
buffoon. Come in. Well, who are you?"
"Augustus Snipes, sir, at your service. Brought home the clothes, sir.
The full dress suit you were so good as to order to be ready to-day,
sir."
"Oh, you are a tailor?"
"Oh, dear no, sir. We are not tailors now a days. We are artists."
"Curse you, whatever you are. I don't care. Some artist I'm afraid has
done me out of £8000. Oh, dear. Put down the things. What do they come
to?"
"Eighteen pounds ten shillings and threepence, sir."
John Mundell gave a deep groan, and the tailor brushed past Todd to
place the clothes upon a side table. As he returned he caught sight of
Todd's face, and in an instant his face lighting up, he cried--
"Ah! how do? How do?"
"Eh!" said Todd.
"How did the Pompadour coloured coat and the velvet smalls do, eh?--Fit
well? Lord, what a rum start for a barber to have a suit of clothes fit
for a duke."
"Duke!" cried Mundell.
Todd lifted one of his huge feet and gave the "artist" a kick that sent
him sprawling to the door of the room.
"That," he said, "will teach you to make game of a poor man with a large
family, you scoundrel. What, you won't go, won't you? The--"
The artist shot out at the door like lightning, and flew down the stairs
as though the devil himself was at his heels. Todd carefully closed the
door again, and fastened it by a little bolt that was upon it. A strange
expression was upon the countenance of John Mundell. His face looked
perfectly convulsed, and he slowly rose from his chair. Todd placed one
of his huge hands upon his breast and pushed him back again.
"What's the matter?" said Todd.
"He--he--knows you."
"Well."
"The Pompadour coloured coat! Ah, I recollect the Pompadour coloured
coat, too. I thought I knew your face. There was a something, too, about
your voice that haunted me like the remembrance of a dream.
You--you--are--"
"What?"
"Help--help! Tell me if I be mad, or if you are a duke in the disguise
of a barber, or a barber in the likeness of a duke. Ah, that Pompadour
coloured coat, it sticks--sticks in my throat."
"I wish it did," growled Todd. "What do you mean, Mr. Mundell?--Pray
express yourself. What do you mean by those incoherent expressions?"
"Are you human?"
"Dear me, I hope so. Really, sir, you look quite wild."
"Stop--stop--let me think--the face--the voice--the Pompadour coat--the
costume fit for a duke. It must be so.--Man or devil, I will grapple
with you, for you have got my pearls and my money. My £8000--my gold
that I have lived, that I have toiled for--that I have schemed, and
cheated to keep up--that I have shut my eyes to all sights for--and my
heart to all tender emotions. You have my money, and I will denounce
you!"
"Stop," said Todd.
The usurer paused in what he was saying, but he still glared at Todd
fiercely, and his eyes protruded from their orbits, while the muscles of
his mouth worked as though he were still trying to utter audible sounds,
but by some power was denied the capacity to utter them.
"You say you have lost pearls?"
"Yes--yes.--Orient pearls."
Todd dived his hand into the breast of his apparel and produced the
string of pearls. He held them before the ravished and dazzled eyes of
John Mundell, as he said--
"Were they like these?"
With a cry of joy Mundell grasped at the pearls. Tears of gratified
avarice gushed from his eyes.
"My own--my own pearls--my beautiful pearls!--Oh, blessed chance--my
pearls back again. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Ha!" echoed Todd, as he stepped behind the chair on which John Mundell
was sitting.
With his left hand he took one vigorous grasp of the remaining
hair upon the head of the usurer, and forced his back against the
chair. In another instant there was a sickening gushing sound.
Todd, with the razor he held in his right hand, had nearly cut
John Mundell's head off. Then he held him still by the hair.
Gasp--gasp--gasp--bubble--gasp--bubble.--Ah! ah! ah!--Goggle--goggle. A
slight convulsive movement of the lashes, and the eyes set, and became
opaquely dim. The warm blood still bubbled, but John Mundell was dead.
Todd picked up the pearls and carefully replaced them in his bosom
again.
"How many strange events," he said, "hang upon these baubles. Ah, it's
only one more--a dirty job rather--but business is business!"
He stood in the room as silent as a statue, and listened intently. Not
the slightest sound indicative of the proximity of any one came upon his
ears. He felt quite convinced that the deed of blood had been done in
perfect secrecy. But then there he was.--Who but he could be accused?
There he stood, the self-convicted murderer. Had he not done the deed
with the weapon of his handicraft that he had brought to the house? How
was Todd to escape the seeming inevitable cold-blooded murder? We shall
see. Huddled up in the chair, was the dead body. Mundell had not fallen
out of the capacious easy seat in which he sat when he breathed his
last. The blood rolled to the floor, where it lay in a steaming mass.
Todd was careful--very careful not to tread in it, and he looked down
his garments to see if there were any tell-tale spots of gore; but
standing behind the chair to do the deed, as he had done, he had been
saved from anything of the sort. There he stood, externally spotless,
like many a seeming and smirking sinner in this world--but oh, how black
and stained within!
"Humph!" said Todd; "John Mundell was half distracted by a heavy loss.
He was ill, and his mind was evidently affected. He could not even shave
himself. Oh, it is quite evident that John Mundell, unable to bear his
miseries, real or ideal, any longer, in a fit of partial insanity, cut
his throat. Yes, that will do."
Todd still kept the razor in his grasp. What is he going to do?--Murder
again the murdered?--Is he afraid that a man,
"With twenty murders on his head!"
will jostle him from his perilous pinnacle of guilty safety?--No. He
takes one of the clammy dead hands in his own--he clasps the half rigid
fingers over the handle of the razor, and then he holds them until, in
the course of a minute or so, they have assumed the grasp he wishes, and
the razor, with which he, Todd, did the deed of blood, is held
listlessly, but most significantly, in the hand of the dead.
"That will do," said Todd.
The door is reached and unfastened, and the barber slips out of the
room. He closes the door again upon the fetid hot aroma of the blood
that is there, fresh from the veins of a human being like
himself--no--no--not like himself.--No one can be like Sweeney Todd. He