The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
watch upon the house of Mrs. Lovett. Sir Richard had provided himself
with skeleton keys, candles, and other housebreaking implements, for the
purpose of entering Mrs. Lovett's house after that lady had retired, as
he had the full sanction of the law to use every means he could think of
in bringing the culprits to justice. About eleven o'clock Mrs. Lovett
was seen in her bedroom, with a candle in her hand, and making every
preparation for retiring; in a few minutes the light was put out, and
everything seemed still as death. Nothing was to be heard in the
adjoining streets but the monotonous tread of the watchmen, with an
occasional drawling forth of the hour of the night. This was the time
Sir Richard had waited for--it was the time for him to act. He
approached the street door and applied his implements with success, for
the door yielded to the baronet's tools, and he soon was in the shop of
the piemaker. As complete a silence reigned within as was maintained
without.
He waited for some time yet, though, before he moved. Finding, at
length, that all was profoundly still, and feeling quite convinced that
Mrs. Lovett had really retired for the night, the magistrate set about
procuring a light. By the aid of some chemical matches that he had with
him, this was soon accomplished, and a faint blue light shone upon the
various articles in the pie-shop of Mrs. Lovett. He then took a small
piece of wax taper from his pocket, and lit it. This gave him sufficient
light to enable him to distinguish with accuracy any object in the
place. Once again he listened, in order to be quite sure that Mrs.
Lovett was not stirring, and then, finding himself perfectly satisfied
upon that head, he fearlessly commenced an examination of the shop.
There was nothing to excite any very particular attention, except the
apparatus for lowering the platform upon which the pies were sent up
from the ovens below, and in a few moments the whole attention of Sir
Richard Blunt was concentrated upon that contrivance. He did not meddle
with it further, than looking at it sufficiently to fully comprehend it,
for he had other views just then. After, then, making himself quite
master of the details of that piece of machinery, he turned his whole
attention to the parlour. By the aid of a skeleton-key which he took
from his pocket, he opened the door with ease, and at once entered that
room, where lay the remains of the supper which Mrs. Lovett had so
liberally provided for Sweeney Todd. This parlour was rather a large
rambling-room, with a number of snug, handy looking cupboards in various
corners. It was towards those cupboards that Sir Richard Blunt directed
his attention. They were all locked, but with the means he had with him,
ordinary locks presented no impediment to the prosecution of his
research.
CHAPTER LV.
MRS. LOVETT'S WALK.
Suddenly he heard, or fancied he heard a noise above in the house, like
the sudden shutting of a door.
"Oh," thought Sir Richard, "all is safe. She is shutting herself in for
the night, I suppose. Well, Mrs. Lovett, we will see what we can find in
your cupboards."
The little bit of wax light, which Sir Richard had lighted, gave but a
weak kind of twilight while he moved about with it in his hand, but when
he stuck it on a corner of the mantel-shelf it burnt much clearer, and
was sufficient to enable him just to see what he was about. So
thoroughly impressed was he with the idea that Mrs. Lovett had retired
to rest, that he paid no sort of attention to the house, and may be
said, in a manner of speaking, to have negligently shut his ears to all
sounds that did not violently attack them. He opened a cupboard, in
which were some books, and on the top-shelf, lying in a confused kind of
heap, were some watches, and several sets of very rich buckles for
shoes. There were, likewise, several snuff-boxes in the lot. Were these
little trifles presented to Mrs. Lovett, by Todd, as proofs of the
thriving business he was carrying on? Sir Richard put two of the watches
in his pocket.
"These may be identified," he said. "And now, if I can but find the door
by which she descends to the oven below, I--"
At this moment he was startled by a sudden accession of light in the
room. His first idea, and a natural enough one too, was, that the little
wax light was playing some vagaries incidental to all lights, and he
turned rapidly from the cupboard to look at it. What was his
astonishment to see the door that led to the upper part of the house
open, and Mrs. Lovett, partially undressed, standing upon the threshold
with a chamber-candlestick in her hand in which was a rushlight, the dim
and dubious rays from which had produced the extra illumination that had
first startled Sir Richard Blunt. No wonder that, with amazement upon
his countenance, he now glanced upon this vision, for such it looked
like at the moment; and yet he saw that Mrs. Lovett it was to all
intents and purposes, and that he was discovered in his exploring
expedition in her parlour appeared to be one of those facts it would
have required no small share of moral hardihood to dispute. Seeing,
however, should not always be believing, despite the venerable saying
which asserts as much.
"I must apprehend her, now," thought Sir Richard Blunt; "I have no
resource but to apprehend her at once."
With this object he was about to dart forward, when something strange
about the appearance of Mrs. Lovett arrested his attention, and stayed
his progress. He paused and remained leaning partly upon the back of a
chair, while she slowly advanced into the room, and then as she came
nearer to him he became convinced of what he had begun to suspect,
namely--that she was walking in her sleep. There is something awful in
this wandering of the mortal frame when its senses seem to be locked up
in death. It looks like a resurrection from the grave--as though a
corpse was again revisiting
"The glimpses of the pale moon;"
and even Sir Richard Blunt, with all his constitutional and acquired
indifference to what would be expected to startle any one else could not
help shrinking back a little, and feeling an unusual sort of terror.
This transient nervousness of his, though, soon passed away, and then he
set himself to watch the actions of Mrs. Lovett with all the keenness of
intense interest and vividly awakened curiosity. She did not disappoint
him. Moving forward into the room with a slow and stately action, so
that the little flame of the rushlight was by no means disturbed, she
reached the middle of the parlour and then she paused. She assumed such
a natural attitude of listening, that Sir Richard Blunt voluntarily
shrunk down behind the chair, for it seemed to him at the moment that
she must have heard him. Then, in a low and slightly indistinct tone,
she spoke--
"Hush! hush! So still. The poison! Where is the poison?--Will he take
it? Ah, that is the question, and yet how clear it is. But he is
fiend-like in his suspicions. When will he come?"
She moved on towards the cupboard, in which the decanter of poisoned
wine had been placed, and opening it, she felt in vain upon the shelf
for it. It was still upon the table, and if anything more than another
could have been a convincing proof of the mere mechanical actions of the
somnambulist, this fact, that she passed the wine where it was, and only
recollected where it had been, would have been amply sufficient. After
finding that her search was ineffectual, she turned from the cupboard,
and stood for a few moments in silence. Then a horror shook her frame,
and she said--
"They must all die. Bandage your eyes, and you will shut out the death
shrieks. Yes, that will be something, to get rid of those frightful
echoes. Bandage after bandage will, and shall do it."
Sir Richard stood silently watching; but such was the horror of the
tones in which she spoke, that even his heart felt cold, as though the
blood flowed but sluggishly through its accustomed channels.
"Who," he thought to himself, "for the world's wealth, would have this
woman's memory of the past?"
She still held the light, and it appeared to him as though she were
about to go into the shop, but she paused before she reached the
half-glass door of communication between it and the parlour, and shook
like one in an ague.
"Another!--another!" she said. "How strange it is that I always know.
The air seems full of floating particles of blood, and they all fall
upon me! Off, off. Oh, horror! horror! I choke--I choke. Off, I say. How
the hot blood steams up in a sickly vapour. There--there, now! Why does
Todd let them shriek in such a fashion?"
She now shook so, that Sir Richard Blunt made sure she would either drop
the light she carried, or, at all events, shake it out, but neither of
these contingencies took place; and, after a few moments, she got more
calm. The violent agitation of her nerves gradually subsided. She spoke
horrors, but it was in a different tone; and abandoning, apparently, the
intention of going into the shop, she approached a portion of the
parlour which had not yet been subjected to the scrutiny of Sir Richard
Blunt, although it would not ultimately have escaped him. The appearance
of this part of the room was simply that there was there a cupboard, but
the back of this seeming cupboard formed, in reality, the door that led
down the flight of stairs to the other strong iron door that effectually
shut in the captive cook to his duties among the ovens. This was just
the place that Sir Richard Blunt wanted to find out; and here we may as
well state, that Sir Richard had an erroneous, but very natural idea,
under the circumstances, that the cook or cooks were accomplices of Mrs.
Lovett in her nefarious transactions. Had he been at all aware of the
real state of affairs below, our friend, who had become so thoroughly
disgusted with the pies, would not have been left for so long in so
precarious a situation. Mrs. Lovett paused, after opening the lock of
the cupboard, and in a strange, sepulchral sort of voice, she said--
"Has he done it?"
"Done what?" Sir Richard would fain have asked; but, although he had
heard that people, when walking in their sleep, will answer questions
put to them under such circumstances, he was doubtful of the fact, and
by no means wished to break the trance of Mrs. Lovett.
"Has he done it?" she again repeated. "Is he no more? How many does it
make? One--two--three--four--five--six--seven. Yes, seven, it must be
the seventh, and I have heard all. Hush! hush! Todd--Todd--Todd, I say.
Are you dead? No--no. He would not drink the wine. The devil, his
master, whispered to him that it had in it the potent drug that would
send his spirits howling to its Maker, and he would not drink. God! he
would not drink! No--no--no!"
She pronounced these words in such a tone of agony, that her awakening
from the strange sleep she was in, seemed to be a natural event from
such a strong emotion, but it did not take place. No doubt Mrs. Lovett
had been long habituated to these nocturnal rambles. She now began
slowly and carefully the descent of the stairs leading to the oven; but
she had not got many paces, when a current of air from below, and which,
no doubt, came through the small grating in the iron door, extinguished
her light. This circumstance, however, appeared to be perfectly
unnoticed by her, and she proceeded in the profound darkness with the
same ease as though she had had a light. Sir Richard would have followed
her as he was, but in the dark he did not feel sufficient confidence in
her as a guide to do so; and with as noiseless a tread as possible, he