The String of Pearls: a Romance--The Original Sweeney Todd

by Thomas Preskett Prest

  Yes, Sweeney Todd would have been glad now to shut up his shop in Fleet Street at once and for ever, but he dreaded that when John Mundel found that his customer did not come back to him to redeem the pearls, that he, John Mundel, would proceed to sell them, and that then their beauty, and their great worth would excite much attention, and someone might come forward who knew much more about their early history than he did.

  ‘I must keep quiet,’ he thought, ‘I must keep quiet; for although I think I was pretty well disguised, and it is not at all likely that anyone – no, not even the acute John Mundel himself – would recognise in Sweeney Todd, the poor barber of Fleet Street, the nobleman who came from the Queen to borrow £8,000 upon a string of pearls, yet there is a remote possibility of danger, and should there be a disturbance about the precious stones, it is better that I should remain in obscurity until that disturbance is completely over.’

  This was no doubt admirable policy on the part of Todd, who, although he found himself a rich man, had not, as many people do when they make that most gratifying and interesting discovery, forgotten all the prudence and tact that had made him one of that most envied class of personages.

  He was some few minutes before he could get the key to turn in the lock of his street-door, but at length he effected that object and disappeared from before the eyes of the colonel and his friend into his own house, and the door was instantly again closed upon him.

  ‘Well,’ said Colonel Jeffery, ‘what do you think of that?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think, further than that your friend Todd has been out of town, as the state of his boots abundantly testifies.’

  ‘They do indeed; and he has the appearance of having been a considerable distance, for the mud that is upon his boots is not London mud.’

  ‘Certainly not; it is of quite a different character altogether. But see, he is coming out again.’

  Sweeney Todd strode out of his house, bare-headed now, and proceeded to take down the shutters of his shop, which, there being but three, he accomplished in a few seconds of time, and walked in again with them in his hand, along with the iron bar which had secured them, and which he had released from the inside.

  This was all the ceremony that took place at the opening of Sweeney Todd’s shop, and the only surprise our friends, who were at the public house window, had upon the subject was, that having a boy, he, Todd, should condescend to make himself so useful as to open his own shop. And nothing could be seen of the lad, although the hour, surely, for his attendance must have arrived; and Todd, equally surely, was not the sort of man to be so indulgent to a boy, whom he employed to make himself generally useful, as to allow him to come when all the dirty work of the early morning was over.

  But yet such to all appearances would seem to be the case, for presently Todd appeared with a broom in his hand, sweeping out his shop with a rapidity and a vengeance which seemed to say, that he did not perform that operation with the very best grace in the world.

  ‘Where can the boy be!’ said the captain. ‘Do you know, little reason as I may really appear to have for such a supposition, I cannot help in my own mind connecting Todd’s having been out of town, somehow, with the fact of that boy’s non-appearance this morning.’

  ‘Indeed! the coincidence is curious, for such was my own thought likewise upon the occasion, and the more I think of it the more I feel convinced that such must be the case, and that our watch will be a fruitless one completely. Is it likely – for possible enough it is – that the villain has found out that we have been asking questions of the boy, and has thought proper to take his life?’

  ‘Do not let us go too far,’ said the captain, ‘in mere conjecture; recollect that as yet, let us suspect what we may, we know nothing, and that the mere fact of our not being able to trace Thornhill beyond the shop of this man will not be sufficient to found an accusation upon.’

  ‘I know all that, and I feel how very cautious we must be; and yet to my mind the whole of the circumstances have been day by day assuming a most hideous air of probability, and I look upon Todd as a murderer already.’

  ‘Shall we continue our watch?’

  ‘I scarcely see its utility. Perchance we may see some proceedings which may interest us; but I have a powerful impression that we certainly shall not see the boy we want. But, at all events, the barber, you perceive, has a customer already.’

  As they looked across the way, they saw a well-dressed-looking man, who, from a certain air and manner which he had, could be detected not to be a Londoner. He had rather resembled some substantial yeoman, who had come to town to pay or receive money, and, as he came near to Sweeney Todd’s shop, he might have been observed to stroke his chin, as if debating in his mind the necessity or otherwise of a shave.

  The debate, if it were taking place in his mind, ended by the ayes having it, for he walked into Todd’s shop, being most unquestionably the first customer which he had had that morning.

  Situated as the colonel and his friend were, they could not see into Todd’s shop, even if the door had been opened, but they saw that after the customer had been in for a few moments, it was closed, so that, had they been close to it, all the interior of the shaving establishment would have been concealed.

  They felt no great degree of interest in this man, who was a commonplace personage enough, who had entered Sweeney Todd’s shop; but when an unreasonable time had elapsed, and he did not come out, they did begin to feel a little uneasy. And when another man went in and was only about five minutes before he emerged shaved, and yet the first man did not come, they knew not what to make of it, and looked at each other for some moments in silence. At length the colonel spoke – saying, –

  ‘My friend, have we waited here for nothing now? What can have become of that man whom we saw go into the barber’s shop; but who, I suppose we feel ourselves to be in a condition to take our oaths never came out?’

  ‘I could take my oath; and what conclusion can we come to?’

  ‘None, but that he has met his death there; and that, let his fate be what it may, is the same which poor Thornhill has suffered. I can endure this no longer. Do you stay here, and let me go alone.’

  ‘Not for worlds – you would rush into an unknown danger: you cannot know what may be the powers of mischief that man possesses. You shall not go alone, colonel, you shall not indeed; but something must be done.’

  ‘Agreed; and yet that something surely need not be of the desperate character you meditate.’

  ‘Desperate emergencies require desperate remedies.’

  ‘Yes, as a general principle I will agree with you there, too, colonel; and yet I think that in this case everything is to be lost by precipitation, and nothing is to be gained. We have to do with one who to all appearance is keen and subtle, and if anything is to be accomplished contrary to his wishes, it is not to be done by that open career which for its own sake, under ordinary circumstances, both you and I would gladly embrace.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said the colonel, ‘I do not and will not say but what you are right.’

  ‘I know I am – I am certain I am; and now hear me: I think we have gone quite far enough unaided in this transaction, and that it is time we drew some others into the plot.’

  ‘I do not understand what you mean.’

  ‘I will soon explain. I mean, that if in the pursuit of this enterprise, which grows each moment to my mind more serious, anything should happen to you and me, it is absolutely frightful to think that there would then be an end of it.’

  ‘True, true; and as for poor Johanna and her friend Arabella, what could they do?’

  ‘Nothing, but expose themselves to great danger. Come, come now, colonel, I am glad to see that we understand each other better about this business; you have heard, of course, of Sir Richard Blunt?’

  ‘Sir Richard Blunt – Blunt – oh, you mean the magistrate?’

  ‘I do; and what I propose is, that we have a private and confidential interview
with him about the matter – that we make him possessed of all the circumstances, and take his advice what to do. The result of placing the affair in such hands will at all events be, that, if, in anything we may attempt, we may be by force or fraud overpowered, we shall not fall wholly unavenged.’

  ‘Reason backs your proposition.’

  ‘I knew it would, when you came to reflect. Oh, Colonel Jeffery, you are too much a creature of impulse.’

  ‘Well,’ said the colonel, half jestingly, ‘I must say that I do not think the accusation comes well from you, for I have certainly seen you do some rather impulsive things.’

  ‘We won’t dispute about that; but since you think with me upon the matter, you will have no objection to accompany me at once to Sir Richard Blunt’s?’

  ‘None in the least; on the contrary, if anything is to be done at all, for Heaven’s sake let it be done quickly. I am quite convinced that some fearful tragedy is in progress, and that, if we are not most prompt in our measures, we shall be too late to counteract its dire influence upon the fortunes of those in whom we have become deeply interested.’

  ‘Agreed, agreed! Come this way, and let us now for a brief space, at all events, leave Mr Todd and his shop to take care of each other, while we take an effectual means of circumventing him. Why do you linger?’

  ‘I do linger. Some mysterious influence seems to chain me to the spot.’

  ‘Some mysterious fiddlestick! Why, you are getting superstitious, colonel.’

  ‘No, no! Well, I suppose I must come along with you. Lead the way, lead the way; and believe me that it requires all my reason to induce me to give up a hope of making some important discovery by going to Sweeney Todd’s shop.’

  ‘Yes, you might make an important discovery, and only suppose that the discovery you did make was that he murdered some of his customers. If he does so, you may depend that such a man takes good care to do the deed effectually, and you might make the discovery just a little too late. You understand that?’

  ‘I do, I do. Come along, for I positively declare that if we see anybody else going into the barber’s, I shall not be able to resist rushing forward at once, and giving an alarm.’

  It was certainly a good thing that the colonel’s friend was not quite as enthusiastic as he was, or from what we happen actually to know of Sweeney Todd, and from what we suspect, the greatest amount of danger might have befallen Jeffery, and instead of being in a position to help others in unravelling the mysteries connected with Sweeney Todd’s establishment, he might be himself past all help, and most absolutely one of the mysteries.

  But such was not to be.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tobias Makes an Attempt to Escape from the Mad-House

  We cannot find it in our hearts to force upon the mind of the reader the terrible condition of poor Tobias.

  No one, certainly, of all the dramatis personae of our tale, is suffering so much as he; and, consequently, we feel it to be a sort of duty to come to a consideration of his thoughts and feelings as he lay in that dismal cell, in the mad-house on Peckham Rye.

  Certainly Tobias Ragg was as sane as any ordinary Christian need wish to be, when the scoundrel, Sweeney Todd, put him in the coach, to take him to Mr Fogg’s establishment; but if by any ingenious process the human intellect can be toppled from its throne, certainly that process must consist in putting a sane person into a lunatic asylum.

  To the imagination of a boy, too, and that boy one of vivid imagination, as was poor Tobias, a mad-house must be invested with a world of terrors. That enlarged experience which enables persons of more advanced age to shake off much of the unreal, which seemed so strangely to take up its abode in the mind of the young Tobias, had not reached him; and no wonder, therefore, that to him his present situation was one of acute and horrible misery and suffering.

  He lay for a long time in the gloomy dungeon-like cell, into which he had been thrust, in a kind of stupor, which might or might not be the actual precursor of insanity, although, certainly, the chances were all in favour of its being so. For many hours he moved neither hand nor foot, and as it was a part of the policy of Mr Fogg to leave well alone, as he said, he never interfered, by any intrusive offers of refreshment, with the quiet or the repose of his patients.

  Tobias, therefore, if he had chosen to remain as still as an Indian fakir, might have died in one position, without any remonstrances from anyone.

  It would be quite a matter of impossibility to describe the strange visionary thoughts and scenes that passed through the mind of Tobias during this period. It seemed as if his intellect was engulfed in the charmed waters of some whirlpool, and that all the different scenes and actions which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been clear and distinct, were mingled together in inextricable confusion.

  In the midst of all this, at length he began to be conscious of one particular impression or feeling, and that was, that someone was singing in a low, soft voice, very near to him.

  This feeling, strange as it was in such a place, momentarily increased in volume, until at length it began, in its intensity, to absorb almost every other; and he gradually awakened from the sort of stupor that had come over him. Yes, someone was singing. It was a female voice, he was sure of that; and as his mind became more occupied with that one subject of thought, and his perceptive faculties became properly exercised, his intellect altogether assumed a healthier tone.

  He could not distinguish the words that were sung, but the voice itself was very sweet and musical; as Tobias listened, he felt as if the fever of his blood was abating, and that healthier thoughts were taking the place of those disordered fancies that had held sway within the chambers of his brain.

  ‘What sweet sounds!’ he said. ‘Oh, I do hope that singing will go on. I feel happier to hear it; I do so hope it will continue. What sweet music! Oh, mother, mother, if you could but see me now!’

  He pressed his hands over his eyes, but he could not stop the gush of tears that came from them, and which would trickle through his fingers. Tobias did not wish to weep, but those tears, after all the horrors of the night, did him a world of good, and he felt wonderfully better after they had been shed. Moreover, the voice continued singing without intermission.

  ‘Who can it be,’ thought Tobias, ‘that don’t tire with so much of it?’

  Still the singer continued; but now and then Tobias felt certain that a very wild note or two was mingled with the ordinary melody; and that bred a suspicion in his mind, which gave him a shudder to think of, namely, that the singer was mad.

  ‘It must be so,’ said he. ‘No one in their senses could or would continue to sing for so long a period of time such strange snatches of song. Alas! alas, it is someone who is really mad, and confined for life in this dreadful place; for life do I say, and am I not too confined for life here? Oh! help, help, help!’

  Tobias called out in so loud a tone, that the singer of the sweet strains that had for a time lulled him to composure, heard him, and the strains which had before been redolent of the softest and sweetest melody, suddenly changed to the most terrific shrieks imaginable.

  In vain did Tobias place his hands over his ears to shut out the horrible sounds. They would not be shut out, but ran, as it were, into every crevice of his brain, nearly driving him distracted by their vehemence.

  But hoarser tones came upon his ears, and he heard the loud, rough voice of a man say, –

  ‘What, do you want the whip so early this morning? The whip, do you understand that?’

  These words were followed by the lashing of what must have been a heavy carter’s whip, and then the shrieks died away in deep groans, every one of which went to the heart of poor Tobias.

  ‘I can never live amid all these horrors,’ he said. ‘Oh, why don’t they kill me at once? It would be much better, and much more merciful. I can never live long here. Help, help, help!’

  When he shouted this word ‘help’, it was certainly not with the most dis
tant idea of getting any help, but it was a word that came at once uppermost to his tongue; and so he called it out with all his might, that he should attract the attention of someone, for the solitude, and the almost total darkness of the place he was in, were beginning to fill him with new dismay.

  There was a faint light in the cell, which made him know the difference between day and night; but where that faint light came from, he could not tell, for he could see no grating or opening whatever; but yet that was in consequence of his eyes not being fully accustomed to the obscurity of the place; otherwise he would have seen that close up to the roof there was a narrow aperture, certainly not larger than anyone could have passed a hand through, although of some four or five feet in length; and from a passage beyond that, there came the dim borrowed light, which made darkness visible in Tobias’s cell.

  With a kind of desperation, heedless of what might be the result, Tobias continued to call aloud for help, and after about a quarter of an hour, he heard the sound of a heavy footstep.

  Someone was coming; yes, surely someone was coming, and he was not to be left to starve to death. Oh, how intently he now listened to every sound, indicative of the nearer approach of whoever it was who was coming to his prison-house.

  Now he heard the lock move, and a heavy bar of iron was let down with a clanging sound.

  ‘Help, help!’ he cried again, ‘help, help!’ for he feared that whoever it was might even yet go away again, after making so much progress to get at him.

  The cell-door was flung open, and the first intimation that poor Tobias got of the fact of his cries having been heard, consisted in a lash with a whip which, if it had struck him as fully as it was intended to do, would have done him serious injury.

  ‘So, do you want it already?’ said the same voice he had heard before.

  ‘Oh, no, mercy, mercy,’ said Tobias.

  ‘Oh, that’s it now, is it? I tell you what it is, if we have any more disturbance here, this is the persuader to silence that we always use: what do you think of that as an argument, eh?’