She then began to look about her in the same way that poor Tobias had done; but she could find nothing of an explanatory character, although her suspicions made almost everything into grounds of suspicion. She looked into the cupboard, and there she saw several costly sticks and some umbrellas, and then she narrowly examined all the walls, but could see nothing indicative of another opening, save the door, visible and apparent. As she moved backwards, she came against the shaving chair, which she found was a fixture, as, upon examination, she saw that the legs of it were firmly secured to the floor. What there could be suspicious in such a circumstance she hardly knew, and yet it did strike her as such.
‘If I had but time,’ she thought, ‘I would make an attempt to go into that parlour; but I dare not yet. No, no, I must be more sure of the continued absence of Todd, before I dare make any such attempt.’
As she uttered these words, someone opened the door cautiously, and, peeping in, said, ‘Is Mr Todd at home?’
‘No,’ replied Johanna.
‘Oh, very good. Then you are to take this letter, if you please, and read it. You will find, I dare say, whom it’s from, when you open it. Keep it to yourself though, and if Mr Todd should come in, hide it, mind, whatever you do.’
Before Johanna could make any reply, the man disappeared, and great was her astonishment to read upon the outside of the letter that had been put into her hands, her own proper name. With trembling fingers she opened it, and read as follows:
From Sir Richard Blunt, magistrate, to Miss Oakley
Miss Johanna Oakley, you have with great chivalry of spirit embarked in a very dangerous enterprise – an enterprise which, considering your youth and your sex, should have been left to others; and it is well that others are in a position to watch over you and ensure your safety.
Your young friend, Arabella Wilmot, after giving so much romantic advice, and finding that you followed it, became herself alarmed at its possible consequences, and very prudently informed one who brought the intelligence to me, so that you are now well looked after; and should any danger present itself to you, you have but to seize any article that comes within your reach and throw it through a pane of glass in the shop window, when assistance will immediately come to you. I tell you this in order that you should feel quite at ease.
As, however, you have placed yourself in your present position in Todd’s shop, it is more than likely you will be able to do good service in aiding to unmask that villain. You will, therefore, be good enough, towards the dusk of the evening, to hold yourself in readiness to do anything required of you by anyone who shall pronounce to you the password of ‘St Dunstan’.
From your Friend (mentioned above)
Johanna read this letter, certainly, with most unmitigated surprise, and yet there was a glow of satisfaction in her mind as she perused it, and the difference in her feelings, now that she was assured of protection, was certainly something wonderful and striking. To think that she had but to seize any one of the numerous stray articles that lay about and fling it through the window, in order to get assistance, was a most consolatory idea, and she felt nerved for almost any adventure.
She had just hidden the letter, when Sweeney Todd made his appearance.
‘Anybody been?’ he asked.
‘Yes, one man, but he would not wait.’
‘Ah, wanted to be shaved, I suppose; but no matter – no matter; and I hope you have been quiet, and not been attempting to indulge your curiosity in any way, since I have been gone. Hush! there’s somebody coming. Why, it’s old Mr Wrankley, the tobacconist, I declare. Good-day to you, sir – shaved, I suppose; I’m glad you have come, sir, for I have been out till this moment. Hot water, Charley, directly, and hand me that razor.’
Johanna, in handing Todd the razor, knocked the edge of it against the chair, and it being uncommonly sharp, cut a great slice of the wood off one of the arms of it.
‘What shameful carelessness,’ said Todd; ‘I have half a mind to lay the strop over your back, sir; here, you have spoilt a capital razor – not a bit of edge left upon it.’
‘Oh, excuse him, Mr Todd – excuse him,’ said the old gentleman; ‘he’s only a little lad, after all. Let me intercede for him.’
‘Very good, sir; if you wish me to look over it, of course I will, and, thank God, we have a stock of razors, of course, always at hand. Is there any news stirring, sir?’
‘Nothing that I know of, Mr Todd, except it’s the illness of Mr Cummings, the overseer. They say he got home about twelve to his own house, in Chancery-lane, and ever since then he has been sick as a dog, and all they can get him to say is, “Oh, those pies – oh, those pies!” ’
‘Very odd, sir.’
‘Very. I think Mr Cummings must be touched in the upper storey, do you know, Mr Todd. He’s a very respectable man, but, between you and I, was never very bright.’
‘Certainly not – certainly not. But it’s a very odd case. What pies can he possibly mean, sir? Did you call when you came from home?’
‘No. Ha, ha! I can’t help laughing; but ha, ha! I have come away from home on the sly, you see. The fact is, my wife’s cousin, Mr Mundel – hilloa! – I think you have cut me.’
‘No, no; we can’t cut anybody for three-halfpence, sir.’
‘Oh, very good – very good. Well, as I was saying, my wife’s cousin, Mr Mundel, came to our house last night, and brought with him a string of pearls, you see. He wanted me to go to the City, this morning, with them, to Round and Bridget, the court jewellers’, and ask them if they had ever seen them before.’
‘Were they beauties?’
‘Yes, they are brilliant ones. You see, Mundel lends money, and he didn’t like to go himself, so he asked me to go, as Mr Round knows me very well; for between you and me, Mr Todd, my wife’s cousin, Mr Mundel, thinks they belonged, once upon a time, to some lady.’
‘Oh, indeed!’
‘Yes; and as it won’t do to say too much to women, I told my wife I was going over the water, you see, and just popped out. Ha, ha, ha! and I’ve got the pearls in my pocket. Mundel says they are worth twelve thousand pounds at the least, ha, ha!’
‘Indeed, sir, twelve thousand pounds? A pretty sum that, sir – a very pretty sum. No doubt Mr Mundel lent seven or eight thousand pounds upon the pearls. I think I will just give you another lather, sir, before I polish you off; and so you have the pearls with you, well, how odd things come round, to be sure.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This shaving-brush is just in a good state now. Always as a shaving-brush is on the point of wearing out, it’s the best. Charley, you will go at once to Mr Cummings’s, and ask if he is any better; you need not hurry, that’s a good lad, I am not at all angry with you now; and so, sir, they think at home that you have gone after some business over the water, do they, and have not the least idea that you have come here to be shaved – there, be off, Charley – shut the door, that’s a good lad, bless you.’
When Johanna came back, the tobacconist was gone.
‘Well,’ said Sweeney Todd, as he sharpened a razor, very leisurely; ‘how is Mr Cummings?’
‘I found out his house, sir, with some difficulty, and they say he is better, having gone to sleep.’
‘Oh, very good! I am going to look over some accounts in the parlour, so don’t choose to be disturbed, you understand; and for the next ten minutes, if anybody comes, you will say I am out.’
Sweeney Todd walked quite coolly into the parlour, and Johanna heard him lock the door on the inside; a strange, undefined sensation of terror crept over her, she knew not why, and she shuddered, as she looked around her. The cupboard door was not close shut, and she knew not what prompted her to approach and peep in. On the first shelf was the hat of the tobacconist: it was a rather remarkable one, and recognised in a moment.
‘What has happened? Good God! what can have happened?’ thought Johanna, as she staggered back, until she reached the shaving-chair, into which she cast her
self for support. Her eyes fell upon the arm which she had taken such a shaving off with the razor, but all was perfectly whole and correct; there was not the least mark of the cut that so recently had been given to it; and, lost in wonder, Johanna, for more than a minute, continued looking for the mark of the injury she knew could not have been, by any possibility, effaced.
And yet she found it not, although there was the chair, just as usual, with its wide spreading arms and its worn, tarnished paint and gilding. No wonder that Johanna rubbed her eyes, and asked herself if she were really awake.
What could account for such a phenomenon? The chair was a fixture too, and the others in the shop were of a widely different make and construction, so it could not have been changed.
‘Alas, alas!’ mourned Johanna, ‘my mind is full of horrible surmise, and yet I can form no rational conjecture. I suspect everything, and know nothing. What can I do? What ought I to do, to relieve myself from this state of horrible suspense? Am I really in a place where, by some frightful ingenuity, murder has become bold and familiar, or can it all be a delusion?’
She covered her face with her hands for a time, and when she uncovered them, she saw that Sweeney Todd was staring at her with looks of suspicion from the inner room.
The necessity of acting her part came over Johanna, and she gave a loud scream.
‘What the devil is all this about?’ said Todd, advancing with a sinister expression. ‘What’s the meaning of it? I suspect –’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Johanna, ‘and so do I; I must tomorrow have it out.’
‘Have what out?’
‘My tooth, sir, it’s been aching for some hours; did you ever have the toothache? If you did, you can feel for me, and not wonder that I lean my head upon my hands and groan.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sweeney Todd Commences Clearing the Road to Retirement
Todd was but half satisfied with this excuse of Master Charley’s, and yet it was one he could not very well object to, and might be true; so, after looking at Johanna for some moments suspiciously, he thought he might take it upon trust.
‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘no doubt you will be better tomorrow. There’s your sixpence for today; go and get yourself some dinner; and the cheapest thing you can do is to go to Lovett’s pie-shop with it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Johanna was aware as she walked out of the shop, that the eyes of Sweeney Todd were fixed upon her, and that if she betrayed, by even the remotest gesture, that she had suspicions of him, probably he would yet prevent her exit; so she kept herself seemingly calm, and went out very slowly; but it was a great relief to gain the street, and feel that she was not under the same roof with that dreadful and dreaded man.
Instead of going to Lovett’s pie-shop. Johanna turned into a pastry-cook’s near at hand, and partook of some refreshments; and while she is doing so, we will go back again, and take a glance at Sweeney Todd as he sat in his shop alone.
There was a look of great triumph upon his face, and his eyes sparkled with an unwonted brilliance. It was quite clear that Sweeney Todd was deeply congratulating himself upon something; and, at length, diving his hand into the depths of a huge pocket, he produced the identical string of pearls for which he had already received so large a sum from Mr Mundel.
‘Truly,’ he said, ‘I must be one of Fortune’s prime favourites, indeed. Why, this string of pearls to me is a continued fortune; who could have for one moment dreamed of such a piece of rare fortune? I need not now be at all suspicious or troubled concerning John Mundel. He has lost his pearls, and lost his money. Ha, ha, ha! That is glorious; I will shut up shop sooner than I intended by far, and be off to the continent. Yes, my next sale of the string of pearls shall be in Holland.’
With the pearls in his hand, Todd now appeared to fall into a very distracted train of thought, which lasted him about ten minutes, and then some accidental noise in the street, or the next house, jarred upon his nerves, and he sprang to his feet, exclaiming, ‘What’s that – what’s that?’
All was still again, and he became reassured.
‘What a fool I get,’ he muttered to himself, ‘that every casual sound disturbs me, and causes this tremor. It is time, now that I am getting nervous that I should leave England. But first, I must dispose of one whose implacable disposition I know well, and who would hunt me to the farthest corner of the earth, if she were not at peace in the grave. Yes, the peace of the grave must do for her. I can think of no other mode of silencing so large a claim.’
As he spoke those words, he took from his pocket the small packet of poison that he had purchased, and held it up between him and the light with a self-satisfied expression. Then he rose hastily, for he had again seated himself, and walked to the window, as if he were anxious for the return of Johanna, in order that he might leave the place. As he waited, he saw a young girl approach the shop, and having entered it, she said, ‘Mrs Lovett’s compliments, Mr Todd, and she has sent you this note, and will be glad to see you at eight o’clock this evening.’
‘Oh, very well, very well. Why, Lucy, you look prettier than ever.’
‘It’s more than you do, Mr Todd,’ said the girl, as she left, apparently in high indignation that so ugly a specimen of humanity as Sweeney Todd should have taken it upon himself to pay her a compliment.
Todd only gave a hideous sort of a grin, and then he opened the letter which had been brought to him. It was without signature, and contained the following words:
The new cook is already tired of his place, and you must tonight make another vacancy. He is the most troublesome one I have had, because the most educated. He must be got rid of – you know how. I am certain mischief will come of it.
‘Indeed!’ said Todd, when he finished this epistle, ‘this is quick; well, well, we shall see, we shall see. Perhaps we shall get rid of more than one person, who otherwise would be troublesome tonight. But here comes my new boy; he suspects nothing.’
Johanna returned, and Todd asked somewhat curiously about the toothache; however, she made him so apparently calm and cool a reply, that he was completely foiled, and fancied that his former suspicions must surely have had no real foundation, but had been provoked merely by his fears.
‘Charley,’ he said, ‘you will keep an eye on the door, and when anyone wants me, you will pull that spring, which communicates with a bell that will make me hear. I am merely going to my bedroom.’
‘Very well, sir.’
Todd gave another suspicious glance at her, and then left the shop. She had hoped that he would have gone out, so that there would have been another opportunity, and a better one than the last, of searching the place, but in that she was disappointed; and there was no recourse but to wait with patience.
The day was on the decline, and a strong impression came over Johanna’s mind, that something in particular would happen before it wholly passed away into darkness. She almost trembled to think what that something could be, and that she might be compelled to be a witness to violence, from which her gentle spirit revolted; and had it not been that she had determined nothing should stop her from investigating the fate of poor Mark Ingestrie, she could even then have rushed into the street in despair.
But as the soft daylight deepened into the dim shadows of evening, she grew more composed, and was better able, with a calmer spirit, to await the progress of events.
Objects were but faintly discernible in the shop when Sweeney Todd came downstairs again; and he ordered Johanna to light a small oil lamp which shed but a very faint and sickly ray around it, and by no means facilitated the curiosity of anyone who might wish to peep in at the window.
‘I am going out,’ he said, ‘I shall be gone an hour, but not longer. You may say so to anyone who calls.’
‘I will, sir.’
‘Be vigilant, Charley, and your reward is certain.’
‘I pray to Heaven it may be,’ said Johanna, when she was again alone; but scarcely had the wo
rds passed her lips, when a hackney coach drove up to the door; and then alighted someone who came direct into the shop. He was a tall, gentlemanly-looking man, and before Johanna could utter a word, he said, ‘The watchword, Miss Oakley, is St Dunstan; I am a friend.’
Oh, how delightful it was to Johanna, to hear such words, oppressed as she was by the fearful solitude of that house; she sprang eagerly forward, saying, ‘Yes, yes; oh, yes! I had the letter.’
‘Hush! there is not time to lose. Is there any hiding-place here at all?’
‘Oh yes! a large cupboard.’
‘That will do; wait here a moment while I bring in a friend of mine, if you please, Miss Oakley. We have got some work to do tonight.’
The tall man, who was as cool and collected as anyone might be, went to the door, and presently returned with two persons, both of whom, it was found, might with very little trouble be hidden in the cupboard. Then there was a whispered consultation for a few minutes, after which the first comer turned to Johanna, and said, ‘Miss Oakley, when do you expect Todd to return?’
‘In an hour.’
‘Very well. As soon as he does return, I shall come in to be shaved, and no doubt you will be sent away; but do not go further than the door, whatever you do, as we may possibly want you. You can easily linger about the window.’
‘Yes, yes! But why is all this mystery? Tell me what it is that you mean by all this. Is there any necessity for keeping me in the dark about it?’
‘Miss Oakley, there is nothing exactly to tell you yet, but it is hoped that this night will remove some mysteries, and open your eyes to many circumstances that at present you cannot see. The villainy of Sweeney Todd will be espied, and if there be any hope of your restoration to one in whom you feel a great interest, it will be by such means.’
The String of Pearls: a Romance--The Original Sweeney Todd Page 31
