‘Oh, yes, I have. Needs must, you know, Mrs Lovett, when a certain person drives. But I have a great favour to ask of you, madam.’
‘What is it?’
‘Why, I feel faint, and if you could let me have a pot of porter, I would undertake to make a batch of pies superior to any you have ever had, and without any grumbling either.’
Mrs Lovett was silent for a few moments, and then said, ‘If you are supplied with porter, will you continue in your situation?’
‘Well, I don’t know that; but perhaps I may. At all events, I will make you the nine o’clock batch, you may depend.’
‘Very well. You shall have it.’
She disappeared at these words, and in about ten minutes, a small trapdoor opened in the roof, and there was let down by a cord a foaming pot of porter.
‘This is capital,’ cried the victim of the pies, as he took half of it at a draught. ‘This is nectar for the gods. Oh, what a relief, to be sure. It puts new life into me.’
And so it really seemed, for shouldering the poker, which was more like a javelin than anything else, he at once rushed into the vault where the meat was kept.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘for a grand effort at freedom, and if I succeed I promise you, Mrs Lovett, that I will come round to the shop, and rather surprise you, madam. Damn the pies!’
We have before described the place in which the meat was kept, and we need now only say that the shelves were very well stocked indeed, and that our friend, in whose progress we have a great interest, shovelled off the large pieces with celerity from one of the shelves, and commenced operations with the poker.
He was not slow in discovering that his work would not be the most easy in the world, for every now and then he kept encountering what felt very much like a plate of iron; but he fagged away with right good will, and succeeded after a time in getting down one of the shelves, which was one point gained at all events.
‘Now for it,’ he said. ‘Now for it; I shall be able to act – to work upon the wall itself, and it must be something unusually strong to prevent me making a breach through it soon.’
In order to refresh himself, he finished the porter, and then using his javelin-like poker as a battering ram, he banged the wall with the end of it for some moments, without producing any effect, until suddenly a portion of it swung open just like a door, and he paused to wonder how that came about.
All was darkness through the aperture, and yet he saw that it was actually a little square door that he had knocked open; and the idea then recurred to him that he had found how the shelves were supplied with meat, and he had no doubt that there was such a little square door opening at the back of every one of them.
‘So,’ he said, ‘that mystery is solved; but what part of Mrs Lovett’s premises have I got upon now? We shall soon see.’
He went boldly into the large cellar, and procured a light – a flaming torch, made of a piece of dry wood, and returning to the opening he had made in the wall, he thrust his head through it, and projected the torch before him.
With a cry of horror he fell backwards, extinguishing the torch in his fall, and he lay for a full quarter of an hour insensible upon the floor. What dreadful sight had he seen that had so chilled his young blood, and frozen up the springs of life?
When he recovered, he looked around him in the dim, borrowed light that came from the other vault, and he shuddered as he said, ‘Was it a dream?’
Soon, however, as he rose, he gave up the idea of having been the victim of any delusion of the imagination, for there was the broken shelf, and there the little square opening, through which he had looked and seen what had so transfixed him with horror.
Keeping his face in that direction, as if it would be dreadful to turn his back for a moment upon some frightful object, he made his way into the larger cellar where the ovens were, and then he sat down with a deep groan.
‘What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?’ he muttered. ‘I am doomed – doomed.’
‘Are the pies doing?’ said the voice of Mrs Lovett. ‘It’s eight o’clock.’
‘Eight, is it?’
‘Yes, to be sure, and I want to know if you are bent upon your own destruction or not? I don’t hear the furnaces going, and I’m quite sure you have not made the pies.’
‘Oh, I will keep my word, madam, you may depend. You want two hundred pies at nine o’clock, and you will see that they shall come up quite punctually to the minute.’
‘Very good. I am glad you are better satisfied than you were.’
‘I am quite satisfied now, Mrs Lovett. I am quite in a different mood of mind to what I was before. I can assure you, madam, that I have no complaints to make, and I think the place has done me some good; and if at nine o’clock you let down the platform, you shall have two hundred pies up, as sure as fate, and something else, too,’ he added to himself, ‘or I shall be of a very different mind to what I now am.’
We have already seen that Mrs Lovett was not deceived by this seeming submission on the part of the cook, for she used that as an argument with Todd, when she was expatiating upon the necessity of getting rid of him that night.
But the cleverest people make mistakes at times, and probably, when the nine o’clock batch of pies makes its appearance, something may occur at the same time which will surprise a great many more persons than Mrs Lovett and the reader.
But we must not anticipate, merely saying with the eastern sage, what will be will be, and what’s impossible don’t often come to pass; certain it is that the nine o’clock batch of two hundred pies were made and put in the ovens; and equally certain is it that the cook remarked, as he did so, –
‘Yes, I’ll do it – it may succeed; nay, it must succeed; and if so, woe be to you, Mrs Lovett, and all who are joined with you in this horrible speculation, at which I sicken.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Sweeney Todd Shaves a Good Customer. The Arrest.
Johanna is still alone in the barber’s shop. Her head is resting upon her hands, and she is thinking of times gone past, when she had hoped for happiness with Mark Ingestrie. When we say alone, we must not be presumed to have forgotten the two officers who were so snugly packed in the cupboard. But Johanna, as her mind wandered back to her last interview with him whom she had loved so well, and clung to so fondly, and so constantly, almost for a time forgot where she was and that there was such a person as Sweeney Todd in existence.
‘Alas, alas!’ she said, ‘it seems likely enough that by the adoption of this disguise, so unsuited to me, I may achieve vengeance, but nothing more. Where are you, Mark Ingestrie? Oh, horror! something seems to tell me that no mortal voice can answer me.’
Tears came trickling to her relief; and as she felt them trickling through her fingers, she started as she thought that the hour which Todd had said would expire before he returned must have nearly gone.
‘I must control these thoughts,’ she said, ‘and this emotion. I must seem that which I am not.’
She rose, and ceased weeping; she trimmed the little miserable lamp, and then she was about to go to the door to look for the return of Todd, when that individual, with a slow and sneaking footstep, made his appearance, as if he had been hiding just within the doorway.
Todd hung his hat upon a peg, and then turning his eyes enquiringly upon Johanna, he said, ‘Well, has anyone been?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who? Speak, speak out. Confound you, you mumble so, I can hardly hear you.’
‘A gentleman to be shaved, and he went away again. I don’t know what puts you in such a passion, Mr Todd; I’m sure nothing –’
‘What is it to you? Get out of my way, will you, and you may begin to think of shutting up, I think, for we shall have no more customers tonight. I am tired and weary. You are to sleep under the counter, you know.’
‘Yes, sir, you told me so. I dare say I shall be very comfortable there.’
‘And you have not been peeping and prying about, have yo
u?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Not looking even into that cupboard, I suppose, eh? It’s not locked, but that’s no reason why you should look into it – not that there is any secret in it, but I object to peeping and prying upon principle.’
Todd, as he spoke, advanced towards the cupboard, and Johanna thought that in another moment a discovery would undoubtedly take place of the two officers who were there concealed; and probably that would have been the case had not the handle of the shop-door been turned at that moment and a man presented himself, at which Todd turned quickly, and saw that he was a substantial-looking farmer with dirty top boots, as if he had just come off a journey.
‘Well, master,’ said the visitor, ‘I want a clean shave.’
‘Oh,’ said Todd, not in the best of humours, ‘it’s rather late. I suppose you would not like to wait till morning, for I don’t know if I have any hot water?’
‘Oh, cold will do.’
‘Cold, oh dear, no; we never shave in cold water; but if you must, you must; so sit down, sir, and we will soon settle the business.’
‘Thank you, thank you, I can’t go to bed comfortable without a clean shave, do you see? I have come up from Braintree with beasts on commission, and I’m staying at the Bull’s Head, you see.’
‘Oh, indeed,’ said Todd, as he adjusted the shaving cloth, ‘the Bull’s Head.’
‘Yes, master; why I brought up a matter o’220 beasts, I did, do you see, and was on my pooney, as good a stepper as you’d wish to see; and I sold ’em all, do you see, for 550 pun. Ho, ho! good work, that, do you see, and only forty-two on ’em was my beasts, do you see; I’ve got a missus at home, and a daughter; my girl’s called Johanna – ahem!’
Up to this point, Johanna had not suspected that the game had begun, and that this was the magistrate who had come to put an end to the malpractices of Sweeney Todd; but his marked pronunciation of her name at once opened her eyes to the fact, and she knew that something interesting must soon happen.
‘And so you sold them all,’ said Todd.
‘Yes, master, I did, and I’ve got the money in my pocket now, in banknotes; I never leaves my money about at inns, do you see, master; safe bind, safe find, you see; I carries it about with me.’
‘A good plan, too,’ said Todd; ‘Charley, some hot water; that’s a good lad – and – and, Charley.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘While I am just finishing off this gentleman, you may as well just run to the Temple to Mr Serjeant Toldrunis and ask for his wig; we shall have to do it in the morning, and may as well have it the first thing in the day to begin upon, and you need not hurry, Charley, as we shall shut up when you come back.’
Johanna walked out, but went no further than the shop window, close to which she placed her eyes so that, between a pomatum jar and a lot of hair brushes, she could clearly see what was going on.
‘A nice-looking little lad, that,’ said Todd’s customer.
‘Very, sir; an orphan boy; I took him out of charity, poor little fellow; but there, we ought to try to do all the good we can.’
‘Just so; I’m glad I have come to be shaved here. Mine’s a rather strong beard, I think, do you see.’
‘Why, sir, in a manner of speaking,’ replied Todd, ‘it is a strong beard. I suppose you didn’t come to London alone, sir?’
‘Oh, yes, quite alone; except the drovers, I had no company with me: why do you ask?’
‘Why, sir, I thought if you had any gentleman with you who might be waiting at the Bull’s Head, you would recommend him to me if anything was wanting in my way, you know, sir; you might have just left him, saying you were going to Todd, the barber’s, to have a clean shave, sir.’
‘No, not at all; the fact is, I did not come out to have a shave, but a walk, and it wasn’t till I gave my chin a stroke, and found what a beard I had, that I thought of it, and then passing your shop, in I popped, do you see.’
‘Exactly, sir, I comprehend; you are quite alone in London.’
‘Oh, quite, but when I come again, I’ll come to you to be shaved, you may depend, and I’ll recommend you too.’
‘I’m very much obliged to you,’ said Todd, as he passed his hand over the chin of his customer, ‘I’m very much obliged; I find I must give you another lather, sir, and I’ll get another razor with a keener edge, now that I have taken off all the rough as one may say in a manner of speaking.’
‘Oh, I shall do.’
‘No, no, don’t move, sir, I shall not detain you a moment; I have my other razors in the next room, and will polish you off now, sir, before you will know where you are; you know, sir, you have promised to recommend me, so I must do the best I can with you.’
‘Well, well, a clean shave is a comfort, but don’t be long, for I want to get back, do you see.’
‘Not a moment, not a moment.’
Sweeney Todd walked into his back-parlour, conveying with him the only light that was in the shop, so that the dim glimpse that, up to this time, Johanna from the outside had contrived to get of what was going on, was denied to her; and all that met her eyes was impenetrable darkness.
Oh, what a world of anxious agonising sensations crossed the mind of the young and beautiful girl at that moment. She felt as if some great crisis in her history had arrived, and that she was condemned to look in vain into the darkness to see of what it consisted.
We must not, however, allow the reader to remain in the same state of mystification, which came over the perceptive faculties of Johanna Oakley; but we shall proceed to state clearly and distinctly what did happen in the barber’s shop, while he went to get an uncommonly keen razor in his back-parlour.
The moment his back was turned, the seeming farmer who had made such a good thing of his beasts, sprang from the shaving-chair, as if he had been electrified; and yet he did not do it with any appearance of fright, nor did he make any noise. It was only astonishingly quick, and then he placed himself close to the window, and waited patiently with his eyes fixed upon the chair, to see what would happen next.
In the space of about a quarter of a minute, there came from the next room a sound like the rapid drawing of a heavy bolt, and then in an instant the shaving-chair disappeared beneath the floor; and the circumstances by which Sweeney Todd’s customers disappeared was evident.
There was a piece of the flooring turning upon a centre, and the weight of the chair when a bolt was withdrawn, by means of a simple leverage from the inner room, weighed down upon one end of the top, which, by a little apparatus, was to swing completely round, there being another chair on the under surface, which thus became the upper, exactly resembling the one in which the unhappy customer was supposed to be ‘polished off’.
Hence was it that in one moment, as if by magic, Sweeney Todd’s visitors disappeared, and there was the empty chair. No doubt, he trusted to a fall of about twenty feet below, on to a stone floor, to be the death of them, or, at all events, to stun them until he could go down to finish the murder, and – to cut them up for Mrs Lovett’s pies! after robbing them of all money and valuables they might have about them.
In another moment, the sound as of a bolt was again heard, and Sir Richard Blunt, who had played the part of the wealthy farmer, feeling that the trap was closed again, seated himself in the new chair that had made its appearance with all the nonchalance in life, as if nothing had happened.
It was a full minute before Todd ventured to look from the parlour into the darkened shop, and then he shook so that he had to hold by the door to steady himself.
‘That’s done,’ he said. ‘That’s the last, I hope. It is time I finished; I never felt so nervous since the first time. Then I did quake a little. How quiet he went; I have sometimes had a shriek ringing in my ears for a whole week.’
It was a large high-backed piece of furniture, that shaving-chair, so that, when Todd crept into the shop with the light in his hand, he had not the remotest idea it was tenanted; but when he got roun
d it, and saw his customer calmly waiting with the lather upon his face, the cry of horror that came gargling and gushing from his throat was horrible to hear.
‘Why, what’s the matter?’ said Sir Richard.
‘O God, the dead! the dead! O God!’ cried Todd, ‘this is the beginning of my punishment. Have mercy, Heaven! oh, do not look upon me with those dead eyes!’
‘Murderer!’ shouted Sir Richard, in a voice that rang like the blast of a trumpet through the house.
In an instant he sprang upon Sweeney Todd, and grappled him by the throat. There was a short struggle, and they were down upon the floor together, but Todd’s wrists were suddenly laid hold of, and a pair of handcuffs were scientifically put upon him by the officers, who, at the word ‘murderer’, that being a preconcerted signal, came from the cupboard where they had been concealed.
‘Secure him well, my men,’ said the magistrate, ‘and don’t let him lay violent hands upon himself. Ah! Miss Oakley, you are in time. This man is a murderer. I found out all the secret about the chair last night, after twelve, by exploring the vaults under the old church. Thank God, we have stopped his career.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The Conclusion
It wants five minutes to nine, and Mrs Lovett’s shop is filling with persons anxious to devour or to carry away one or more of the nine o’clock batch of savoury, delightful, gushing gravy pies.
Many of Mrs Lovett’s customers paid her in advance for the pies, in order that they might be quite sure of getting their orders fulfilled when the first batch should make its gracious appearance from the depths below.
‘Well, Jiggs,’ said one of the legal fraternity to another. ‘How are you today, old fellow? What do you bring it in?’
‘Oh! I ain’t very blooming. The fact is the count and I, and a few others, made a night of it last evening, and, somehow or another, I don’t think whiskey and water, half-and-half, and tripe go together.’
‘I should wonder if they did.’
‘And so I’ve come for a pie just to settle my stomach; you see, I’m rather delicate.’
The String of Pearls: a Romance--The Original Sweeney Todd Page 33
