by Oscar Wilde
An awfully diabolical look came across the countenance of Sweeney Todd, as he muttered to himself, ‘Curses on them both! I may yet have one of them though.’
‘What did you say, sir?’ asked Johanna.
‘What is that to you, you young imp?’ roared Todd. ‘Curse you! I’ll pull out your teeth by degrees, with red-hot pincers, if you presume to listen to what I say! I’ll be the death of you, you devil’s cub.’
Johanna shrank back, alarmed, and then Todd walked across his shop to the back-parlour, the door of which he carefully double-locked, after which, turning to Johanna, he said,-
‘You will mind the shop till I return, and if anybody comes, you can tell them that they need not wait, for I shall probably be some time gone. All you have to do is mind the place, and, hark you, no peeping nor prying about; sit still, and touch nothing, for if you do, I shall most assuredly discover it, and your punishment will be certain and perhaps terrible.’
‘I will be careful, sir.’
‘Do so, and you will be rewarded. Why, the last lad I had served me so well that I have had him taken care of for life, in a fine handsome country house, with grounds attached, a perfect villa, where he is waited upon by attendants, in the most attentive manner.’
‘How kind,’ said Johanna, ‘and is he happy?’
‘Very, very—notwithstanding the general discontent of human nature, he is quite happy, as a matter of course. Mind my instructions, and in due time you will no doubt yourself share as amiable a fate.’
Todd put on his hat, and with a horrible and strange leer upon his countenance, left the shop, and Johanna found herself in the situation she had coveted, namely, to be alone in the shop of Sweeney Todd, and able to make what examination of it she pleased, without the probability of much interruption.
‘Heaven be my aid,’ she cried, ‘for the sake of truth.’
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
THE DISCOVERIES IN THE VAULTS OF ST. DUNSTAN’S
‘Well, Sir Richard,’ remarked the beadle of St Dunstan’s to the magistrate, after the ponderous stone was raised in the centre of the church, upon which the workmen had been busy, ‘don’t you smell nothink now?’
The magistrate, churchwardens, and, indeed, everyone present, shrank back from the horrible stench that saluted them, now that the stone was fairly removed.
‘Why, good God!’ exclaimed the senior churchwarden; ‘have we been sitting and hearing sermons with such a charnel-house under? I always understood that none of the vaults exactly underneath the church had been used for many years past.’
‘Hush!’ said the magistrate. ‘The enquiry we are upon is, perhaps, a more important one than you imagine, sir.’
‘More important! How can that be? Didn’t the bishop smell it when he came to confirm the people, and didn’t he say in the vestry that he could not confirm anybody while such a smell was in the church, and didn’t we tell him that it would be a sad thing if he didn’t? and then he did confirm the people in such a twinkling, that they didn’t know what they were confirmed in at all.’
‘Hush! my good sir, hush, and hear me. Will you, now that you have got up this great stone, and opened, as I see, the top of a stone staircase, by so doing, send away the workmen, and, indeed, all persons but yourself and me?’
‘Well, but—but you don’t mean us to go down, sir, do you?’
‘I mean to go, you may depend. Send away the men at once, if you please. I have ample warrant for all I am about to do, I assure you. I suspect I shall be well able to free St Dunstan’s church from the horrible stench that has been infesting it for some time past.’
‘You think so, sir? Bless you, then, I’ll do just whatever you like.’
The workmen were not sorry to be dismissed from the uncomfortable employment, but the beadle who was holding his nose, and who having overheard what Sir Richard had said, was extremely anxious upon the subject, put in his claim to stay, on the ground of being one of the officials of the church; and he was accordingly permitted to stay.
‘This seems to lead to the vaults,’ remarked Sir Richard, as he looked down the chasm, which the removal of the stone had left.
‘Yes,’ replied the churchwarden, ‘it does, and they have, as I say, been unused for a long time; but how that dreadful smell can come from bodies that have been forty or fifty years there, I can’t think.’
‘We must be careful of the foul air,’ remarked the magistrate. ‘Get a torch, Mr Beadle, if you please, and we will lower it into the vault. If that lives, we can: and if you please go first to the door of the church, and take this silk handkerchief with you, and hold it up in your hand; and upon that signal, four persons will come to you. They are officers of mine, and you will bring them to me.’
‘Oh, dear, yes, certainly,’ said the beadle, who was quite happy at the thoughts of such a reinforcement. ‘I’ll do it, sir, and as for a torch, there is some famous links in the vestry cupboard, as I’ll get in a minute. Well, I do think the smell is a little better already; don’t you, sir? I’m a going. Don’t be impatient, sir. I’m going like a shot, I am.’
To give the beadle his due, he certainly executed his orders quickly. The four officers, sure enough, obeyed the signal of the handkerchief, and in a few minutes more, a torchlight was lowered by a rope down the gloomy aperture. All watched the light with great interest as it descended; but, although it certainly burnt dimmer than before, yet it showed no signs of going out, and the magistrate said, ‘We may safely descend. The air that will support flame will likewise support animal life; therefore we need be under no sort of apprehension. Follow me.’
He commenced a careful descent of the stone steps, and was promptly followed by his four men, and much more slowly by the beadle and the churchwarden, neither of whom seemed much to relish the adventure, although their curiosity prompted them to continue it.
The stone steps consisted of about twenty, and when the bottom was gained, it was found to be covered with flagstones of considerable size, upon which sawdust was strewn, but not sufficiently thickly to cover them in all places completely.
There was a death-like stillness in the place, and the few crumbling coffins which were in niches in the walls were, with their tenants, evidently too old to give forth that frightful odour of animal decomposition which pervaded the place.
‘You will see, Sir Richard,’ said the churchwarden, producing a piece of paper, ‘that, according to the plans of the vault I have here, this one opens into a passage that runs halfway round the church, and from that passage opens a number of vaults, not one of which has been used for years past.’
‘I see the door is open.’
‘Yes, it is as you say. That’s odd, Sir Richard, ain’t it? Oh! gracious!—just put your head out into the passage, and won’t you smell it then!’
They all tried the experiment, and found, indeed, that the smell was horrible. Sir Richard took a torch from one of the constables, and advanced into the passage. He could see nothing but the doors of some of the vaults open: he crossed the threshold of one of them, and was away about a minute; after which he came back, saying, ‘I think we will all retire now: we have seen enough to convince us all about it.’
‘All about it, sir!’ said the churchwarden, ‘what about it?’
‘Exactly, that will do—follow me, my men.
The officers, without the slightest questions or remarks, followed Sir Richard, and he began rapidly, with them at his heels, to ascend the stone staircase into the church again.
‘Hilloa!’ cried the beadle—‘I say, stop. O lord! don’t let me be lost—Oh, don’t! I shall think something horrible is coming up after me, and going to lay hold of my heels: don’t let me be lost! oh dear!’
‘You can’t be lost,’ said one of the officers; ‘you know if anything is going to lay hold of your heels. Take it easy; it’s only a ghost at the most, you kno
w.’
By the time the beadle got fairly into the church, he was in that state of perspiration and fright, that he was obliged to sit down upon a tomb to recover himself; and the magistrate took that opportunity of whispering to the churchwarden, ‘I want to speak to you alone; come out with me—order the church to be locked up, as if we meditated no further search in the vaults.’
‘Yes, oh, yes! I knew there was some secret.’
‘There is a horrible one!—such a one as all London will ring with in twenty-four hours more—such a secret as will never be forgotten in connection with old St Dunstan’s church, while it is in existence.’
There was a solemnity about the manner in which the magistrate spoke, which quite alarmed the churchwarden, and he turned rather pale as they stood upon the church threshold.
‘Do you know one Sweeney Todd?’ asked the magistrate.
‘Oh, yes—a barber.’
‘Good. Incline your ear to me while we walk down to Downing-street. I am going to call upon the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and before we get there, I shall be able to tell you why and what sort of assistance I want of you.’
The churchwarden did incline his ear most eagerly, but before they had got half way down the Strand, he was compelled to go into a public-house to get some brandy, such an overpowering effect had the horrible communication of the magistrate upon him. What that communication was we shall very soon discover; but it is necessary that we follow Mr Todd a little in his proceedings after he left Johanna in charge of his shop.
Todd walked briskly on, till he came nearly to Pickett-street, in the Strand, and then he went into a chemist’s shop that was there, in which only a lad was serving.
‘You recollect,’ said Todd, ‘serving me with some rat poison?’
‘Oh, yes, yes—Mr Todd, I believe.’
‘The same. I want some more; for the fact is, that owing to the ointments I have in my shop for the hair, the vermin are attracted, and I have now as many as ever. It was only last night I awakened, and saw one actually lapping up hair-oil, and another drinking some rose-water that they had upset, and broken a bottle of; so I will thank you to give me some liquid poison, if you please, as they seem so fond of drink.’
‘Exactly, sir, exactly,’ said the lad, as he took down a bottle, and made up a potion; ‘exactly, sir. If you put a few drops only of this in half a pint of liquid, it will do.’
‘A couple of drops? This must be powerful.’
‘It is—a dozen drops, or about half a teaspoonful, would kill a man to a certainty, so you will be careful of it, Mr Todd. Of course, we don’t sell such things to strangers, you know, but you being a neighbour alters the case.’
‘True enough. Thank you. Good-day. I think we shall have rain shortly, do you know.’
Todd walked away with the poison in his pocket, and when he had got a few yards from the chemist’s door, he gave such a hideous chuckle that an old gentleman, who was close before him, ran like a lamp-lighter in his fright, and put himself quite out of breath!
‘This will do,’ muttered Todd; ‘I must smooth the path to my retirement from business. I know well that if I were to hint at such a thing in a certain quarter, it would be considered a certain proof that I had made enough to be worth dividing, and that is a process I don’t intend exactly to go through. No, no, Mrs Lovett, no, no.’
Todd marched slowly towards his own house, but when he got to the corner of Bell-yard, and heard St Dunstan’s strike twelve, he paused a moment, and then muttered, ‘I’ll call and see her—yes, I’ll call, and see her. The evening will answer better my present purpose.
He then walked up Bell Yard, until he came to the fascinating Mrs Lovett’s pie-shop. He paused a moment at the window, and leered in at two lawyer’s clerks who were eating some of yesterday’s pies. The warm day batch had not yet come up. ‘Happy youths!’ he chuckled, and walked into the shop.
Mrs Lovett received him graciously as an acquaintance, and invited him into the parlour, while the two limbs of the law continued eating and praising the pies.
‘Delicious, ain’t they?’ said one.
‘Oh, I believe you,’ replied the other; ‘and such jolly lots of gravy, too, ain’t there? I wonder how she does make ‘em. Lor’ bless you, I almost live upon ‘em. You know, I used to take all my meals with my fat old uncle, Marsh, but since he disappeared one day, I live on Lovett’s pies, instead of the old buffer.’
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
JOHANNA ALONE. THE SECRET. MR TODD’S SUSPICIONS. THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER
For some time after Todd had left the shop, Johanna could scarcely believe that she was sufficiently alone to dare to look about her; but as minute after minute passed away, and no sound indicative of his speedy return fell upon her ears, she gathered more courage.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I am at last alone, in the place where my suspicions have always pointed as the death place of poor Mark. O Heavens, grant that it may not be so, and that, in unravelling the evident mystery of this man’s life, I may hail you living, my dear Mark, and not have to mourn you dead! And yet, how can I, even for a moment, delude myself with such false hopes? No, no, he has fallen a victim to this ruthless man.
For a few minutes, as Johanna gave way to this violent burst of grief, she wrung her hands and wept; but then, as a thought of the danger she would be in should Todd return and see signs of emotion crossed her mind, she controlled her tears, and managed to bear the outward semblance of composure.
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 th
an 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?’
