TODD'S HOUR HAS COME.
The hideous face that Todd made above the head of his customer at this
moment, was more like that which Mephistopheles might have made, after
achieving the destruction of a human soul, than anything human. Sir
Richard Blunt quickly replied to Todd's question, by saying--
"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 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 back 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 simple leverage from
the inner room, weighed down 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 the 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 round it, and saw
his customer calmly waiting with the lather upon his face, the cry of
horror that came gurgling 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 rung 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 most 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."
[Illustration: Sweeney Todd's Hour Has Come.]
Johanna rushed into the shop, and clung to the arm of Sir Richard,
crying--
"Is it all over! Is it indeed all done now?"
"It is, Miss Oakley."
The moment Todd heard these few words addressed to Charley Green as he
thought him, he turned his glassy blood-shot eyes upon Johanna, and
glared at her for the space of about half a minute in silence. He then,
although handcuffed, made a sudden and violent effort to reach her, but
he was in too experienced hands, and he was held back most effectually.
He struck his forehead with his fettered hands, making a gash in it from
which the blood flowed freely, as in infuriated accents, he said--
"Oh fool--fool, to be cheated by a girl! I had my suspicions that the
boy was a spy, but I never thought for one moment there was a disguise
of sex. Oh, idiot! idiot! And who are you, sir?"
"I am Sir Richard Blunt."
Todd groaned and staggered. The officers would have let him sit down in
the shaving chair for a moment or two to recover from the shock his mind
had sustained by his capture, but when he found that it was the shaving
chair he was led to, he shuddered, and in a wailing voice, said--
"No--no! not there--not there! Anywhere but there. I dare not sit
there!"
"It isn't worth while sitting at all," said Crotchet. "I'm blowed if I
ain't all crumpled up in a blessed mummy by being in that cupboard so
jolly long. All my joints is a-going crinkley-crankley."
Todd looked in the face of Sir Richard Blunt, and in a faint voice
spoke--
"I--I don't feel very well. There's a little drop of cordial medicine
that I often take in my coat pocket. You see I can't get at it, my hands
being manacled. I only want to take a drop to comfort me."
"Get it out, Crotchet," said Sir Richard.
"Here ye is," said Crotchet, as he produced a little bottle, with a pale
straw-coloured liquid in, from Todd's pocket.
"Give it to me. Oh, give it to me," said Todd. "I will thank you much.
It will recover me. Give it to me!"
"No, Todd," said Sir Richard, as he took the little bottle and put it in
his own pocket. "I do not intend, if I can help it, to permit you to
evade the law by poisoning yourself."
Finding himself thus defeated in his insidious attempt upon his own
life, Todd got quite frantic with rage, and had a grand struggle with
the officers, in his endeavours to get at some of the razors that were
near at hand in the shop; but they effectually prevented him from doing
so, and finally he became too much exhausted to make any further
efforts.
"My curses be upon you all!" he said. "May you, and all who belong to
you--"
But we cannot transcribe the horrible denunciations of Todd. They were
too horrible even for the officers to listen to with patience, and Sir
Richard Blunt, turning to Johanna, said--
"Run over the way to your friends at the fruiterer's. All is over now,
and your disguise is no longer needed."
Johanna did not pause another moment, but ran over the way, and in the
course of a few moments she was in the arms of the fruiterer's daughter,
where she relieved her overcharged heart by weeping bitterly.
"Shut up the shop, Crotchet," said Sir Richard Blunt, "and then get a
coach. I will lodge this man at once in Newgate, and then we will see to
Mrs. Lovett."
At this name Todd looked up.
"She has escaped you," he said.
"I don't think so," responded Sir Richard.
"But I say she has--she is dead: she fell into the Thames this morning
and was drowned."
"Oh, you allude to your pushing her into the river this morning near
London-bridge?" said Sir Richard. "I saw that affair myself."
Todd glared at him.
"But it was not of much consequence. We got her out, and she is all
right again now at her shop in Bell-yard."
Todd held his hands over his eyes for some moments, and then he said in
a low voice--
"It is all a dream, or I am mad."
Crotchet, in obedience to the orders he had received, put up the
shutters of Todd's shop, and then fetched a coach, during the whole of
which time, Sir Richard Blunt himself kept his hand upon Todd's collar,
so that he could control him if he should again become so violent as he
had been.
The spirit to struggle was, however, gone from Todd for the time being.
Indeed, he seemed to be completely stunned by his capture, and to be
able only to see things darkly. He was yet to awaken to a full
consciousness of his situation, and let that awakening be when it would,
it was sure to be awful.
"All's right," said Crotchet. "Here's the vehicle, and the crib is shut
up."
"Crotchet!"
"Yes, your worship. What is it? Why, you never looked at a feller in
that sort of way before."
"I never did have anything so important to say to you, Crotchet, nor did
I ever place in your hands so important a trust. It is one that will
make you or mar you, Crotchet. I have myself important business here, or
I would myself take this man to Newgate. As it is, Crotchet, I wish to
entrust you with that important piece of duty, and I rely upon you,
Crotchet, for keeping an eye upon him, and delivering him in safety."
"It's as good as done," said Crotchet. "If he gets away from me, he has
only another individual to do, and that's the old gent as is down below,
with the long tail. Lor' bless you, sir, didn't I say from the first, as
Todd smugged the people as comed to him to be shaved?"
"You did, Crotchet."
"Werry good. Then does yer think as I'm the feller all for to let him go
when once I've got a hold of him? Rather not!"
"I entrust you with him then, Crotchet. Take him away. I give him
entirely into your hands."
Upon this, Crotchet slid his arm beneath that of Sweeney Todd, and
looking in his face with a most grotesque air of satisfaction, he said,
"kim up--kim up!"
He then, by an immense exertion of strength, hoisted Todd completely
over the door step, after which, catching him with both hands about the
small of his back, he pitched him into the coach.
"My eye," said the coachman, "has the gemman had a drop too much?"
"He will have," said Crotchet, "some o' these odd days. To Newgate--to
Newgate."
Crotchet rode inside along with Todd "for fear he should be dull," he
said, and the other officer got up outside the coach, and then off it
went to that dreadful building that Todd had often grimly smiled at as
he passed, but into which as a resident he had never expected to enter.
Sir Richard Blunt remained in the shop of Sweeney Todd. The oil lamp
that hung by a chain from the ceiling shed a tolerable light over all
objects, and no sooner had the magistrate fastened the outer door after
the departure of Crotchet with Todd, than he stamped three times heavily
upon the floor of the shop.
This signal was immediately answered by three distinct taps from
underneath the floor, and then the magistrate stamped again in the same
manner.
The effect of all this stamping and counter-signals was immediately very
apparent. The great chair which has played so prominent a part in he
atrocities of Sweeney Todd slowly sunk, and the revolving plank hung
suspended by its axle, while a voice from below called out--
"Is all right, sir?"
"Yes, Crotchet has taken him to Newgate. I am now alone. Come up."
"We are coming, sir. We all heard a little disturbance, but the floor is
very thick you know, sir. So we could not take upon ourselves to say
exactly what was happening."
"Oh, it's all right. He resisted, but by this time he is within the
stone walls of Newgate. Let me lend you a hand."
Sir Richard Blunt stooped over the aperture in the floor, and the first
person that got up was no other than Mr. Wrankley the Tobacconist.
"How do you feel after your tumble?" said Sir Richard.
"Oh, very well. The fact is they caught me so capitally below that it
was quite easy. Todd did not think it worth his while to come down to
see if I were alive or dead."
"Ah, that was the only chance; but of course if he had done so he must
have been taken at once into custody--that would have been all. Come on,
my friends, come on. Our trouble with regard to Todd is over now, I
think."
The two churchwardens of St. Dunstan's and the beadle, and four of Sir
Richard Blunt's officers, and the fruiterer from opposite, now came up
from below the shop of Sweeney Todd, where they had been all waiting to
catch Mr. Wrankley when the chair should descend with him.
"Conwulsions!" said the beadle, "I runned agin everybody when I seed him
a-coming. I thought to myself, if a parochial authority had been served
in that 'ere way, there would have been an end of the world at once."
"I had some idea of asking you at one time to play that little part for
me," said Sir Richard.
"Conwulsions! had you, sir?"
"Yes. But now, my friends, let us make a careful search of this house;
and among the first things we have to do is, to remove all the
combustible materials that Todd has stowed in various parts of it, for
unless I am much deceived, the premises are in such a state that the
merest accident would set them in a blaze."
"Conwulsions!" then cried the beadle. "I ain't declared out of danger
yet then!"