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."
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!"
