Todd scrambled to his feet. He held his head in his hand.
"What does it all mean? What does it all mean?"
Knock! knock! knock!
Todd's senses were slowly returning to him. He began to recollect events at first confusedly, and then the proper order of their occurrence--how he had come home, and then heard a noise, and gone up stairs and seen--what? There he paused in his catalogue of events. What had he seen?"
Knock! knock! knock!
"Curses!" he muttered. "Who can that be hammering with such devilish perseverance at my door? By all that's horrible they shall pay dearly for thus disturbing me. Who can it be? Not any one to arrest me? No--no! They would not knock so long. An enforced entrance long before this would have brought them to me. What did I see? What did I see? What did I see? Dare I give it a name?"
He slowly descended the stairs, and reaching the shop, he peeped through a place in the door which he had made for such a purpose. There stood the hero of the moustachios knocking away with all his might to get the behests of Mrs. Lovett obeyed. Todd suddenly flung open the door, and in fell Major Bounce, alias Flukes.
"The devil! What do you want?"
"'Pon honour. Damn it. Is this the way to treat a military man?"
Todd turned to the side of the shop, and hastily put on a wig--by an adroit movement of his fingers, he pulled his cravat sufficiently out from his neck to be able to bury his chin in it, and when he turned to the mock major, the latter had no suspicion that he looked upon the same person who had so alarmed him by a look, in Bell Yard.
"Shaved or dressed sir?" said Todd.
"Confound you. Why did you open the door so quick?"
"Thought you knocked, sir."
"I did, but stop my breath, if you haven't given me an ugly fall. But no matter. None but the brave deserve the fair. You perceive I am a military man?"
"Oh, yes, sir, anybody may see that by your martial air."
"A-hem! You are right. Well then, Mr. Barber, I want my moustache shaved off. It's a fancy of a lady. One of the most charming of her sex. One with a fifty thousand pound charm. 'Pon my valour, she has. Ah! I am a lucky dog. Thirty-eight--handsome as Apollo, and beloved by the fairest of the fair."
"Life is a jolly thing,
Life is a jolly thing,
While I drink deep and go frolicking,
Fair maids, wives, and widows,
Fair maids, wives, and widows
Doat on the youth that goes frolicking."
"Ha! ha! ha! Life's a bumper. Upon my valour, Mr. Barber, I feel like a young colt, that I do."
"Really, sir. You don't say so?"
"Oh, yes, yes! Ha! ha! All's right. All's right. Now, Mr. What's-your-name. Off with the moustache. It's only in the cause of the fair that I would condescend to part with them, that's a fact, but when a lady's in the case--upon my valour, you are an ugly fellow."
"You don't say so," replied Todd, as he made a most hideous contortion. "Most people think me so fascinating that they stay with me."
"Ha! ha! A good joke."
Major Bounce--we may as well still call the poor wretch Major Bounce--placed his hat upon a chair, and his sword upon the top of it.
"Pray, sir, be seated," said Todd.
"Ah! Damme, is this seat a fixture?"
"Yes, sir, it's in the proper light, you see, sir."
"Oh, very well--I--pluff, pluff--puff, puff! Confound you, what have you filled my mouth with soap-suds for?"
"Quite an accident, sir. Quite an accident, for which I humbly beg your pardon, I assure you, sir. If you keep your mouth shut, and your eyes open, you will get on amazingly. Have you seen the paper to-day, sir?"
"No!"
"Sorry for that, sir. A very odd case, sir--a little on one side--a most remarkable case, I may say. A gentleman, sir, went into a barber's shop, and--"
"Eh!--puff! sleush! puff! Am I to be poisoned by your soap-suds? Upon my valour, I shall have to make an example of you to all barbers."
"You opened your mouth at the wrong time, sir."
"The wrong devil. Don't keep me here all night."
"Certainly not, sir. But as I was saying about this curious case in the paper. A military gentleman went into a barber's shop to be shaved."
"Well. The devil--pluff, pluff! Good God! Am I to endure all this?"
"Certainly not, sir. I'll show you the paper itself. You must know, sir, that the paragraph is headed 'Mysterious disappearance of a gentleman.'"
"Damn it, what do I care about it? Get on with the shaving."
"Certainly, sir."
Todd gave a horrible scrape to Major Bounce's face with a blunt razor.
"Quite easy, sir?"
"Easy? Good gracious, do you want to skin me?"
"Oh, dear no, sir. What an idea. To skin a military gentleman. Certainly not, sir. I see you require one of my best keen razors--one of the Magnum Bonums. Ha! ha!"
"Eh? What was that?"
"Only me giving a slight smile, sir."
"The deuce it was. Don't do it again, then, that's all; and get your keen razor at once, and make an end of the business."
"I will--make an end of the business. Sit still, sir. I'll be back in a moment."
Todd went into the parlour.
"£50,000!" muttered Major Bounce. "I am a happy fellow. At last, after so many ups and downs, I light upon my feet. A charming widow!--and she wishes to leave England. How lucky. I wish the very same thing. £50,000!--50,000 charms!"
"Good God! what's that?" said a man, who was passing Todd's window, in Fleet-street. "What a horrid shriek. Did you hear it, mum?"
"Oh dear, yes," said a woman. "I'm all of a tremble."
"It came from the barber's shop, here. Let's go in, and ask if anything is the matter?"
The man and woman crossed Todd's threshold, and opened the shop door. A glance showed them that a man's face was at a small opening of the parlour door. The shaving chair was empty.
"What's the matter?" said the man.
"With whom?" said Todd.
"Well, I don't know, but I thought somebody cried out."
Todd crept along the floor until he came close to the man, and then he said--
"My friend, have you anything to do?"
"Yes, thank God."
"Then, go and do it; and the next time you hear me cry out with the stomach-ache, ask yourself if it is your business to come in and ask me any questions about it. As for you, ma'am, unless you want to be shaved, I don't know, for the life of me, what you do here."
"Well, we only thought--"
Todd gave a hideous howl, which so terrified both the intruders, that they left the shop in a moment. His countenance then assumed that awful satanic expression which it sometimes bore, and he stood for the space of about five minutes in deep thought. Starting then suddenly, he took up the sword and hat of Major Bounce, and was in the act of putting both into a cupboard, when a smothered cry met his ears. Todd unsheathed the sword, and after fastening his shop door, he went into the parlour. He was absent about ten minutes, and when he returned he had not the sword, but he hastily washed his hands.
"Done!" he said.
Scratch! scratch! scratch! came something at his door, and Todd bent forward in an attitude of listening. Scratch!--scratch!--scratch!--His face turned ghastly pale, and his knees knocked together as he whispered to himself--
"What is that?--what is that?"
Todd was getting superstitious. Since his adventure with Mr. Crotchet, his nerves had been out of order, notwithstanding the exertions he had made to control himself, and to convince his judgment that it was all a matter of imagination. Yet now, somehow or another, although there was no visible connection between the two things, he could not help mentally connecting this scratching at the door with the vision on the staircase. It is strange how the fancy will play such tricks, but it is no less strange than true that she does so, yoking together matters most dissimilar, and leading the judgment into strange disorder.
Scratch!--scratch!--scratch!
"What--what is it?" gasped Todd.
But time works wonders, and after the first shock to his nerves, the barber began to think that some one must be playing him a trick, and, for all he knew, it might be the very man whom he had snubbed so for interfering with him, or it might be some boy--the boys would at times tease Sweeney Todd. This supposition gathered strength each moment.
"It is a trick--a trick," he said. "I will be revenged!"
He took a thick stick from a corner, and stealthily approached the door. The odd scratching noise continued, and he again paused for a few moments to listen to it.
"A boy--a boy," he growled. "It is one of the infernal boys."
Opening the door a little way with great quickness, Todd aimed a blow through the opening. There was a short angry bark, and his old enemy, the dog that had belonged to the mariner, thrust in his head, and glared at Todd.
"Help!--help! Murder!" cried Todd. "The dog again!"
He made a vain effort to shut the door; but Hector was too strong for him, and, as he had got his head in, he seemed to be determined to force in his whole body, which he fully succeeded in doing. Todd dropped the stick, and rushed into the back-parlour for safety, from whence, through a small square of glass near the top of the door, he glared at the proceedings of his four-footed foe. The dog went direct to the cupboard from which he had taken his master's hat, and, opening the door, he dragged out an assemblage of miscellaneous property, as though he hoped to find among it some other vestige of the dear master he had lost. When, however, after tossing the things about, he found that they were all strange to him, he gave a melancholy howl. Hector then appeared to be considering what he should do next, and, after a few moments' consideration, he made a general survey of the shop, and finally ended by leaping into the shaving-chair, where he sat and commenced such a series of melancholy howls, that Todd was nearly driven out of his mind at the conviction that the whole street must be soon in a state of alarm. Oh! how glad he would have been to have shot Hector; but then, although he had pistols in the parlour, he might miss him, and send the bullet into Fleet-street through his own window, and, perchance, hit somebody, and that would be a trouble. The report, too, would bring a crowd round his shop, and the old story of him and the accusing dog--for had not that dog accused him?--would be brought up again. But yet something must be done.
"Am I to be a prisoner here," said Todd, "while that infernal dog sits in the shaving chair, howling?"
Now and then, for the space of about half-a-minute, the dog would be quiet, but then the prolonged howl that he would give plainly showed that he had only been gathering breath to give it. Todd got desperate.
"I must and will shoot him," he said.
Going to a sideboard he opened a drawer, and took from it a large double-barrelled pistol. He looked carefully at the priming, and satisfying himself that all was right, he crept again to the parlour door.
"I must and will shoot him at any risk," he said. "This infernal dog will be else the bane and torment of my life. I thought I had been successful in poisoning the brute as he suddenly disappeared from my door, but he has been preserved by some sort of miracle on purpose to torment me."
Howl went the dog again. Sweeney Todd took a capital aim with the pistol. To be sure his nerves were not quite in such good order as they sometimes were, but then the distance was so short that how could he miss such an object as a Newfoundland dog?
"I have him--I have him," he muttered. "Ha! ha! I have him!"
He pulled the trigger of the pistol--snap went the lock, and the powder in the pan flashed up in Todd's face, but that was all. Before he could utter even an oath the shop door was opened, and a man's voice cried--
"Hasn't nobody seen nothing of never a great dog nowheres? Oh, there you is, my tulip. Come to your father, you rogue you. So you guved me the slip at last did you, you willain!"
