The String of Pearls 95Morning in Fleet Street Again
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
The String of Pearls 95
Morning in Fleet Street Again
PrestEnglish
Another day has dawned upon the great city--another sun has risen upon the iniquities of hosts of men, but upon no amount of cold-blooded, hardened, pitiless criminality that could come near to that of Sweeney Todd. No, he certainly held the position of being in London, then, the worst of the worst.
But who shall take upon himself now to say that in this pest-ridden, loyalty-mad, abuse-loving city of London, there are not some who are more than even Sweeney Todd's equals? Who shall say that hidden scenes of guilt and horror are not transacting all around us, that would, in their black iniquity, far transcend anything that Sweeney Todd has done or dreamt of doing? Let the imagination run riot in its fanciful conjectures of what human nature is capable of, and in London there shall be found those who will reduce to practice the worst frenzied deeds that can be conceived.
Yes, the dawn of another day had come, and Todd had made all his preparations. Nothing was wanting, but the match that was to set Fleet Street, he fondly hoped, in a blaze. His own house, he felt quite certain, could not escape. It would be a charred mass long before any effectual means could be procured to check the devastation of the flames, and then as the good ship spread its swelling sails to the wind to bear him to another shore, he should be lighted upon his way by the glare of the great fire in Fleet Street, that no one would be able to guess the origin of.
So he told himself.
Short-sighted mortals that we are! How little Todd, with all his cleverness--all his far-seeing thrift and fancy--dreamt of the volcano upon which he stood. How little he for one moment imagined it was possible that the sword of justice hung over him by so slender a thread. How he would have glared at any one who might have told him that he only moved about by sufferance; and yet such was the fact.
Sir Richard Blunt could put his hand upon him at any moment, and say, "Todd, you are my prisoner. To Newgate--to Newgate, from whence only you will emerge to your trial, and to the scaffold!"
No, Todd, good easy soul, had not the slightest idea of his real position upon that morning.
He waited rather impatiently for the arrival of Johanna to take down the shutters, and she urged upon Sir Richard Blunt and her friends at the fruiterer's, the propriety of her going and doing that morning piece of work; but they would not hear of it. She at length used an argument which made Sir Richard adopt another course than keeping her at the fruiterer's until Todd should get out of all patience and open his shop himself.
"It is possible," she said, "that I may be subjected to ill-usage if I am not there; and then being compelled to call for aid as I might, you would feel that you were forced to take Todd into custody before the time at which you have resolved so to do."
"That is true," said Sir Richard; and then, after some little consideration, he added, "I have a plan that will save you both ways. You shall be in time, and yet you shall not take down Todd's shutters."
They could none of them conceive at the moment how Sir Richard intended to manage this; but they quickly saw that it was easy enough. Opening just a little way one of the windows of the first floor at the fruiterer's, he blew a whistle that he had suspended round his neck by a small chain. In the course of a few moments, Crotchet walked into the shop.
"Governor here?" he said. "I heard him a chirping for me just now--didn't I?"
"Yes, Crotchet," said the fruiterer, who knew him quite well. "Step up-stairs; you will find him there."
Crotchet was soon in the presence of Sir Richard, and Johanna, and the fruiterer's daughter. He made a rough sort of salute to the whole party, and then remarked again that he had heard the governor a chirping, he rather thought.
"Yes, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, "you're quite right. You know this young lady here?"--indicating Johanna.
"Reether!" said Crotchet.
"Well, then, you will seem to be passing Todd's shop when she commences taking down the shutters; and, seeing that they are too heavy for such a mere boy, you good-naturedly take them down for him--you understand? It is the last time that they will be taken down for Todd, I think."
"All's right," said Crotchet; "I understands--it's as good as done. Lord! what a scrouge there will be at the hanging o' that barber, to be sure, unless he manages to cheat the gallows; and I takes notice in my hexperieace as them 'ere wery bad 'uns seldom does try that 'ere game on, with all their bounce."
"Now, Miss Oakley," said Sir Richard Blunt, "I think, then, your time has come; and, as Crotchet will take down the shutters, you may as well go over at once. I think you thoroughly understand what you have to do--and if Todd asks you where you lodged, you had better say that the servants here offered to let you sleep by the kitchen fire, and you accepted the offer--for he may be watching for you now, and see you come out of this house, for all we know to the contrary. And now remember, without any reference to my plans or what I would rather do, if you feel yourself, or fancy you feel yourself in the least danger, take the means I have pointed out to you of summoning aid, and aid will come to you."
"I will," said Johanna.
"Heaven speed you, then! This will be the last day, I think, of the career of that bold bad man. I intend to make such an effort to get under his house to-day, as I hope and expect will enable me to come at the grand secret, namely, of how he disposes of his victims so quickly--for that there is some wonderful jugglery in it, I am certain."
Johanna took a kind leave of the fruiterer's daughter, who had lavished upon her all those attentions which, in Johanna's position, became so precious from one of her own sex; and then, assuming a careless manner, with her hat put on in a boyish slovenly sort of way, she boldly crossed the road to Sweeney Todd's.
He had been watching through a hole in the upper part of one of the shutters. In a moment all sorts of ugly suspicions took possession of his mind. What could Charley Green, his errand-boy from Oxford, who knew no one, and was unknown to all London, doing at a tradesman's house in Fleet Street at such an hour in the morning? How came he to know the people of that house? How came he to dream of going there?
Todd was boiling with anger and curiosity when he opened the door and admitted Johanna, a thing that he was unmindful enough to do before she knocked for admission, which alone would have been amply sufficient to point out to her that she had been watched from some peep-hole in the house.
He stretched out his hand and dragged her in. He controlled his temper sufficiently to enable him to gratify his curiosity. He made quite certain that Charley Green would tell him some story of where he had been, which should not convict the fruiterer. By the light of a miserable candle that Todd had burning in the dark closed shop, he glared at Johanna.
"Well--well," he said. "A good night's rest, Charley?"
"Tolerable, sir!"
"Humph! ha! And did you find a place to sleep at cheaply and decently, my good lad, eh?"
"I was very fortunate indeed, sir."
"Oh, you were very fortunate indeed?"
"Yes, sir. I am, through being country bred I suppose, fond of fruit, so when I left you last night, I bought an apple at a shop opposite."
"Oh, at Mr. a--a--"
"I don't know the name, sir," said Johanna, "but I can run out and ascertain, I dare say."
Todd gave a low sort of growl. He did not know if he were being foiled by innocence or by art. With an impatient gesture, he added--
"Never mind the apples, I wish to know where you slept, Charley, that I may judge if it was a proper place, there are so many wicked people in London."
"Are there, sir?"
"Bah! Go on. Where did you sleep?"
"Well, sir, as there was a kind tempered-looking servant in the fruiterer's shop, I thought she might be able to tell me of some place where I could lodge, and when she had heard my story--"
"Story--story? What story?"
"How destitute I was, sir, and how kind you had been to employ me without a character, and how happy and contented I was in your service, sir. So when she had heard all that, she said, 'It is too late for you to go lodging-hunting to-night. There is an old bench in our kitchen, and if you like you may sleep on that.'"
Todd gave a growl.
"And so you slept there?"
"Yes, sir."
He paced the shop for some few moments in deep thought, knitting his brows and trying to make something out of what he had heard, contrary to what it seemed; but Johanna's story was too straightforward and simple for him to find any flaw in it, and after a few moments he felt compelled to admit to himself that it must be the truth. Turning to her with something of the amount of amiability one might expect from a bear, he said--
"Open the shop!"
"Yes, sir, directly."
Johanna propped the door wide open, and then having, by the dim light of the miserable candle, found a screw which fastened a bar across the shutters, she speedily released it, and then went into the street. At that moment Crotchet came along, whistling in so thoroughly careless a manner, that even Johanna thought he had forgotten his instructions and was about to pass the shop. She had her hand upon the bar when he stopped, saying, in an off-handed manner--
"Why little 'un, them 'ere shutters is too much for you, I'll give you a helping hand. Lor bless you, don't say anything about it. It ain't no sort o' trouble to me my little chap. Here goes."
Mr. Crotchet began opening Todd's shop with such a fury and a vengeance, that the clatter and the speed with which the operation was being accomplished, brought Todd out of the parlour to see what on earth Charley was about. When he saw Crotchet coming in with three shutters in his arms at once, he could scarcely believe his eyes, and he roared out--
"What's this? Who are you?"
"Easy--easy," said Crotchet. "Don't get in the way old gentleman. Easy. There now!"
Crotchet managed to give Todd such a rap on the side of the head with the shutters, that a thousand lights danced in his eyes, and he writhed with pain.
"Well, I never," said Crotchet, "I hope I haven't hurt you, old man? You see I was a passing, and seed as these here shutters was rather a bit top-heavy for your little son here, and I thought I'd give him a helping hand. To be sure he didn't want me to, but you see I would, and perhaps as your old head is getting better, you wouldn't mind a pint of beer, old gentleman?"
"You atrocious villain," yelled Todd, "I'll cut your throat. I'll polish you off. I'll--I'll--would you like to be shaved?"
"I've had a scrape already," said Crotchet, "and if you won't stand the beer, why you won't, and there's no bones broke arter all. Good morning, old Grampus. Good morning my little chap, I wishes you good luck; and if I am passing again, I don't mind lending you a helping hand, though the governor is about one o' the ugliest, nastiest tempered brutes, I ever came near in all my life."
Crotchet went away whistling with great composure.
