"Who on earth would have thought of vaults like these in such a situation?" said the fruiterer.
"They are," said Sir Christopher, "undoubtedly the remains of some public building, which probably at a very distant date has occupied the site above. They are well built, and really of considerable architectural beauty in some respects. I am quite pleased at the opportunity of seeing such a place."
"It looks," remarked the magistrate, "as though it had been long hidden from the world. It is such men as Sweeney Todd who find out more underground secrets in a month than we should in a lifetime; but I hope that we shall find out all his cleverness and most abhorrent iniquities now."
The air in this stone place was by no means very bad, and indeed, after the vaults, there was rather an agreeable damp kind of freshness in it; while it was evident, by the manner in which the lights burnt in it, that there was no want of vitality in its atmosphere. At first it was no easy matter to find any kind of outlet from the place. After some searching, however, another door was discovered, very similar, indeed, to the one that Sir Richard Blunt had opened with the picklock, and that, too, was found to be locked on the other side, and the key, as in the former case, in the lock.
"All this locking of doors," said the magistrate, "was, I have no sort of doubt, to protect himself from any night visit upon the part of Mrs. Lovett, from whom I feel certain that Sweeney Todd has been expecting attempts upon his life, as much as to my own knowledge he has made attempts upon hers; but by some kind of fatality, or providence, they seem to be unable to harm each other."
"It is a providence," said Sir Christopher. "They must both suffer the penalty of outraging, as they have done, the laws of God and man; and the retribution would be by no means complete were they to fall by the hands or each other."
"I think you are right, sir," said the fruiterer.
The door which was now opened, only led to some other vaults, which somewhat resembled those the party had just left, only that they were by no means so lofty or so carefully constructed as they were; and before they had proceeded far, some evidences of habitation began to show themselves. Some old boots occupied a place in one corner, and some old hats, and other articles of clothing, were lying in a confused heap in another. Sir Richard Blunt looked upon all this as ample testimony that he was quite close to the abode of Sweeney Todd, and he accordingly turned to his friends, saying--
"It is necessary that we proceed with the utmost caution. I think, a very few steps will take us into the cellars of Todd's house, and the object now is not by any means to give him the least alarm, but merely to find out, if possible, by what means he murders and disposes of his victims."
Acting upon this caution, they extinguished all the lights, with the exception of one lantern, and that Sir Richard Blunt himself carried, as he still continued to head the expedition. Suddenly he came upon an arched doorway without a door; and hardly had he proceeded a few paces, when he saw something lying in a strange confused mass upon the floor, which, upon a closer examination, proved to be a dead body.
The reader will probably in this body see the spy who had been employed by Mrs. Lovett to see that Todd did not run away in the course of the preceding night.
The body was lying upon some stones, that seemed to have been placed one upon another in such a position that their most jagged corners and uneven surfaces should be uppermost. A glance at the roof showed a square, black-looking hole.
Sir Richard Blunt was upon the point of saying something, when overhead they heard the distinct tramp of a man. The magistrate immediately placed his finger upon his lips, and all was as still as the grave in that place. Presently they heard a voice, and they all knew that it was the voice of Sweeney Todd. It came from above, and reached their ears with sufficient clearness to enable them to catch the words--
"Her death is certain if I can but get her to cross the threshold of this parlour!"
Then the pacing to and fro of that really wretched man continued. The few words that Todd had spoken, had been sufficient to convince Sir Richard Blunt of one thing, which was, that they were beneath the parlour, and not the shop. It was from the shop the people disappeared, so the heart of Todd's mystery remained yet to be reached. There was another small door-way a little to the left of where he stood, and Sir Richard, upon the impulse of the moment, passed through it alone. He came back again in a moment.
"Gentlemen," he whispered, "have we seen enough?"
They nodded, and without another word, he led the way back again from the dreary subterranean abode of murder. It was only to the fruiterer he whispered, after they had gotten some distance from the spot upon which the dead body lay--
"I know all."
"Indeed?"
"Yes. When we get back to your home, I will tell you. Let for the meantime the general impression be, that all there was to learn consisted of the secret of that square hole in the flooring of the parlour."
"Yes, yes! But there is more?"
"Much more. You and Sir Christopher at present, I think, are the only two persons I shall be communicative with. The whole world will know it all, soon enough, but long and old habits of caution, always induce me to keep my information as quiet as I possibly can."
"You are quite right, Sir Richard. Even I shall feel it to be no offence if you keep entirely to yourself what you have seen."
"No, no! I wish to avail myself of your advice, which has done me good service upon more than one occasion; so when we get to your house, we will talk the matter fully over."
By this time they had got so far from the immediate vicinity of Todd's house, that such excessive caution in conversing was no longer necessary, and the magistrate pausing, made a general remark to all.
"The less that is said about what we have seen here, the better it will be. Let me beg of every one not to give the smallest hint to any one, even in the most confidential manner, of the discoveries that have been made here to-day."
An immediate assent was of course given to this proposition, and in the course of five minutes they were all in St. Dunstan's church. It was something amusing to Sir Richard, at that moment, to notice the look of relief there was upon every countenance, now that the investigation into that underground and unknown region was over. Each person seemed as if he had just escaped from the toils and hazards of a battle. By a glance at his watch, Sir Richard ascertained that only one hour and a quarter had been consumed in the whole affair, and he was pleased to think how soon again he should be personally superintending the safety of Johanna.
Before, however, the party got half way to the door of the church, they heard a vociferous argumentation going on in that quarter, and the voice of the beadle, who was well known to Sir Richard, was heard exclaiming--
"I will come in. I'm the beadle. Fire! Fire! I will come in. What! keep a beadle out of his own church? Oh! Oh! Oh! Conwulsions conwulsions! It ain't possible."
"Gentlemen," said the magistrate, "we must repress our friend the beadle's curiosity. Let us all say 'Hush' to him as we go out, and not another word."
This was generally understood, and they walked slowly in a kind of procession to the church door.
"Pitchforks and hatchets!" cried the beadle. "I will come in. Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes. Look at my hat and coat; I ain't a himposter, but a real beetle! Bless us, who is here? Why--why, there ain't no service nor a wedding. What a lot of folks. Have they been a grabbing of the Communion plate? Oh, murder, conwulsions, and thieves!"
Sir Richard went close up to him, and in the most mysterious way in the world, whispered in his ear "Hush."
"Eh?" said the beadle.
Sir Christopher took hold of him by the collar of the coat, and said--"Hush."
"Well, but--but--"
The fruiterer beckoned to him with great gravity, and when he come forward a pace or two, said--"Hush."
"But good gracious what am I to hush about? What is it all--what does it mean--tell us, for goodness gracious sake? I don't know anything; I'm an ass--an idiot. What am I to hush about--I shall sit upon no end of thorns and nettles, till I know.--What is it?"
"Hush! hush! hush!" said every one as he passed the now nearly distracted beadle, and finally there he was left in the church porch with nothing in the shape of information, but hush! The man who had been left by the magistrate as a sentinel at the church door, was the last to leave, and he took his cue from all the others; and when the beadle laid hold of him crying--"I'll take you up. I won't let you go," he gently sat him on the floor; and then saying "Hush!" away he went likewise.
The large slab in the church, that usually covered up the passage leading to the vaults, was left uncovered; but then the beadle perfectly understood that that was for the sole purpose of relieving the vaults, during the week, of the accumulation of mephitic vapours supposed to be in them; and at all events no impulse of curiosity could be sufficiently strong in him to induce so desperate a step as a descent alone into those dreary abodes of the departed; so that he was, in a manner of speaking, compelled to put up entirely with "Hush!" for his portion of the mystery.
Sir Richard bade good-day to every one but the fruiterer at the door of the church; and then with him he walked to his shop opposite to Todd's. Crotchet was close at hand, and he came into the shop, at a signal from the magistrate to do so.
"Is all right, Crotchet?"
"Right as a trivet, sir. Lord bless you about so much as a sneeze, but I'll find it out; and as for little Miss Thingamybob, he shan't hurt a hair of her pretty little bit of a head."
"That's right, Crotchet. Remember that the bringing to justice, with ample evidence of all his crimes, of Sweeney Todd, is a great object; but it is an infinitely greater one to preserve the life of Johanna Oakley."
"I knows it," said Crotchet.
"Resume your charge, then, Crotchet. All will be well, and this will be Todd's last day out of Newgate."
Crotchet nodded, and made his exit.
In the succeeding half hour, it would seem that Sir Richard Blunt made his old acquaintance, the fruiterer, thoroughly acquainted with all he knew of the way in which Todd got rid of his victims. What that way was will very shortly now appear; and we think it had better appear in this regular and most authentic narrative, than in a chance conversation between Sir Richard Blunt and his friend.
It was the special duty of one officer to come into the fruiterer's shop with a report and a description of whoever went into Todd's house, and now this man made his appearance.
"Well, Jervis," said the magistrate, "so Todd has a customer, has he?"
"I don't know, sir. It is a woman, well dressed, and rather tall than otherwise."
"Mrs. Lovett, without a doubt. No one need go and look after that lady, for I don't know any one, except you or I, Jervis, who is so capable of taking care of number one. Todd will find her a troublesome customer, and if she is at all the woman I take her to be, she will not go into his back parlour quite so easily as he would fain persuade her."
"Then no one need follow, sir?"
"No; but if the young lad comes out, you may just look in and ask some frivolous question to see what is going on. If the female is not in the shop--she is dead."
"Dead, sir!"
"Yes. She will not live a minute after she leaves the shop; but you may depend she will not do so; she is to the full as well acquainted with Todd as we are, so there is no sort of apprehension of her coming to any harm. I should indeed be sorry to lose her."
Sir Richard Blunt was right in his guess. It was no other than Mrs. Lovett, who, agreeably to her appointment with Todd, called upon him for her half of the plunder for the last few years.
