"Come in! Come in! More expense. More losses. As if an honest man, who only does what he can with his own, could not come to the court with a hope of meeting with a civil reception, unless he were decked out like a buffoon. Come in. Well, who are you?" "Augustus Snipes, sir, at your service. Brought home the clothes, sir. The full dress suit you were so good as to order to be ready to-day, sir."
"Oh, you are a tailor?"
"Oh, dear no, sir. We are not tailors now a days. We are artists."
"Curse you, whatever you are. I don't care. Some artist I'm afraid has done me out of ￡8000. Oh, dear. Put down the things. What do they come to?"
"Eighteen pounds ten shillings and threepence, sir."
John Mundell gave a deep groan, and the tailor brushed past Todd to place the clothes upon a side table. As he returned he caught sight of Todd's face, and in an instant his face lighting up, he cried—
"Ah! how do? How do?"
"Eh!" said Todd.
"How did the Pompadour coloured coat and the velvet smalls do, eh?—Fit well? Lord, what a rum start for a barber to have a suit of clothes fit for a duke."
"Duke!" cried Mundell.
Todd lifted one of his huge feet and gave the "artist" a kick that sent him sprawling to the door of the room.
"That," he said, "will teach you to make game of a poor man with a large family, you scoundrel. What, you won't go, won't you? The—"
The artist shot out at the door like lightning, and flew down the stairs as though the devil himself was at his heels. Todd carefully closed the door again, and fastened it by a little bolt that was upon it. A strange expression was upon the countenance of John Mundell. His face looked perfectly convulsed, and he slowly rose from his chair. Todd placed one of his huge hands upon his breast and pushed him back again.
"What's the matter?" said Todd.
"He—he—knows you."
"Well."
"The Pompadour coloured coat! Ah, I recollect the Pompadour coloured coat, too. I thought I knew your face. There was a something, too, about your voice that haunted me like the remembrance of a dream. You—you—are—"
"What?"
"Help—help! Tell me if I be mad, or if you are a duke in the disguise of a barber, or a barber in the likeness of a duke. Ah, that Pompadour coloured coat, it sticks—sticks in my throat."
"I wish it did," growled Todd. "What do you mean, Mr. Mundell?—Pray express yourself. What do you mean by those incoherent expressions?"
"Are you human?"
"Dear me, I hope so. Really, sir, you look quite wild."
"Stop—stop—let me think—the face—the voice—the Pompadour coat—the costume fit for a duke. It must be so.—Man or devil, I will grapple with you, for you have got my pearls and my money. My ￡8000—my gold that I have lived, that I have toiled for—that I have schemed, and cheated to keep up—that I have shut my eyes to all sights for—and my heart to all tender emotions. You have my money, and I will denounce you!"
"Stop," said Todd.
The usurer paused in what he was saying, but he still glared at Todd fiercely, and his eyes protruded from their orbits, while the muscles of his mouth worked as though he were still trying to utter audible sounds, but by some power was denied the capacity to utter them.
"You say you have lost pearls?"
"Yes—yes.—Orient pearls."
Todd dived his hand into the breast of his apparel and produced the string of pearls. He held them before the ravished and dazzled eyes of John Mundell, as he said—
"Were they like these?"
With a cry of joy Mundell grasped at the pearls. Tears of gratified avarice gushed from his eyes.
"My own—my own pearls—my beautiful pearls!—Oh, blessed chance—my pearls back again. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Ha!" echoed Todd, as he stepped behind the chair on which John Mundell was sitting.
With his left hand he took one vigorous grasp of the remaining hair upon the head of the usurer, and forced his back against the chair. In another instant there was a sickening gushing sound. Todd, with the razor he held in his right hand, had nearly cut John Mundell's head off. Then he held him still by the hair. Gasp—gasp—gasp—bubble—gasp—bubble.—Ah! ah! ah!—Goggle—goggle. A slight convulsive movement of the lashes, and the eyes set, and became opaquely dim. The warm blood still bubbled, but John Mundell was dead. Todd picked up the pearls and carefully replaced them in his bosom again.
"How many strange events," he said, "hang upon these baubles. Ah, it's only one more—a dirty job rather—but business is business!"
He stood in the room as silent as a statue, and listened intently. Not the slightest sound indicative of the proximity of any one came upon his ears. He felt quite convinced that the deed of blood had been done in perfect secrecy. But then there he was.—Who but he could be accused? There he stood, the self-convicted murderer. Had he not done the deed with the weapon of his handicraft that he had brought to the house? How was Todd to escape the seeming inevitable cold-blooded murder? We shall see. Huddled up in the chair, was the dead body. Mundell had not fallen out of the capacious easy seat in which he sat when he breathed his last. The blood rolled to the floor, where it lay in a steaming mass. Todd was careful—very careful not to tread in it, and he looked down his garments to see if there were any tell-tale spots of gore; but standing behind the chair to do the deed, as he had done, he had been saved from anything of the sort.............