"Yes," said Todd, as he suddenly with a spring rose from the shaving-chair, upon which we left him enjoying reflections of no very pleasant character. "Yes, the game is up." He stood for a few moments now in silence, confronting a small piece of looking glass that hung upon the wall exactly opposite to him, and it would appear that he was struck very much by the appearance of his own face, for he suddenly said—
"How old and worn I look."
No one could have looked upon the countenance of Todd for one moment without fully concurring in this opinion. In truth, he did look old and worn. But a comparatively short time has elapsed since we first presented him to the readers of this most veracious narrative. Then he was a man whose hideous ugliness was combined with such a look of cool triumphant villany, that one did not know which most to ponder upon. Now his face had lost its colour; a yellowish whiteness was the predominating tint, and his cheeks had fallen. There was a wild and an earnest restlessness about his eyes that made him look very much like some famished wolf, with a touch of hydrophobia to set him off; and certainly, take him for all in all, one would not be over anxious
"To see his like again!"
"Old and worn," he repeated, "and the game is up; I am decided. Off and away! is my game—off and away!—I have enough to be a prince anywhere where money is worshipped, and that of course must be the case in all civilised and religious communities. I must keep in some such. In the more savage wilds of nature man is prized for what he is, but, thank God, in highly cultivated and educated states he is only prized for what he has been. Ha! ha! If mankind had worshipped virtue, I would have been virtuous, for I love power."
A thought seemed suddenly to strike Todd; and he went into the parlour muttering to himself—
"My friend Peter must be effectually disposed of."
He raised the cover which was upon the table, and with a grunt of satisfaction, added—
"Gone!—that will do."
There was no trace of the body that he had kicked under the table. By some strange mysterious agency it had entirely disappeared, and then Todd went somehow to the back of the house and got a wet mop, by the aid of which he got rid of some stains of blood upon the floor and the fender.
"All's right," he said, "I have done some service to Fogg, and I will, when I am far enough off for any sting not to recoil upon myself, take good care that the law pays him a visit. The villain as well as the fool, to deceive me regarding the boy Tobias. What can have become of him?"
This was a question that gave Todd some uneasiness, but at length he came to the conclusion that the dreadful treatment he, Tobias, had received at the asylum had really driven him mad, and that in all human probability he had fallen or cast himself into the river, or gone into some field to die.
"Were it otherwise," he said, "I should and must have heard something of him before now."
Todd then fairly began packing up. From beneath several tables in the room he dragged out large trunks, and opening then some of the drawers and cupboards that abounded in his parlour, he began placing their valuable contents in the boxes.
"My course is simple enough," he said—"very simple; I must and will, by violence—for she is by far too wily and artful to allow me to do so by any other means—get rid of Mrs. Lovett. Then I must and will possess myself of all that she calls her share of the proceeds of business. Then, at night—the dead hour of the night—after having previously sent all my boxes full of such valuables as from their likelihood to be identified I dare not attempt to dispose of in England, to Hamburgh, I will set the whole house in a flame."
The idea of burning down his house, and if possible involving a great portion of Fleet Street in the conflagration, always seemed to be delightful enough to Todd to raise his spirits a little.
"Yes," he added, with a demoniac grin. "There is no knowing what amount of mischief I may do to society at large upon that one night, besides destroying amid the roar of the flames a mass of accumulated evidence against myself that would brand my memory with horrors, and, for aught I know, cause a European search after me."
As he spoke, watches—rings—shoe buckles—brooches—silver heads of walking canes—snuff boxes, and various articles of bijouterie were placed row upon row in the box he was packing.
"Yes," he added, "I know—I feel that there is danger; I know now that I have spies upon me—that I am watched; but it is from that very circumstance that I ground my belief that as yet I am safe. They fancy there is something to find out, and they are trying to find it out. If they really knew anything, of course it would be—Todd, you are wanted."
Having placed in one of the boxes as many articles of gold and silver as made up a considerable weight, Todd lifted it at one end, and feeling satisfied that if he were to place any more metal in the box it would be too heavy for carriage, he opened a cupboard which was full of hats, and filled up the box with them. By this means he filled up the box, so that the really valuable articles within it would not shake about............