The hideous face that Todd made above the head of his customer at this moment, was more like that which Mephistopheles might have made, after achieving the destruction of a human soul, than anything human. Sir Richard Blunt quickly replied to Todd's question, by saying— "Oh, yes, quite alone; except the drovers I had no company with me; why do you ask?"
"Why, sir, I thought if you had any gentleman with you who might be waiting at the Bull's Head, you would recommend him to me if anything was wanting in my way, you know, sir; you might have just left him, saying you were going to Todd the barber's, to have a clean shave, sir."
"No, not at all; the fact is, I did not come out to have a shave, but a walk, and it wasn't till I gave my chin a stroke, and found what a beard I had, that I thought of it; and then passing your shop, in I popped, do you see."
"Exactly, sir, I comprehend; you are quite alone in London?"
"Oh, quite; but when I come again, I'll come to you to be shaved, you may depend, and I'll recommend you, too."
"I'm very much obliged to you," said Todd, as he passed his hand over the chin of his customer, "I'm very much obliged; I find I must give you another lather, sir, and I'll get another razor with a keener edge, now that I have taken off all the rough, as one may say, in a manner of speaking."
"Oh, I shall do."
"No, no, don't move, sir, I shall not detain you a moment; I have my other razors in the next room, and will polish you off now, sir, before you will know where you are; you know, sir, you have promised to recommend me, so I must do the best I can with you."
"Well, well, a clean shave is a comfort, but don't be long, for I want to get back, do you see."
"Not a moment, not a moment."
Sweeney Todd walked into his back-parlour, conveying with him the only light that was in the shop, so that the dim glimpse that, up to this time, Johanna from the outside had contrived to get of what was going on, was denied to her; and all that met her eyes was impenetrable darkness.
Oh, what a world of anxious agonising sensations crossed the mind of the young and beautiful girl at that moment. She felt as if some great crisis in her history had arrived, and that she was condemned to look in vain into darkness to see of what it consisted.
We must not, however, allow the reader to remain in the same state of mystification, which came over the perceptive faculties of Johanna Oakley; but we shall proceed to state clearly and distinctly what did happen in the barber's shop while he went to get an uncommonly keen razor in his back-parlour.
The moment his back was turned, the seeming farmer who had made such a good thing of his beasts, sprang from the shaving chair, as if he had been electrified; and yet he did not do it with any appearance of fright, nor did he make any noise. It was only astonishingly quick, and then he placed himself close to the window, and waited patiently with his eyes fixed upon the chair, to see what would happen next.
In the space of about a quarter of a minute, there came from the next room a sound like the rapid drawing back of a heavy bolt, and then in an instant, the shaving chair disappeared beneath the floor; and the circumstances by which Sweeney Todd's customers disappeared was evident.
There was a piece of the flooring turning upon a centre, and the weight of the chair when a bolt was withdrawn by means of simple leverage from the inner room, weighed down one end of the top, which, by a little apparatus, was to swing completely round, there being another chair on the under surface, which thus became the upper, exactly resembling the one in which the unhappy customer was supposed to be 'polished off.'
Hence was it that in one moment, as if by magic, Sweeney Todd's visitors disappeared, and there was the empty chair. No doubt, he trusted to a fall of about twenty feet below, on to a stone floor, to be the death of them, or, at all events, to stun them until he could go down to finish the murder, and—to cut them up for Mrs. Lovett's pies! after robbing them of all the money and valuables they might have about them.
In another moment, the sound as of a bolt was again heard, and Sir Richard Blunt, who had played the part of the wealthy farmer, feeling that the trap was closed again, seated himself in the new chair that had made its appearance with all the nonchalance in life, as if nothing had happened.
It was a full minute before Todd ventured to look from the parlour into the darkened shop, and then he shook so that he had to hold by the door to steady himself.
"That's done," he said. "That's the last, I hope. It is time I finished; I never felt so nervous since the first time. Then I did quake a little. How quiet he went: I have sometimes had a shriek ringing in my ears for a whole week."
It was a large high-backed piece of furniture that shaving chair, so that, when Todd crept into the shop with the light in his hand, he had not the remotest idea it was tenanted; but when he got round it, and saw his customer calmly waiting with the lather upon his face, the cry of horror that came gurgling and gushing from his throat was horrible to hear.
"Why, what's the matter," said Sir Richard.
"O God, the dead! the dead! O God!" cried Todd, "this is the beginning of my punishment. Have mercy, Heaven! oh, do not look upon me with those dead eyes."
"Murderer!" shouted Sir Richard, in a voice that rung like the blast of a trumpet through the house.
In an instant he sprang upon Sweeney Todd, and grappled him by the throat. There was a short struggle, and they were down upon the floor together, but Todd's wrists were suddenly laid hold of, and a pair of handcuffs most scientifically put upon him by the officers who, at the word 'murderer,' that being a preconcerted signal, came from the cupboard where they had been concealed.
"Secure him well, my men," said the magistrate, "and don't let him lay violent hands upon himself."
Sweeney Todd's Hour Has Come.
Sweeney Todd's Hour Has Come.
Johanna rushed into the shop, and clung to the arm of Sir Richard, crying—
"Is it all over! Is it indeed all done now?"
"It is, Miss Oakley."
The moment Todd heard these few words addressed to Charley Green as he thought him, he turned his glassy blood-shot eyes upon Johanna, and glared at her for the space of about half a minute in silence. He then, although handcuffed, made a sudden and violent effort to reach her, but he was in too experienced hands, and he was held back most effectually.
He struck his forehead with his fettered hands, making a gash in it from which the blood flowed freely, as in infuriated accents, he said—
"Oh fool—fool, to be cheated by a girl! I had my suspicions that the boy was a spy, but I never thought for one moment there was a disguise of sex. Oh, idiot! idiot! And who are you, sir?"
"I am Sir Richard Blunt."
Todd groaned and staggered. The officers would have let him sit down in the shaving chair for a moment or two to recover from the shock his mind had sustained by his capture, but when he found that it was the shaving chair he was led to, he shuddered, and in a wailing voice, said—
"No—no! not there—not there! Anywhere but there. I dare not sit there!"
"It isn't worth while sitting at all," said Crotchet. "I'm blowed if I ain't all crumpled up in a blessed mummy by being in that cupboard so jolly long. All my joints is a-going crinkley-crankley."
Todd looked in the face of Sir Richard Blunt, and in a faint voice spoke—
"I—I don't feel very well. There's a little drop of cordial medicine that I often take in my coat pocket. You see I can't get at it, my hands............