We hasten to Bell Yard again. Mrs. Lovett's immersion in the Thames had really not done her much harm. Perhaps the river was a little purer than we now find it, and probably it had not entirely got rid of its name of the "Silver Thames"—an appellation that now would be really out of place, unless we can imagine some silver of a much more dingy hue than silver ordinarily presents to the eye of the observer.
She soon, we find, settled in her own mind a plan of action, notwithstanding the rather complicated and embarrassing circumstances in which she found herself placed. That plan of action had for its basis the impeachment of Todd as a murderer, at the same time that it looked forward to her own escape from the hands of justice. Her first action was to quiet the cook in the regions below, for if she did not take some such step, she was very much afraid her establishment might come to a stand-still some few hours before she intended that it should do so.
With this object, she wrote upon a little slip of paper the following words, and passed it into the cellar through an almost imperceptible crevice in the flooring of the shop—
"Early to-morrow morning you shall have your liberty, together with gold to take you where you please. All I require of you is, that you do your ordinary duty to-night, and send up the nine o'clock batch of pies."
This, she considered, could not but have its due effect upon the discontented cook; and having transmitted it to him in the manner we have described, she sat down at her desk to write the impeachment of Todd. In the course of an hour, Mrs. Lovett had filled two pages of writing paper with a full account of how persons met their death in the barber's shop. She sealed the letter, and directed it to Sir Richard Blunt in a bold free hand.
"It is done," she said. "When I am far from London, as I can easily find the means of being, this will reach the hands of the magistrate to whom it is addressed, and who has the character of being sharp and active." (Mrs. Lovett did not know how sharp and active Sir Richard had already been in her affairs!) "He will act upon it. Todd, in the midst of his guilt, with many evidences of it about him, will be taken, and I shall escape! Yes, I shall escape, with about a tithe of what I ought to have—but I shall have revenge!"
On one of the shelves of the shop—certainly out of reach, but only just so—stood an old dirty-looking tin jar, such as fancy biscuits might be kept in. No one for a moment would have thought of looking for anything valuable in such a place; and yet, keeping the shop door locked the while, lest any intruder should at unawares pop in and see what she was about, it was to this tin can upon its dirty shelf that Mrs. Lovett cautiously went.
"Those who hide can find," she muttered. "I warrant now that Todd had searched in every seemingly cunning and intricate hiding-place in this whole house, and he has gone away disappointed. The secret of hiding anything is not to try to find some place where people may be baffled when they look, but to light upon some place into which they will not look at all."
With these words, Mrs. Lovett took down the tin can, and having from the upper portion of it removed some dusty, mouldy small biscuits, she dived her hand into it, and fished up a leathern bag. The tape that held its mouth together was sealed, and a glance sufficed to convince Mrs. Lovett that it had not been touched.
"Safe, safe!" she muttered. "It is but a thousand pounds, but it is safe, and it will enable me to fly from this place—it will enable me to have vengeance upon Todd; and small as the sum is, in some country, where money is worth more than it is in pampered England, I shall yet be able to live upon it. I will not complain if I have but the joy of reading an account of the execution of Todd. I fear I must deny myself the pleasure of seeing that sight."
The little leathern bag she hid about her, and then she carefully replaced the tin case upon the shelf whence she had taken it, to disburthen it of its costly contents.
After this Mrs. Lovett got much calmer. She had not the least apprehension now of a visit from Todd. She saw by the state of the house that his search had been a prolonged one, and until he shut up his own shop, she did not expect that he would again think of coming to Bell Yard, and as that would be ten o'clock, she fully believed that before then she would be far away.
And then she sat behind her counter, looking only a shade or so paler than was her wont, and moving her lips slightly now and then as she settled in her own mind the course that she would take so as to baffle all pursuit.
"With no luggage but my gold and notes," she muttered, "I will leave this place at half past nine, by which time the last batch of pies will have been up and sold, and all will be quiet. That will be a little more money to me. Then on foot I will take my way to Highgate—yes, to Highgate, and I will trust no conveyance, for that might be a ready means of tracing me. I will go on foot. Then passing Highgate, I will go on foot upon the Great North Road until some coach overtakes me. It will not matter whither it be going, so that it takes me on that road; and by one conveyance and another, I shall at length reach Liverpool, from which port I shall find some vessel starting to some place abroad, where I can live free from the chance of detection. Yes, that is the plan! That is the plan!"
Mrs. Lovett was a woman of some tact, and the plan of operations she had chalked out was all very well, provided such very malapropos proceedings had not taken place at Sweeney Todd's in the meantime. Little did Mrs. Lovett suspect what was there transpiring.
And now we will leave her for a brief space behind her counter, ruminating, and at odd times smiling to herself in a ghastly fashion, while we pop down to the cellars, and take a glance at the impatient imprisoned cook.
About ten minutes before he received the letter—if letter the little flattering memorandum of Mrs. Lovett could be called—from his mistress, the cook had been a little alarmed by a noise in the stone pantry, whe............