The peculiar circumstances under which Sir Richard Blunt had found out all the villany of Todd, and overtook him and Mrs. Lovett in the midst of their iniquities, were well-known to the people assembled in the court, and some slight manifestations of applause greeted him as he stood up in the witness-box. This exhibition of feeling was not noticed by the court, and the Attorney-General at once began his examination in chief.
"Sir Richard," he said, "will you have the kindness to put into the form of a narration, what you have to say concerning the charge upon which the prisoner at the bar is arraigned?"
"I will do so," replied Sir Richard, and then after a moment's pause, during which you might have heard a pin drop in the court, so intense was the stillness, the magistrate gave his important testimony against the now trembling wretch at the bar of that solemn court.
"A considerable time ago," he said, "my attention was drawn to the circumstance that a number of persons had disappeared, who were residents about the neighbourhood of Fleet Street, and its vicinity. Such disappearances were totally and perfectly unaccountable. Not a trace could be found of very many respectable men, who had left their houses upon various objects, and never returned to them.
"The most striking peculiarity of this affair was, that the men who disappeared were for the most part great substantial citizens, who were far from likely to have yielded to any of those temptations that at times bring the young and the heedless in this great City into fearful dangers.
"I saw the Secretary of State upon the subject; and it was agreed that I was to have a carte blanche, as regarded expenses, and that I was to give nearly the whole of my time and attention to the unravelling of the mystery. It was then, that after my careful inquiry I found that out of thirteen disappearances no less than ten had declared their intention to be to get shaved, or their hair dressed, or to go through some process which required them to visit a barber. I then, personally, called at all the barber's shops in the neighbourhood, but never alone. To this fact of having some one waiting for me in the shop, I no doubt owe my life, for I have been eight times shaved and dressed by the prisoner at the bar."
Todd uttered a deep groan, and looked at Sir Richard as though he would have said—
"Oh, that I had you the ninth time so much at my mercy!"
There was quite a sensation, and a shudder through the court, as Sir Richard then stated how many times he had run the fearful risk of death at the hands of such a man as Todd; and then Sir Richard went on with his narration, which deeply and powerfully interested the judge, counsel, jury, and spectators.
"I did not find anything suspicious in the shop itself of the prisoner at the bar; although each of these times that I was within it, I looked at it narrowly; but I did find that he always made an effort to get the person who was with me to leave the shop upon some pretext or another, which, of course, never succeeded; and then without, in the least, appearing vexed at the failure, he would go on with his shaving in the coolest possible manner.
"This, however, was only suspicion, and I could take no advantage of it, unless something else developed itself likewise; but that was not long in happening. My attention was directed to the peculiar odour in St. Dunstan's Church, and from the moment that it was so, I in my own mind connected it with Sweeney Todd, and the disappearances of the persons who had so unaccountably been lost in the immediate neighbourhood of Fleet Street. In the midst of all this then, I had a formal application made to me concerning the disappearance of Mr. Francis Thornhill, who had been clearly traced to the shop of the prisoner at the bar, and never seen by any one to leave it.
"From that moment I felt that it was in the prisoner's shop that the parties disappeared, but the means by which they were murdered remained a profound mystery, and I felt, that unless these means could be very distinctly proved, a conviction would be difficult. I instituted a careful search of the vaults beneath St. Dunstan's Church, and I found a secret passage communicating with the cellar of the pie shop in Bell Yard, and afterwards I found a similar passage communicating with the cellar under the prisoner's shop.
"Upon reaching the latter cellar, the first object that presented itself to me was, a chair fixed to the roof by its legs. That chair I at once recognised as identically like the one in the shop, in which I had so frequently sat, and in a moment the whole truth burst upon me. The plank upon which the shaving chair rested, turned upon a centre, and could be so made to turn by a simple contrivance above, so that any unfortunate person could be let down in a moment, and the vacant or supplementary chair would come up and take the place of the one that had been above.
"Prosecuting my researches, I found the skeleton of many persons in the vaults, and much putrid flesh, which fully accounted for the odour in St. Dunstan's Church. I found likewise that no meat from any butcher or salesman ever found its way to the pie-shop in Bell Yard. So upon research actuated by that fact, I found that the supply of flesh was human, and that was the way the prisoner at the bar got rid of a great portion of his victims.
"Measures were taken to prevent any more murders, by some persons in my pay always following any one into the shop; and then, when the evidence was all ready by the finding and identification of Mr. Francis Thornhill's leg bone, I took measures to apprehend the prisoner at the bar. I shall, of course, be happy to answer any questions that may be asked of me."
The Attorney-General then spoke, saying—
"Have you found out by what means the shaving-chair in the shop of the prisoner was prevented from falling at the moment any one sat in it?"
"Yes. By a simple piece of mechanism which communicated with the parlour, he could release the swinging board or keep it firm at his pleasure. I have had a model of the whole of the apparatus and building, which will be laid before the jury. It is here in the hands of an officer."
"Here you is," said Crotchet, coming forward with a large parcel in his hands, which, upon being ............