CHAPTER CI.

TODD MAKES HIMSELF QUITE AT HOME IN BELL-YARD.

"Idiot!" said Todd, as he spurned the insensible form of Mrs. Stag with

his foot. "Idiot! I would kill you, but that it would not do me any

good. The narcotic you have taken in the gin may or may not carry you

off for all I care. It don't matter to me one straw."

He glared around him for a few moments with the fierceness of an ogre,

and then walking to the shop-door, he deliberately locked and bolted it,

so that no one could get in, even if they were expiring for a pie.

"Humph," he said. "This is a time of day when it is not likely the shop

will be troubled with many customers. It is between the batches, I know,

so I am safe for an hour; and during that time if I do not make some

discoveries here, it will surely be my own fault."

Again he glared around him with the ogre-like aspect, and he ran his

eyes carefully over the whole shop, from corner to corner--from floor to

roof, and from roof to floor. At length he said--

"Where now, if I were hiding anything, would I select a place in this

shop?"

After putting this question to himself Todd again ran his eyes over the

shop, and at length he came to the conclusion that it was not there he

should seek for any hiding place at all, and he certainly paid the

sagacity of Mrs. Lovett one of the highest compliments he possibly could

by concluding that she would do as he would under like circumstances.

"No," he said. "The shop is no hiding place for the secret store of my

late friend Mrs. Lovett. No--no. I must seek in the very centre of her

home, for that which I would find. Let me think--let me think."

Todd felt himself quite at home in Bell Yard. He was in truth the

landlord of the house. It had not been safe to make the extensive

under-ground alterations in the place if Mrs. Lovett had been the tenant

of a stranger merely; so Todd had purchased the freehold, and such being

the case, and his tenant, the charming Mrs. Lovett, being as he firmly

believed, at the bottom of the Thames, who should feel at home in the

place if he, Sweeney Todd, did not?

He felt that he had time, too. There was no hurry in life, and he quite

smiled to himself, as he said--

"How often I have longed for a rummage among my dear departed friend

Mrs. Lovett's goods and chattels, and now how many happily and singly

circumstances have changed about to enable me to gratify my inclination.

Ha!"

Todd, in the security of his bad heart, uttered one of his old

laughs--but then for the whole of that day he had been unusually happy.

His good terms with himself shone out even of his eyes, horrible eyes.

"Yes," he said, "yes, she is dead--dead--dead. Ha! ha! Mrs.

Lovett--clever, fascinating creature--how muddy you lie to-night. Ha!"

It was not prudent, however, to waste time, although he had plenty of

it--it never is; so up rose Todd, and proceeded to the parlour. How

fast-locked the door was!

"Now really," he said, "it is a thousand pities that poor dear Mrs. L.

has gone down to the bottom of the Thames with her keys in her pocket.

It would have made no manner of difference in the world to her to have

let me have them. It would have saved me some little trouble, and the

doors some little damage."

With a malicious grin, as though he delighted in the mischief he had

made, he dashed himself bodily against the parlour door, and burst it

open with a crash.

"That will do," he said. "To be sure, the party who, when my absence

gets noised about, comes to take possession of this house, would rather

that the doors were whole; but what of that? Ha! I have mortgaged it

twice over for its full value, and they may fight about it if they like.

Ha! ha! How they will litigate, and I shall read the pleasant account of

it in the papers."

By this time Todd was in Mrs. Lovett's parlour, and folding his arms

across his breast, he gazed about him with a feeling of marked

satisfaction, as he said--

"For five years she has been making, of course, a private purse for

herself, the dear creature, as well as looking to the share of the money

in the bank; and for the last few weeks, since our agreement together

has not been quite so perfect, she has kept all her takings herself; so

reasoning upon that, she must, bless her provident spirit, have a

tolerable sum laid by somewhere, which I, as her executor, will most

assuredly pounce upon."

At this moment some one clamoured for admission at the shop-door,

rapping at it with a penny-piece in a manner that sounded very

persevering.

"Curses on you," muttered Todd, "who are you?"

"A twopenny--a twopenny--a twopenny!" cried a boy, who was at the door,

in a sing-song sort of voice--"I want a twopenny--a twopenny."

Rap, rap, rap! went one of the penny-pieces against the upper half of

the shop-door, which was of glass. Rap, rap, rap! Todd felt quite

convinced that that boy would not go without some sort of answer being

given to his demand, so he slunk round the shop, crouching down, until

he came close to the door, and then assuming one of his most hideous

faces, he suddenly rose up, and from within half an inch of the boy's

face upon the other side of the glass, he confronted him.

So horrible and so completely unexpected was this face to the boy, that

for a moment or two he seemed to be absolutely paralysed by it, and

then, with a cry of terror, he dropped the penny-piece with which he had

been rapping the window, and fled up Bell Yard as though the evil one

himself were at his heels.

"That will do," said Todd.

He went back to the parlour and glared round him again in the hope of

finding something there, but the only cupboard which he observed was

fast locked. One blow with the poker, using it javelin-like, forced it

open, and Todd began flinging out upon the floor the glass and china,

with which it was well enough filled, without any mercy. What cared he

for such matters? Would he not before twelve hours now be miles and

miles away? What, then, was glass and china to him? Nothing--absolutely

nothing.

He was disappointed, though, for he did not find the supposed concealed

hoard of Mrs. Lovett behind the other things in this cupboard.

"Be it so," he said. "No doubt she fancies her bed-room is the safest

place, after all, for her money--that is easily sought. Bless you, Mrs.

Lovett, I will find your gold yet!"

With this view, Todd, by the aid of the poker, broke open another door,

namely, the one which led from the parlour to the staircase, that would

enable him to ascend to the upper part of the house. Truly, Mrs. Lovett

was great in the locking-up way--very great indeed.

Todd was now getting out of patience just a little, but only a little,

that was all. He naturally enough in his own house wanted to make

discoveries a little quicker than he was making them, that was all; and

so he felt put out of his way a little, as any gentleman might under

such circumstances. He swore a little, and was not so polite in his

mention of the deceased Mrs. Lovett as he might have been.

He ascended the stairs three at a time.

"I wonder," he said, when he reached the top of the first flight; "I

wonder where the wily wretch slept. She never would let me up stairs

since she occupied the house."

The locking-up propensities of Mrs. Lovett did not continue past the

ground-floor; and Todd found all the doors upon the floor he was now on

readily enough yield to his touch. The second one he went into was

undoubtedly the room he sought. It was rather elegantly furnished as a

bed chamber; and as Todd stood in the centre of the floor, he chuckled

to himself, and muttered--

"Ha! when she rose this morning, she did not quite fancy she was taking

her last look at this chamber. Ha! ha! Well, my dear Mrs. L., you had

some taste, I will admit, for this room is very nicely got up. It is a

world of pities you had not sense enough to be my slave, but you must

try to be my equal, which in your poor vanity you thought I could

permit. No--no--no!--that was impossible. Why should I single you out of

all the world, Mrs. Lovett, to be just to?"

This, in Todd's estimation, was a very conclusive argument, indeed.

Whether it would have been so to Mrs. Lovett is another thing.

And now the arch villain commenced a search in the chamber of his victim

of the most extraordinary character for minuteness that could possibly

be conceived. It was quite clear that there he expected to find

something worth looking for, and that if he were foiled, it should not

be for want of due diligence in the investigation.

[Illustration: Todd Destroys Mrs. Lovett's Furniture.]

In the course of ten minutes, the trim and well-kept bedroom was one

scene of confusion and disorder. The dressing-glass was thrown down,

and, being in his way once, was kicked to the other end of the room, and

smashed to fragments. The bed-clothes were tossed hither and thither in

the most reckless manner. Boxes were burst open and ransacked, but all

in vain. Not one penny-piece could Todd discover.

"Confound her!" he said, as he wiped his brow with a lace cap he picked

off the dressing-table; "confound her! I begin to suspect that what she

had of her own she put in her pocket this morning, and it has gone down

to the bottom of the river with her! How infernally provoking!"

He peeped up the chimney, and got nothing by that motion but a flop of

soot in his eye.

He stamped and swore and cursed in the most horrible manner that can

possibly be conceived.

Feeling that Mrs. Lovett in the matter of her little private savings had

been one too many for him, he looked rather hopelessly through the other

rooms of the house. They were all completely vacant, and from the

appearance of the dust upon the floors of them did not seem to have been

entered for years past. He gave up the search in despair, and gloomily

walked down stairs to the parlour again.

"It is lost," he said. "It is lost. Well, I must even be content with

that which I have: I don't think any one will be the richer for what is

here. No, no. It could not have escaped my search, and if it has done so

by a miracle, or next thing to one, it will remain until the house falls

to pieces years hence, perhaps, and fall into the hands of some one when

I am de--No--no--what puts that word _dead_ into my mouth? I hate to

think of it! I am young in constitution, and shall live many--many years

yet; oh, yes, I--I need have no fear of death."

Todd glared round him as though he expected that the very

impersonification of the grim King of Terrors would rise up before him

to take vengeance for being treated so slightingly; but all was still.

He wiped his brow again with the lace cap of Mrs. Lovett, which he had

mechanically retained when he left the bed-room, and then he began to

ask himself what should be done with the shop.

"For a few hours yet," he said, "a few short hours, there must be no

disturbance and no commotion in this neighbourhood with which my name

may possibly be connected. After that, they may do what they like and

say what they like, but now all must be peace and silence. What shall I

do with this confounded shop, now? I wish I had not given so strong a

dose of the narcotic to you, old woman, left in charge by Mrs. Lovett.

Ah, what is that?"

The sound from the shop as of some one being violently sick, came upon

Todd's ears.

"Ah," he said, "so the narcotic has taken that effect, has it, upon Mrs.

Lovett's representative? Well, well, she will recover from it much

sooner than I thought she would, and that will now be all the better,

for it absolves me of my difficulty about the shop for the next few

hours."

He walked into the shop and found Mrs. Stag sitting up behind the

counter, and in rather a dubious condition as regarded the peace of her

stomach.

"Well, ma'am," said Todd. "How are you now?"

"The Lord have mercy upon us!"

"Amen! But how came you in this state, ma'am?"

"The pies, sir. The pies. You really have no idea of how very rich they

are, sir. It's all along of the pies, that's all, sir; but I am getting

better, though my head is none of the best."

"Yes," said Todd. "Of course it was the very rich pies. It could not

have been what you drank."

"Oh, no, no. Oh, dear no. That wasn't enough to hurt an infant, sir, as

you ought to know. What a mercy it is that Mrs. Lovett has not come

home, for she is rather a violent woman at times. It's really quite a

mercy."

"She won't be home just yet, I think," said Todd. "You will have time to

get completely to rights before you see her, and when you do see her I

would advise you to make your peace with the other world as quickly as

you can!"

Todd closed the parlour door; and as it was only the lock that had

given, it did not show much symptoms of what had happened to it; as that

in all likelihood Mrs. Stag, supposing that it was fast as she had first

found it, would not pay any attention to it or scrutinise it

sufficiently to be aware that it had been at all tampered with by any

one.

"Only a few hours after all," muttered Todd, "and then I don't care what

anybody thinks or says about this shop and its affairs, or about me in

connection with them. Ah, I had quite forgotten. I wonder what Mrs.

Lovett's cook is about?"

Todd paused, and gave some few moments' thought to the cook. He had an

idea of going down to the oven cellar, and killing him, so that he might

feel quite certain he was out of the way of perpetrating any mischief;

but a second thought determined him in the other way.

"No--no," he said. "What can he do? No doubt the house will be shut

after a time, and then he will starve to death. Ha!"