CHAPTER XL.

CROTCHET ASTONISHES MR. TODD.

The key was soon procured, but it will be recollected that Crotchet had

fastened the door rather too securely for it to be opened by any such

ordinary implement as a key, and so disappointment was the portion of

the shoemaker's wife.

"Don't you think, my love," said the shoemaker, "that it will be just as

well to leave this affair until the morning, before taking any further

notice of it?"

"And pray, then, am I to sleep all night, if I don't know the rights of

it, I should like to know? Perhaps, if you can tell me that, you are a

little wiser than I think you. Marry, come up!"

"Oh, well, I only--"

"You only! Then only don't. That's the only favour I ask of you, sir, is

to only don't."

What extraordinary favour this was, the lady did not condescend to

explain any more particulars, but it was quite enough for the husband to

understand that a storm was brewing, and to become humble and submissive

accordingly.

"Well, my dear, I'm sure I only wish you to do just what you like;

that's all, my dear, I'm sure."

"Very good."

After this, she made the most vigorous efforts to get into the attic,

and if any one had been there--which at that juncture there was

not--they might truly have asked "Who's that knocking at the door?"

Finding that all her efforts were ineffectual, she took to peeping

through the key-hole, but nothing was to be seen; and then, for the

first time, the idea struck her that there was something supernatural

about the business, and in a few moments this notion gained sufficient

strength to engender some lively apprehensions.

"I tell you what," she said to her husband, "if you don't fetch a

constable at once, and have the door opened, and see all about, I'm

afraid--indeed I'm quite sure--I shall be very ill."

"Oh, dear--oh, dear."

"It's of no use your standing here and saying 'Oh, dear,' like a great

stupid as you are--always was and always will be. Go for a constable, at

once."

"A constable?"

"Yes, There's Mr. Otton, the beadle of St. Dunstan's, lives opposite, as

you well know, and he's a constable. Run over the way and fetch him,

this minute."

She began hastily to descend the stairs, and the shoemaker followed her,

remonstrating, for the idea of fetching a constable, and making him and

his house the talk of the whole neighbourhood, was by no means a

proposition that met with his approval. The lady was positive, however,

and Mr. Otton, the beadle of St. Dunstan's, was brought from over the

way, and the case stated to him at length.

"_Conwulsions!_" exclaimed Otton, "what can I do?"

"_Burst_ open the door," said the lady.

"_Burst_ a door open, mum! What is you a thinking on? Why, that's

contrary to _Habus Corpus_, mum, and all that sort of thing.

Conwulsions, mum! you mustn't do it. But I tell you what, now, will be

the thing."

Here Mr. Otton put his finger to the side of his nose, and looked so

cunning that you would hardly have believed it possible.

"What?--what?"

"Why, suppose, mum, we ask Mr. Todd, next door, to give us leave to go

up into his attic, and get out at the window and look in at yours, mum?"

"That'll do. Run in--"

"Me!" cried the shoemaker. "Oh, M--Mr. Todd is a strange man--a very

strange man--not at all a neighbourly sort of man, and I don't like to

go to him.--I won't go, that's flat--unless, my love, you particularly

wish it."

"Conwulsions!" cried the beadle. "Ain't I a-going with you? Ain't I a

constabulary force, I should like to know? Conwulsions! What is yer

afeard on? Come on. Lor, what's the meaning o' that, I wonders, now; I

should just like to take that ere fellow up. Whoever heard of a horn

being blowed at such a rate, in the middle o' Fleet-street, afore,

unless it was somethin' as consarned the parish? Conwulsions! it's

contrary to _Habus Corpus_, it is. Is me a constabulary force, or is me

not?"

This was the bugle sound which warned Sir Richard Blunt and his friend

Crotchet that Sweeney Todd had returned to his shop; and, in fact, while

this very conversation was going on at the shoemaker's, Todd had lit the

lamp in his shop, and actually opened it for business again, as the

evening was by no means very far advanced. Mr. Otton went to the door,

and looked about for the audacious bugle player, but he was not to be

seen; so he returned to the back parlour of the shoemaker, uttering his

favourite expletive of "Conwulsions" very frequently.

"Now, if you is ready," he said, "I is; so let's come at once, and speak

to Mr. Todd. He may be a strange man, but for all that, he knows, I

_dessay_, what's proper respect to a _beetle_."

With this strange transformation of his own title upon his lips, Mr.

Otton stalked on rather majestically, as he thought, to the street, and

thence to Todd's shop door, with the shoemaker following him. The gait

of the latter expressed reluctance, and there was a dubious expression

upon his face, which was quite amusing to behold.

"Really, Mr. Otton," he said, "don't you think, after all, it would be

better to leave this affair alone till the morning? We can easily tell

my wife, you know, that Mr. Todd won't let us into his attic. That must

satisfy her, for what can she say to it?"

"Sir," said the beadle, "when you call in the _constabullary_ force, you

must do just what they say, or lasteways you acts contrary to _Habus

Corpuses_. Come on. Conwulsions! is we to be brought over the street,

and then is we to do nothing to go down to prosperity?"

The beadle uttered these words with such an air of pomposity and

importance that the shoemaker, who had a vague idea that _Habus Corpus_

was some fearful engine of the law at the command of all its

administrators, no longer offered any opposition, but, as meekly as any

lamb, followed Mr. Otton into Sweeney Todd's shop. The door yielded to a

touch, and Mr. Otton presented his full rubicund countenance to the gaze

of Sweeney Todd, who was at the further end of the shop, as though he

had just come from the parlour at the back of it, or was just going

there. He did not at first see the shoemaker, who was rather obscured by

the portly person of the beadle, and Todd's first idea was, the most

natural one in the world, namely, that the beadle came upon an emergency

to be shaved. Giving him an hideous leer, Todd said--

"A fine night for a clean shave."

"Werry. In course, Mr. T., you is the best judge o' that 'ere, but I

does for myself."

As he spoke, Mr. Otton rubbed his chin, to intimate that it was to his

shaving himself that he alluded just then.

"Hair cut?" said Todd, giving a snap to the blades of a large pair of

scissors, that made Mr. Otton jump again, and nearly induced the

shoemaker to run out of the shop into the street.

"No," said the beadle; and taking off his hat, he felt his hair, as

though to satisfy himself that it was all there, just as usual. "No."

Todd looked as though he would have shaved him with extreme pleasure,

and advancing a few steps, he added--

"Then what is it that you bring your wieldy carcase here for, you gross

lump of stupidity? Ha! ha! ha!"

"What? Conwulsions!"

"Pho!--Pho! Can't you take a joke, Mr. Otton? I know you well enough.

It's my funny way to call people, whom I admire very much, all the hard

names I can think of."

"Is it?"

"Oh, dear, yes. I thought you and all my neighbours knew that well

enough. I'm one of the drollest dogs alive. That I am. Won't you sit

down?"

"Well, Mr. Todd, a joke may be a joke." The beadle looked very

sententious at this discovery. "But you have the oddest way of poking

your fun at any one that ever I heard of; but, I comes to you now as a

respectable parishioner, to--"

"Oh," said Todd, putting his hands, very deliberately into his pockets,

"how much?"

"It ain't anything to pay. It's a mere trifle. I just want to go up to

your front attic, and--"

"What?"

"Your front attic, and get out of the window to look into the front

attic next door. We won't trouble you if you will oblige us with a

candle. That's all."

Todd advanced two steps further towards the beadle and looked peeringly

in his face. All the suspicious qualities of his nature rose up in

alarm. Every feeling of terror regarding the instability of his

position, and the danger by which he was surrounded, rushed upon him. At

once he conjectured that danger was approaching him, and that in this

covert manner the beadle was intent upon getting into the house, for the

purpose of searching it to his detriment. As the footpad sees in each

bush an officer, so, in the most trivial circumstances, even the acute

intellect of Sweeney Todd saw dangers, and rumours of dangers, which no

one but himself could have had the remotest idea of. He glared upon the

beadle with positive ferocity, and so much affected was Otton by that

lynx-like observation of Sweeney Todd's, that he stepped aside and

disclosed that he was not alone. If anything could have confirmed Todd

in his suspicions that there was a dead-set at him, it was finding that

the beadle was not alone. And yet the shoemaker was well known to him.

But what will lull such suspicion as Sweeney Todd had in his mind? Once

engendered, it was like the jealousy that--

"Makes the meat it feeds on!"

He advanced, step by step, glaring upon the beadle and upon the

shoemaker. Reaching up his hand, he suddenly turned the lamp that hung

from the ceiling clear round, so that, in lieu of its principal light

falling upon him, it fell upon the faces of those who had paid him so

unceremonious a visit.

"Lawks!" said the beadle.

"Excuse us, Mr. Todd," said the shoemaker, "I assure you we only

meant--"

"What?" thundered Todd. Then suddenly softening his voice, he

added--"You are very welcome here indeed. Pray what do you want?"

"Why, sir," said Otton, "you must know that this gentleman has a

lodger."

"A what?"

"A lodger, sir, and so you see that's just the case. You understand that

this lodger--lor, Mr. Todd, this is your neighbour the shoemaker, you

know. The front attic, you know, and all that sort of thing. After this

explanation, I hope you'll lend us a candle at once, Mr. Todd, and let

us up to the attic."

Todd shaded his eyes with his hands, and looked yet more earnestly at

the beadle.

"Why, Mr. Otton," he said, "indeed you do want a shave."

"A shave?"

"Yes, Mr. Otton, I have a good razor here that will go over your chin

like a piece of butter. Only take a seat, sir, and if you, neighbour,

will go home comfortably to your own fireside, I will send for you when

Mr. Otton is shaved."

"But really," said the beadle, rubbing his chin, "I was shaved this

morning, and as I do for myself always, you see, why I don't think I

require. Conwulsions! Mr. Todd, why do you look at a man so? Remember

the _Habus Corpus_. That's what we call the _paladermius_ of the British

Constitution, you know."

By this time the beadle had satisfied himself that he did not at all

require shaving, and turning to the shoemaker, he said--

"Why don't you be shaved?"

"Well, I don't care if I do, and perhaps, in the meantime you, Mr.

Otton, will go up to the attic, and take a peep into the next one, and

see if my lodger is up or in bed, or what the deuce has become of him.

It's a very odd thing, Mr. Todd, that a man should take one's attic, and

then disappear without coming down stairs."

"Disappear without coming down stairs?" said Todd.

"Yes, and my wife says--"

Todd made an impatient gesture.

"Gentlemen, I will look in my attic myself. The fact is, that the

flooring is rather out of order, and unless you know exactly where to

step you will be apt to fall through a hole into the second floor."

"The deuce you are!" said Otton.

"Yes; so I would not advise either of you to make the attempt. Just

remain there, and I'll go at once."

The proposition suited both parties, and Mr. Todd immediately passed

through a door at the back of his shop, which he immediately closed

behind him again. Instead of going up stairs, however, he slid aside a

small opening in the panel of this door, and placed his ear to it. "If

people say anything impudent, it is the moment they are free from the

company that has held them in check," was one of Sweeney Todd's maxims.

His first notion that the beadle and the shoemaker had come covertly to

search his house, had given way a little, and he wanted to convince

himself of the innocency or the reverse of their intentions, before he

put himself to any further trouble.

"I don't like it," said the shoemaker.

"Like what? Conwulsions! what don't you like?"

"Intruding upon Mr. Todd. What does he care about my lodgers? It ain't

as if he let any of his own house, and had a fellow feeling with us."

"Werry good," said the beadle, "but you send for me, and you ask me

what's best, and I tell yer that _Habus Corpus_, and one thing and

another, what I advised was the only thing, that was to get into Mr.

Todd's attic, and then get on the parapet and into yours. But if so be

as there's holes in Mr. Todd's attic, that will alter the affair, you

know."

"Fool--fool!" muttered Todd. "After all, they only come upon their own

twaddling affairs, and I was idiot enough to suspect such muddy pated

rascals."

In an instant he was in the shop again.

"Nobody there, gentlemen; I have looked into the attic, and there's

nobody there."

"Well, I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Todd," said the shoemaker, "for

taking so much trouble. I'll go, and rather astonish my wife, I think."

"Conwulsions!" said the beadle. "It's an odd thing, but you know, Mr.

Todd, _Habus Corpus_ must have his way."