CHAPTER LIII.

THE MURDER OF THE USURER.

"Come in! Come in! More expense. More losses. As if an honest man, who

only does what he can with his own, could not come to the court with a

hope of meeting with a civil reception, unless he were decked out like a

buffoon. Come in. Well, who are you?"

"Augustus Snipes, sir, at your service. Brought home the clothes, sir.

The full dress suit you were so good as to order to be ready to-day,

sir."

"Oh, you are a tailor?"

"Oh, dear no, sir. We are not tailors now a days. We are artists."

"Curse you, whatever you are. I don't care. Some artist I'm afraid has

done me out of £8000. Oh, dear. Put down the things. What do they come

to?"

"Eighteen pounds ten shillings and threepence, sir."

John Mundell gave a deep groan, and the tailor brushed past Todd to

place the clothes upon a side table. As he returned he caught sight of

Todd's face, and in an instant his face lighting up, he cried--

"Ah! how do? How do?"

"Eh!" said Todd.

"How did the Pompadour coloured coat and the velvet smalls do, eh?--Fit

well? Lord, what a rum start for a barber to have a suit of clothes fit

for a duke."

"Duke!" cried Mundell.

Todd lifted one of his huge feet and gave the "artist" a kick that sent

him sprawling to the door of the room.

"That," he said, "will teach you to make game of a poor man with a large

family, you scoundrel. What, you won't go, won't you? The--"

The artist shot out at the door like lightning, and flew down the stairs

as though the devil himself was at his heels. Todd carefully closed the

door again, and fastened it by a little bolt that was upon it. A strange

expression was upon the countenance of John Mundell. His face looked

perfectly convulsed, and he slowly rose from his chair. Todd placed one

of his huge hands upon his breast and pushed him back again.

"What's the matter?" said Todd.

"He--he--knows you."

"Well."

"The Pompadour coloured coat! Ah, I recollect the Pompadour coloured

coat, too. I thought I knew your face. There was a something, too, about

your voice that haunted me like the remembrance of a dream.

You--you--are--"

"What?"

"Help--help! Tell me if I be mad, or if you are a duke in the disguise

of a barber, or a barber in the likeness of a duke. Ah, that Pompadour

coloured coat, it sticks--sticks in my throat."

"I wish it did," growled Todd. "What do you mean, Mr. Mundell?--Pray

express yourself. What do you mean by those incoherent expressions?"

"Are you human?"

"Dear me, I hope so. Really, sir, you look quite wild."

"Stop--stop--let me think--the face--the voice--the Pompadour coat--the

costume fit for a duke. It must be so.--Man or devil, I will grapple

with you, for you have got my pearls and my money. My £8000--my gold

that I have lived, that I have toiled for--that I have schemed, and

cheated to keep up--that I have shut my eyes to all sights for--and my

heart to all tender emotions. You have my money, and I will denounce

you!"

"Stop," said Todd.

The usurer paused in what he was saying, but he still glared at Todd

fiercely, and his eyes protruded from their orbits, while the muscles of

his mouth worked as though he were still trying to utter audible sounds,

but by some power was denied the capacity to utter them.

"You say you have lost pearls?"

"Yes--yes.--Orient pearls."

Todd dived his hand into the breast of his apparel and produced the

string of pearls. He held them before the ravished and dazzled eyes of

John Mundell, as he said--

"Were they like these?"

With a cry of joy Mundell grasped at the pearls. Tears of gratified

avarice gushed from his eyes.

"My own--my own pearls--my beautiful pearls!--Oh, blessed chance--my

pearls back again. Ha! ha! ha!"

"Ha!" echoed Todd, as he stepped behind the chair on which John Mundell

was sitting.

With his left hand he took one vigorous grasp of the remaining

hair upon the head of the usurer, and forced his back against the

chair. In another instant there was a sickening gushing sound.

Todd, with the razor he held in his right hand, had nearly cut

John Mundell's head off. Then he held him still by the hair.

Gasp--gasp--gasp--bubble--gasp--bubble.--Ah! ah! ah!--Goggle--goggle. A

slight convulsive movement of the lashes, and the eyes set, and became

opaquely dim. The warm blood still bubbled, but John Mundell was dead.

Todd picked up the pearls and carefully replaced them in his bosom

again.

"How many strange events," he said, "hang upon these baubles. Ah, it's

only one more--a dirty job rather--but business is business!"

He stood in the room as silent as a statue, and listened intently. Not

the slightest sound indicative of the proximity of any one came upon his

ears. He felt quite convinced that the deed of blood had been done in

perfect secrecy. But then there he was.--Who but he could be accused?

There he stood, the self-convicted murderer. Had he not done the deed

with the weapon of his handicraft that he had brought to the house? How

was Todd to escape the seeming inevitable cold-blooded murder? We shall

see. Huddled up in the chair, was the dead body. Mundell had not fallen

out of the capacious easy seat in which he sat when he breathed his

last. The blood rolled to the floor, where it lay in a steaming mass.

Todd was careful--very careful not to tread in it, and he looked down

his garments to see if there were any tell-tale spots of gore; but

standing behind the chair to do the deed, as he had done, he had been

saved from anything of the sort. There he stood, externally spotless,

like many a seeming and smirking sinner in this world--but oh, how black

and stained within!

"Humph!" said Todd; "John Mundell was half distracted by a heavy loss.

He was ill, and his mind was evidently affected. He could not even shave

himself. Oh, it is quite evident that John Mundell, unable to bear his

miseries, real or ideal, any longer, in a fit of partial insanity, cut

his throat. Yes, that will do."

Todd still kept the razor in his grasp. What is he going to do?--Murder

again the murdered?--Is he afraid that a man,

"With twenty murders on his head!"

will jostle him from his perilous pinnacle of guilty safety?--No. He

takes one of the clammy dead hands in his own--he clasps the half rigid

fingers over the handle of the razor, and then he holds them until, in

the course of a minute or so, they have assumed the grasp he wishes, and

the razor, with which he, Todd, did the deed of blood, is held

listlessly, but most significantly, in the hand of the dead.

[Illustration: The Murder Of The Usurer.]

"That will do," said Todd.

The door is reached and unfastened, and the barber slips out of the

room. He closes the door again upon the fetid hot aroma of the blood

that is there, fresh from the veins of a human being like

himself--no--no--not like himself.--No one can be like Sweeney Todd. He

is a being of his own species--distinct, alone, an incarnation of evil!

Todd was in no particular hurry to descend the stairs. He gained the

passage with tolerable deliberation, and then he heard voices in the

parlour.

"What a man you are!" said Mrs. Blisset.

"Ah, my dear, I am indeed. Who would not be a man for your sake? As for

Mr. Blisset, I don't think him worth attention."

"Nor I," said the lady, snapping her fingers, "I don't value him that.

The poor mean-spirited wretch--he's not to be compared to you, captain."

"I should think not, my love. Have you got any change in your pocket?"

"Yes. I--I-think I have about seven shillings or so."

"That will do. Much obliged to you, madam--I mean, my dear Mrs. B. Ah,

if you would but smother Blisset, so that I might have the joy of making

you Mrs. Captain Coggan, what a happy man I should be."

Todd tapped at the door.

"What was that?" cried the captain in evident alarm; "Is it Blisset?"

"No, captain--oh, no; I should like to see him interrupt me, indeed. A

pretty thing that I cannot do what I like in the house I keep. Come in."

Todd just opened the door far enough to introduce his hideous head; and

having done so, stared at the pair with such a selection of frightful

physiognomical changes, that they both sat transfixed with horror. At

length Todd broke the silence by saying--

"He's frightfully nervous."

"What?--what?--who?" gasped the captain.

"What?" repeated Mrs. Blisset.

"What's his name, upstairs, that I was sent for to shave just now."

"What, Mr. Mundell. Ah, poor man, he has been in a very nervous state

ever since he has been here. He continually talks of a heavy loss he has

had."

"Yes," said Todd, "I suppose he means you to pay me."

"Me?"

"Yes, ma'am. He says he is too nervous and excited for me to shave him

just now, but he has borrowed a razor from me and says he will shave

himself in the course of an hour or so, and send it back to me."

"Oh, very well. Your money will be sent with the razor, no doubt; for

although Mr. Mundell is so continually talking of his losses, they tell

me he is as rich as a Jew."

"Thank you, ma'am. Good morning; good morning, sir."

The captain cast a supercilious glance upon Todd, but did not deign to

make the remotest reply to the mock civility with which he was bidden

good morning. No one stands so much upon his dignity, as he whose title

to any at all is exceedingly doubtful. The female heart, however, is

mollified by devotion, and Mrs. Blisset returned the adieu of Todd. When

he got into the passage, he uttered one of his extraordinary laughs, and

then opening the street door, he let himself out. Todd by no means

hurried back to Fleet Street, but as he walked along he now and then

shrugged his shoulders and shook his huge hands, which, to those

acquainted with his peculiarities, would have been sufficient

indications of the fact that he was enjoying himself greatly. At length

he spoke--

"So--so--what a Providence we have, after all, watching over us. The

moment I am in any real danger as regards the string of pearls, up

starts some circumstance that enables me to ward it off. Well, well,

some day I almost think I shall turn religious and build a church, and

endow it. Ha!"

Todd was so tickled at the idea of his building a church and endowing

it, that he stopped at the corner of Milford Lane, to enjoy an unusual

amount of laughter; as he did so he saw no other than Mrs. Ragg, slowly

coming towards him.

"Ah," he said, "Tobias's mother. The mother of the Tobias that was!--I

will avoid her."

He darted on, and was through Temple Bar before Mrs. Ragg could make up

her mind which way to run, for run she fully intended to do, when she

saw Todd standing at the corner of Milford Lane. But she had no occasion

for hurrying from him, as he walked in the direction of his shop as

speedily as possible. Although he was perfectly satisfied with the

clever manner he had ridded himself of the usurer, who probably might

have been a source of annoyance to him, and who might eventually have

been the means of bringing him to justice, he thought that he might be

losing opportunities of making more victims for the accumulation of his

ill-gotten wealth.