The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 350: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

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. “T 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. 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. “Tt 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 personification 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 yon 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 CORniclooo S CO)