The smell of decomposition
lingered in the air, and it is here still, though not so bad. Yes, it is
here still! I can smell it now, and I know the odour well." Todd was sufficiently familiar with St. Dunstan's church almost to go
over it even at that hour, and amid that darkness, without running
against anything; but yet he was very careful as he went, and kept his
arms outstretched before him. He dreaded to get a light, although he had
the means of doing so, for Mr. Lupin had, at his request, given him some
of the matches and little wax-candle-ends that the pious lady had
supplied him with. Yet Todd knew how small a light would suffice to
shine through some of the richly stained glass windows of the church,
and therefore he dreaded to give himself a light. He felt confident that he should have no sort of difficulty in getting
into the vaults, for in consequence of recent events the stone that
covered up the entrance could not be fast, and he knew from past
experience that his strength was sufficient to raise it if he once got
hold of it, and if it were not fastened down by cement, which, no doubt,
was not the case now. "I shall yet get," he said, "into my old house. The time has been rather
short, and the goods there deposited by me in old times may there
remain; and if so, I will carry away enough with me to keep me far above
the necessities of life, and when once I have achieved that much, I will
from some obscure place meditate upon my revenge." In the course of about ten minutes he found the flat stone that led into
the vaults, and to his satisfaction he found that it was merely laid
crosswise over the aperture, in order to prevent any one in day time
from heedlessly tumbling in, but at night it was not, of course,
expected that any one would be there to fall into such a danger. With one effort Todd removed it. "Good," he said. "Now I can make my way, and once below the level of the
floor of the church, there will be no danger in at once accommodating
myself with a light, which will be useful enough in the vaults." Getting upon his hands and knees now, Todd, for fear of a fall down the
stone steps, cautiously got down the first few of them, and then he
paused to light one of the bits of taper with which he was provided. In
the course of a few moments the tiny flame was clear and bright, and
shading it with his hand, Todd carefully descended the remainder of the
stairs. How still everything was in those vaults of old St. Dunstan's. Were
there no spirits from another world--spirits of the murdered, to flit in
horrible palpability before the eyes of that man who had cut short their
thread of life? Surely if ever a visitant from another world could have
been expected, it would have been to appear to Todd to convince him that
there was more beyond the grave than a forgotten name and a mouldering
skeleton. When he reached the foot of the stairs and was satisfied that the little
light was burning well, he held it up above his head and bent a keen
glance around him. "Ha! ha!" he laughed, "so they have been doing their best--poor fools as
they are to meddle with such rubbish--to rid the family vaults of some
of the new tenants that I took occasion to introduce into them. Well,
let them, let them! I did play a little havoc with the gentility of the
dead, I must admit!" With this highly jocose remark, Todd passed on, taking a route well
known to him, which would conduct him to the cellar that it will be
recollected was immediately underneath his shop. It was from this that
he hoped to get into the house. [Illustration: Todd In The Scene Of His Murders.] It took Todd much less time than it would have taken any one else to
make his way to that cellar; but then no one was or could be so well
acquainted with all the windings and turnings of the excavation that led
to it as he, and finally he reached it, just as he found the necessity
of lighting up another little piece of wax candle, as the one he had
already lit had burnt right to his hand. He found a piece of wood, into
which he stuck the new one securely, so that it was much handier to
hold. Todd now felt the absolute necessity of being much more cautious than
before, for he did know who might be in the shop above, and he did know
that a very small sound below would make itself heard. Holding up the
light, he saw that his nice little mechanical arrangement regarding the
two chairs, remained just as it had been as he used to use it. "Ah!" he cried, "it will be some time in London again before people will
sit down in a barber's chair with anything like confidence, particularly
if it should chance to be a fixture. Ha!" Todd was getting quite merry now. The sight of the old familiar objects
of that place had certainly raised his spirits very considerably, and no
doubt the brandy had helped a little. Setting the light down in a corner
of the cellar, he placed himself in an attitude of intense listening,
which he kept up for about five minutes, at the end of which time he
gave a nod, and muttered--

"There may be some one in the parlour--that I will not pretend to say no
to; but the shop is free of human occupants. And now for the means of
getting into it. If anybody can, I can, and that with tolerable ease,
too." The apparatus by which Todd had been in the habit of letting down his
customers, consisted of a slight system of lever, which he could move
from the parlour, but provided he could reach so high, he could just as
easily release the loose plank from where he was; in which case the
chair that was above would have a preponderating influence, as that was
on the heaviest arm of the plank from the centre upon which it turned. "I can manage that," he said; and then taking the knife from his pocket,
he found that by its aid he could just reach high enough to touch the
lever that acted as a kind of bolt to keep the plank in its place. The
moment he removed that bolt the plank slowly moved, and then Todd caught
the end of it in his hand, and pulled it right down, so that it assumed
a perpendicular aspect completely. Holding then the piece of wood to
which he had attached the wax light in his mouth, he climbed carefully
and noiselessly up into his old shop; and when there he replaced the
plank, and on the end of the board which was the counterpoise to the
chair, he placed a weight, which he knew where to lay his hands upon,
and which kept the chair in its place, although a very little would have
overcome the counterpoise, and sent it down to the cellar below. Todd extinguished his light, and the moment he did so, he saw a very
faint illumination coming from the parlour through a portion of the
door, into which a square of glass was let in, and through which he,
Todd, used to glare at poor Tobias. The sound of voices, too, came upon his ears, and he laid himself flat
down on the floor, close to the wall, under a kind of bench that ran
along it for a considerable distance.