This gentleman, and a gentleman he was in the
fullest acceptance of the term, was in London; in fact, he had retired
from active service, and inhabited a small but pleasant house in the
outskirts of the metropolis. It was one of those old-fashioned cottage
residences, with all sorts of odd places and corners about it, and a
thriving garden full of fine old wood, such as are rather rare near to
London, and which are daily becoming more rare, in consequence of the
value of land immediately contiguous to the metropolis not permitting
large pieces to remain attached to small residences. Captain Rathbone
had an amiable family about him, such as he was and might well be proud
of, and was living in as great a state of domestic felicity as this
world could very well afford him. It was to this gentleman, then, that
Colonel Jeffery resolved upon going to lay all the circumstances before
him concerning the probable fate of poor Thornhill. This distance was
not so great but that he could walk it conveniently, and he did so,
arriving, towards the dusk of the evening, on the following day to that
which had witnessed his deeply interesting interview with Johanna Oakley
in the Temple-gardens. There is nothing on earth so delightfully
refreshing, after a dusty and rather a long country walk, as to suddenly
enter a well-kept and extremely verdant garden; and this was the case
especially to the feelings of Colonel Jeffery, when he arrived at Lime
Tree Lodge, the residence of Captain Rathbone. He met him with a most
cordial and frank welcome--a welcome which he expected, but which was
none the less delightful on that account; and, after sitting awhile with
the family in the house, he and the captain strolled into the garden,
and then Colonel Jeffery commenced his revelation. The captain, with
very few interruptions, heard him to an end; and, when he concluded by
saying--

"And now I am come to ask your advice upon all these matters;" the
captain immediately replied, in his warm, off-hand manner--

"I am afraid you won't find my advice of much importance; but I offer
you my active co-operation in anything you think ought to be done or can
be done in this affair, which, I assure you deeply interests me, and
gives me the greatest possible impulse to exertion. You have but to
command me in the matter, and I am completely at your disposal." "I was quite certain you would say as much. But, notwithstanding the
manner in which you shrink from giving an opinion, I am anxious to know
what you really think with regard to what are, you will allow, most
extraordinary circumstances." "The most natural thing in the world," said Captain Rathbone, "at the
first flush of the affair, seemed to be, that we ought to look for your
friend Thornhill at the point where he disappeared." "At the barber's in Fleet-street?" "Precisely. Did he leave the barber, or did he not?" "Sweeney Todd says that he left him, and proceeded down the street
towards the city, in pursuance of a direction he had given him to Mr.
Oakley, the spectacle-maker, and that he saw him get into some sort of
disturbance at the end of the market; but to put against that, we have
the fact of the dog remaining by the barber's door, and his refusing to
leave it on any amount of solicitation. Now the very fact that a dog
could act in such a way proclaims an amount of sagacity that seems to
tell loudly against the presumption that such a creature could make any
mistake." "It does. What say you, now, to go into town to-morrow morning, and
making a call at the barber's, without proclaiming we have any special
errand, except to be shaved and dressed? Do you think he would know you
again?" "Scarcely, in plain clothes. I was in my undress uniform when I called
with the captain of the Neptune, so that his impression of me must be of
decidedly a military character; and the probability is, that he would
not know me at all in the clothes of a civilian. I like the idea of
giving a call at the barber's." "Do you think your friend Thornhill was a man likely to talk about the
valuable pearls he had in his possession?" "Certainly not." "I merely ask you, because they might have offered a great temptation;
and if he has experienced any foul play at the hands of the barber, the
idea of becoming possessed of such a valuable treasure might have been
the inducement." "I do not think it probable, but it has struck me that, if we obtain any
information whatever of Thornhill, it will be in consequence of these
very pearls. They are of great value, and not likely to be overlooked;
and yet, unless a customer be found for them, they are of no value at
all; and nobody buys jewels of that character but from the personal
vanity of making, of course, some public display of them." "That is true; and so, from hand to hand, we might trace those pearls
until we come to the individual who must have had them from Thornhill
himself, and who might be forced to account most strictly for the manner
in which they came into his possession." After some more desultory conversation upon the subject, it was agreed
that Colonel Jeffery should take a bed for the night at Lime Tree Lodge,
and that, in the morning, they should both start for London, and,
disguising themselves as respectable citizens, make some attempts, by
talking about jewels and precious stones, to draw out the barber into a
confession that he had something of the sort to dispose of; and,
moreover, they fully intended to take away the dog, with the care of
which Captain Rathbone charged himself. We may pass over the pleasant,
social evening which the colonel passed with the amiable family of the
Rathbones, and, skipping likewise a conversation of some strange and
confused dreams which Jeffery had during the night concerning his friend
Thornhill, we will presume that both the colonel and the captain have
breakfasted, and that they have proceeded to London and are at the shop
of a clothier in the neighbourhood of the Strand, in order to procure
coats, wigs, and hats, that should disguise them for their visit to
Sweeney Todd. Then, arm in arm, they walked towards Fleet-street, and
soon arrived opposite the little shop within which there appears to be
so much mystery. "The dog, you perceive, is not here," said the colonel; "I had my
suspicions, however, when I passed with Johanna Oakley that something
was amiss with him, and I have no doubt but that the rascally barber has
fairly compassed his destruction." "If the barber be innocent," said Captain Rathbone, "you must admit that
it would be one of the most confoundedly annoying things in the world to
have a dog continually at his door assuming such an aspect of
accusation, and in that case I can scarcely wonder at his putting the
creature out of the way."