"If you will be guided by me you will write Todd a letter, threatening
him that if there is any more interference with Tobias, you will
prosecute him, but that you will, if you hear no more of him at your
house, say nothing of the past. You need be under no fear that he will
derive any future advantage from such a promise, as any charge against
him connected with poor Tobias will sink into insignificance, compared
with other offences." "True! true!" "Such a letter, couched with the one concerning the non-departure of the
ship, may keep him in his shop over to-morrow." "And then--"

"Then he sleeps in Newgate, from which building he steps on to the
scaffold." "But has he not sent many trunks and packages to the ship?" "Yes, and I have as regularly removed them all to the police-office at
Bow Street. We have already some thousands of pounds worth of property
of the most costly description." "But Johanna? What is to become of her?" "You may depend upon it that Todd will pursue the same course with her
that he did with Tobias. He will give her a trifle of money, and tell
her to get a night's lodging out; and in that case she knows where to
come to be quite safe and comfortable. But if such should not be the
case, my protecting arm is over her; I think I can almost defy Todd to
do her any injury." "Think you so?" "Yes, I have made such arrangements that if she were missed only for ten
minutes, Todd's house would be searched from top to bottom. I would not,
for this right hand, that any harm should come to her." "Nor I--nor I." "Be at ease regarding her, colonel." "I know how fully we may trust to you, and therefore I will be at ease
regarding her; and I will at once write the letter to Todd you suggest
to me." "Do so. His fears upon your account must be calmed down." The colonel accordingly wrote the necessary note to Todd. Of course,
neither he nor Sir Richard Blunt knew that Todd had another reason for
wishing to be off that night, which consisted in his great unwillingness
to meet Mrs. Lovett in the morning; for it will be recollected that he
had an appointment with that lady upon money matters at an early hour. The reader is now fully aware of how matters stand, and will be able to
comprehend easily the remarkable events which rapidly ensued upon this
state of things, and therefore we can at once return to Todd. We left him upon his door-step. It was never Todd's custom to walk at once into his house as any one
else would do upon their arrival, whose

    "Conscience was not redolent of guilt!" but he would peep and pry about, and linger like a moth fluttering
around a candle, or a rat smelling at some tempting morsel, which might
be connected with some artfully contrived trap, before he entered. He wanted sadly to get a peep at what Charley was doing. Now, poor Johanna, fortunately at that moment, was only sitting before
the little miserable fire, holding her face in her hands, and deeply
thinking of the once happy past. She had brought out from beneath the
counter the sleeve of a sailor's jacket, which she had found upon her
former examination of the shop, and after sprinkling it with some tears,
for she fully believed it must have belonged to Mark Ingestrie, she had
hidden it again. And now as she sat in that house of murder all alone, she was picturing
to herself every tone and look of her lover when he had first told her
that he loved her before, as she might have said in the words of the old
song--

    "He loved me, and he sped away
      Far o'er the raging sea,
    To seek the gems of other lands,
      And bring them all to me." At that moment, with all external objects hidden from her perception she
could almost fancy she could hear his voice as he had said to her--"My
darling, I shall come back rich and prosperous, and we shall be happy." Alas! how sadly had that dream ended. He who had escaped the perils of
the deep--he who had successfully battled with the tempest, and all the
perils by sea and by land incidental to the life he had embarked in, had
returned miserably to perish, almost within hearing of her for whom he
had adventured so much. The thought was maddening! "And I live!" she said; "I can live after that! Oh, Mark--Mark--I did
not love you well enough, or I could not have existed so long after the
horrible certainly of your fate has been revealed to me. They may say
what they will to try to make me calmer and happier, but I know that he
is Todd's victim." After this she sat for a time in a kind of stupor, and it was during
that interval that Todd arrived home. There was no light in the shop but what at times came from a little
flickering flame, that would splutter into a moment's brief existence in
the fire; but Todd, as he glared through the upper portion of the
half-glass door at a spot where he knew the blind did not prevent him,
could just see Johanna thus sitting. "Humph!" he said. "The boy is quiet enough, and probably, after all, may
suspect nothing; although I don't at all like his manner at times; yet
it is safer to kill him before I go. It is absolute security. He shall
help me to arrange everything to set the house on fire, and then when I
have completed all my arrangements, it will be easy to knock him on the
head." With this he opened the door. Johanna started. "Well," said Todd, "well, any one been?" "Only a man to be shaved, sir. I told him you would be home soon, but he
could not wait, so he left." "Let him leave and get shaved at the devil!" said Todd. "You are sure no
one has been here peeping and prying, and asking questions which you
would be quite delighted to answer, eh?" "Peeping and prying, sir?" "Yes, peeping and prying. You know the meaning of that. Don't put on a
look of surprise at me. It won't do. I known what you boys are. Curse
you all! Yes, I know what you are." Johanna made no answer. Todd took off his hat, and shook the rain from it violently. Then in a
voice that made Johanna start again, he cried--

"Light the lamp, idiot!" It was quite clear that the occurrences at the colonel's had not
improved Todd's temper at all, and that upon very little pretext for it,
he would have committed some act of violence, of which Johanna might be
the victim. Anything short of that she could endure, but she had made up
her mind that if even he so much as laid his hand upon her, her power of
further patience would be gone, and she would be compelled to adopt the
means of summoning aid which had been pointed out to her by Sir Richard
Blunt--namely, by casting something through the window into the street. She lit the shop-lamp as quickly as she could. "A lazy life you lead," said Todd. "A lazy life, indeed. Well, well," he
added, softening his tone, "it don't matter--I shall polish you off for
all that, Charley. What a pretty boy you are." "Sir?" "I say what a pretty boy you are. Why, you must have been your mamma's
pet, that you must. I was. Ha! ha! Look at me, now. I was fondled and
kissed once, and called a pretty boy. Ha!"