Todd
seized the man by the collar, and dragging him fairly into the shop,
closed the door again. "Ah!" he said, "a good joke." "What's a joke, sir?" said the man. "What's a joke? Murder! Where am
I?--where am I? Help!" "Hush!" said Todd. "Hush! It's of no consequence. I know all about it
man. Mrs. Lovett employed you to watch me. She was a little jealous, but
we have made it all right now, and she asked me, if I saw you, to pay
you and give you a glass of something, beside." "Did she, sir?" "To be sure she did; so come in, and you can tell her when you see her
in the morning, that you had of me a glass of as good liquor as could be
found in London. By-the-bye, what am I to pay you?" "A guinea, sir." "Exactly. It was a guinea, of course. This way, my friend, this way. Don't fall over the shaving-chair, I beg of you. You can't hurt it, for
it is a fixture; but you might hurt yourself, and that is of more
importance to you, you know. While we do live in this world, if it be
for ever so short a time, we may as well live comfortably." Talking away thus all suspicion from the man who was not one of the
brightest of geniuses in the world, Todd led the way to the
parlour--that fatal parlour which had been the last scene of more than
one mortal life. He closed the door, and then in quite a good-humoured way, he pointed to
the seat, saying--

"Rest yourself, my friend--rest yourself, while I get out the bottle. And so it is one guinea that I am to give you, eh?" "Yes, sir; and all I can say is that I am very glad to hear that you and
Mrs. Lovett have made matters all right again. Very glad, indeed, sir, I
may say. In course, I shouldn't have took the liberty of sitting down by
your door, sir, if she had not told me to watch the house and let her
know, if so, be as you come out of it, or if I saw any packages moving. She didn't say anything to me what it was for; but a guinea is just as
well earned easy as not, you see, sir!" "Certainly, my friend, certainly. Drink that." The man tossed off the glass of something that Todd gave him, and then
he licked his lips, as he said--

"What is it, sir? It's strong, but I can't say, for my part, that I like
the flavour of it much." "Not like it?" "Not much, sir." "Why it's a most expensive foreign liquor that is, and by all the best
judges in the kingdom is never found fault with. Very few persons,
indeed, have tasted it; but of those few, not one has come to me to say,
Mr. Todd--"

"Good God!" said the man, as he clasped his head with both of his hands. "Good God, how strange I feel. I must be going mad!" "Mad!" cried Todd, as he leant far over the table so as to bring his
face quite close to the man's. "Mad! not at all. What you feel now is
part of your death-pang. You are dying--I have poisoned you. Do you hear
that? You have watched me, and I have in return poisoned you. Do you
understand that?" [Illustration: Todd Poisons Mrs. Lovett's Spy And Tells Him Of It.] The dying man made an ineffectual effort to rise from the chair, but he
could not. With a gasping sob he let his head sink upon his breast--he
was dead! "They perish," said Todd, "one by one; they who oppose me, perish, and
so shall they all. Ha! so shall they all; and she who set this fool on
to his destruction shall feel, yet, the pang of death, and know that she
owes it to me! Yes, Mrs. Lovett, yes." He closed his arms over his breast, and looked at the body for some
moments in silence; and then, with a sneer upon his lips, he added--

"No, Mrs. Lovett, you did not show your judgment in this matter. Had you
wished to watch me, you should have done it yourself, and not employed
this poor weak wretch who has paid the price of his folly. Go--go!" He struck the chair from under the dead man with his foot, and the
corpse that had partially been supported by it and the table, fell to
the floor. Another kick sent it under the large table, and then, as
another of Todd's victims had once done, it disappeared. "To-morrow night, by this time," said Todd, musingly, "where shall I
be!" CHAPTER LXXXIX. MR. OAKLEY IS IN DESPAIR AT THE LOSS OF JOHANNA. The anxiety of poor Mr. Oakley increased each moment as he and the
preacher neared the house of Arabella Wilmot's friends. We regret to say
that Mr. Lupin did enjoy the mental agony of the father; but it was in
his nature so to do, and we must take poor humanity as we find it. It must be recollected that Mr. Lupin had, through Johanna, suffered
great malefactions. The treatment he had received at the hands of Big
Ben, although most richly deserved, had been on account of Johanna, and
as regarded the old spectacle-maker himself, he had always occupied an
antagonistic position as regarded Mr. Lupin. No wonder then, we say, that human nature, particularly in its
evangelical variety, was not proof against the fascination of a little
revenge. Now, Mr. Lupin felt so sure that he had made no mistake, but
that it was no other than the fair Johanna whom he had seen in what he
called the unseemly apparel, that he did not feel inclined to draw back
for a moment in the matter. Curiosity, as well as a natural (to him)
feeling of malignity, urged him to stick by the father in order that he
might know the result of inquiries that he, Lupin, had no opportunity or
excuse for making, but which Mr. Oakley might institute with the most
perfect and unquestionable profundity. As we have before had occasion to remark, the distance between Oakley's
shop and the residence of the friends of Arabella was but short, so
that, at the speed which the excited feelings of the fond father induced
him to adopt, he soon stood upon the threshold of the residence, beneath
the roof of which he hoped, notwithstanding the news so confidently
brought by Lupin, to find his much-loved, idolized child. "You shall see," he said to Lupin, catching his breath as he spoke; "you
shall see how very wrong you are." "Humph!" said Lupin. "You shall see," continued poor Oakley, still dallying with the knocker;
"you shall see what an error you have made, and how impossible it is
that my child--my good and kind Johanna--could be the person you saw in
Fleet-street." "Ah!" said Lupin. Mr. Oakley knocked at the door, and, as one of the family had seen him
through the blinds of the parlour-window, he was at once admitted, and
kindly received by those who knew him and his worth well. He asked, in
an odd gasping manner, that Mr. Lupin might have permission to come in,
which was readily granted; and with a solemn air, shaking his head at
the vanities he saw in the shape of some profane statuary in the hall,
the preacher followed Oakley to the dining-room. It was an aunt of Arabella's to whom they were introduced, and, with a
smile, she said--

"Really, Mr. Oakley, a visit from you is such a rarity that we ought not
to know how to make enough of you when you do come. Why, it must have
been Christmas twelvemonths since you were last beneath this roof.