The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™

by Oscar Wilde

  ‘Nothing that I know of, Mr Todd, except it’s the illness of Mr Cummings, the overseer. They say he got home about twelve to his own house, in Chancery-lane, and ever since then he has been sick as a dog, and all they can get him to say is, “Oh, those pies—oh, those pies!”’

  ‘Very odd, sir.’

  ‘Very. I think Mr Cummings must be touched in the upper storey, do you know, Mr Todd. He’s a very respectable man, but, between you and I, was never very bright.’

  ‘Certainly not—certainly not. But it’s a very odd case. What pies can he possibly mean, sir? Did you call when you came from home?’

  ‘No. Ha, ha! I can’t help laughing; but ha, ha! I have come away from home on the sly, you see. The fact is, my wife’s cousin, Mr Mundel—hilloa!—I think you have cut me.’

  ‘No, no; we can’t cut anybody for three-halfpence, sir.’

  ‘Oh, very good—very good. Well, as I was saying, my wife’s cousin, Mr Mundel, came to our house last night, and brought with him a string of pearls, you see. He wanted me to go to the City, this morning, with them, to Round and Bridget, the court jewellers’, and ask them if they had ever seen them before.’

  ‘Were they beauties?’

  ‘Yes, they are brilliant ones. You see, Mundel lends money, and he didn’t like to go himself, so he asked me to go, as Mr Round knows me very well; for between you and me, Mr Todd, my wife’s cousin, Mr Mundel, thinks they belonged, once upon a time, to some lady.’

  ‘Oh, indeed!’

  ‘Yes; and as it won’t do to say too much to women, I told my wife I was going over the water, you see, and just popped out. Ha, ha, ha! and I’ve got the pearls in my pocket. Mundel says they are worth twelve thousand pounds at the least, ha, ha!’

  ‘Indeed, sir, twelve thousand pounds? A pretty sum that, sir—a very pretty sum. No doubt Mr Mundel lent seven or eight thousand pounds upon the pearls. I think I will just give you another lather, sir, before I polish you off; and so you have the pearls with you, well, how odd things come round, to be sure.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This shaving-brush is just in a good state now. Always as a shaving-brush is on the point of wearing out, it’s the best. Charley, you will go at once to Mr Cummings’s, and ask if he is any better; you need not hurry, that’s a good lad, I am not at all angry with you now; and so, sir, they think at home that you have gone after some business over the water, do they, and have not the least idea that you have come here to be shaved—there, be off, Charley—shut the door, that’s a good lad, bless you.’

  * * * *

  When Johanna came back, the tobacconist was gone.

  ‘Well,’ said Sweeney Todd, as he sharpened a razor, very leisurely; ‘how is Mr Cummings?’

  ‘I found out his house, sir, with some difficulty, and they say he is better, having gone to sleep.’

  ‘Oh, very good! I am going to look over some accounts in the parlour, so don’t choose to be disturbed, you understand; and for the next ten minutes, if anybody comes, you will say I am out.’

  Sweeney Todd walked quite coolly into the parlour, and Johanna heard him lock the door on the inside; a strange, undefined sensation of terror crept over her, she knew not why, and she shuddered, as she looked around her. The cupboard door was not close shut, and she knew not what prompted her to approach and peep in. On the first shelf was the hat of the tobacconist: it was a rather remarkable one, and recognised in a moment.

  ‘What has happened? Good God! what can have happened?’ thought Johanna, as she staggered back, until she reached the shaving-chair, into which she cast herself for support. Her eyes fell upon the arm which she had taken such a shaving off with the razor, but all was perfectly whole and correct; there was not the least mark of the cut that so recently had been given to it; and, lost in wonder, Johanna, for more than a minute, continued looking for the mark of the injury she knew could not have been, by any possibility, effaced.

  And yet she found it not, although there was the chair, just as usual, with its wide spreading arms and its worn, tarnished paint and gilding. No wonder that Johanna rubbed her eyes, and asked herself if she were really awake.

  What could account for such a phenomenon? The chair was a fixture too, and the others in the shop were of a widely different make and construction, so it could not have been changed.

  ‘Alas, alas!’ mourned Johanna, ‘my mind is full of horrible surmise, and yet I can form no rational conjecture. I suspect everything, and know nothing. What can I do? What ought I to do, to relieve myself from this state of horrible suspense? Am I really in a place where, by some frightful ingenuity, murder has become bold and familiar, or can it all be a delusion?’

  She covered her face with her hands for a time, and when she uncovered them, she saw that Sweeney Todd was staring at her with looks of suspicion from the inner room.

  The necessity of acting her part came over Johanna, and she gave a loud scream.

  ‘What the devil is all this about?’ said Todd, advancing with a sinister expression. ‘What’s the meaning of it? I suspect—’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Johanna, ‘and so do I; I must tomorrow have it out.’

  ‘Have what out?’

  ‘My tooth, sir, it’s been aching for some hours; did you ever have the toothache? If you did, you can feel for me, and not wonder that I lean my head upon my heads and groan.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  SWEENEY TODD COMMENCES CLEARING THE ROAD TO RETIREMENT

  Todd was but half satisfied with this excuse of Master Charley’s, and yet it was one he could not very well object to, and might be true; so, after looking at Johanna for some moments suspiciously, he thought he might take it upon trust.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘no doubt you will be better tomorrow. There’s your sixpence for today; go and get yourself some dinner; and the cheapest thing you can do is to go to Lovett’s pie-shop with it.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Johanna was aware as she walked out of the shop, that the eyes of Sweeney Todd were fixed upon her, and that if she betrayed, by even the remotest gesture, that she had suspicions of him, probably he would yet prevent her exit; so she kept herself seemingly calm, and went out very slowly; but it was a great relief to gain the street, and feel that she was not under the same roof with that dreadful and dreaded man.

  Instead of going to Lovett’s pie-shop, Johanna turned into a pastry-cook’s near at hand, and partook of some refreshments; and while she is doing so, we will go back again, and take a glance at Sweeney Todd as he sat in his shop alone.

  There was a look of great triumph upon his face, and his eyes sparkled with an unwonted brilliance. It was quite clear that Sweeney Todd was deeply congratulating himself upon something; and, at length, diving his hand into the depths of a huge pocket, he produced the identical string of pearls for which he had already received so large a sum from Mr Mundel.

  ‘Truly,’ he said, ‘I must be one of Fortune’s prime favourites, indeed. Why, this string of pearls to me is a continued fortune; who could have for one moment dreamed of such a piece of rare fortune? I need not now be at all suspicious or troubled concerning John Mundel. He has lost his pearls, and lost his money. Ha, ha, ha! That is glorious; I will shut up shop sooner than I intended by far, and be off to the continent. Yes, my next sale of the string of pearls shall be in Holland.’

  With the pearls in his hand, Todd now appeared to fall into a very distracted train of thought, which lasted him about ten minutes, and then some accidental noise in the street, or the next house, jarred upon his nerves, and he sprang to his feet, exclaiming, ‘What’s that—what’s that?’

  All was still again, and he became reassured.

  ‘What a fool I get,’ he muttered to himself, ‘that every casual sound disturbs me, and causes this tremor. It is time, now that I am getting nervous, that I should lea
ve England. But first, I must dispose of one whose implacable disposition I know well, and who would hunt me to the farthest corner of the earth, if she were not at peace in the grave. Yes, the peace of the grave must do for her. I can think of no other mode of silencing so large a claim.’

  As he spoke those words, he took from his pocket the small packet of poison that he had purchased, and held it up between him and the light with a self-satisfied expression. Then he rose hastily, for he had again seated himself, and walked to the window, as if he were anxious for the return of Johanna, in order that he might leave the place. As he waited, he saw a young girl approach the shop, and having entered it, she said, ‘Mrs Lovett’s compliments, Mr Todd, and she has sent you this note, and will be glad to see you at eight o’clock this evening.’

  ‘Oh, very well, very well. Why, Lucy, you look prettier than ever.’

  ‘It’s more than you do, Mr Todd,’ said the girl, as she left, apparently in high indignation that so ugly a specimen of humanity as Sweeney Todd should have taken it upon himself to pay her a compliment.

  Todd only gave a hideous sort of a grin, and then he opened the letter which had been brought to him. It was without signature, and contained the following words:

  The new cook is already tired of his place, and you must tonight make another vacancy. He is the most troublesome one I have had, because the most educated. He must be got rid of—you know how. I am certain mischief will come of it.

  ‘Indeed!’ said Todd, when he finished this epistle, ‘this is quick; well, well, we shall see, we shall see. Perhaps we shall get rid of more than one person, who otherwise would be troublesome tonight. But here comes my new boy; he suspects nothing.’

  Johanna returned, and Todd asked somewhat curiously about the toothache; however, she made him so apparently calm and cool a reply, that he was completely foiled, and fancied that his former suspicions must surely have had no real foundation, but had been provoked merely by his fears.

  ‘Charley,’ he said, ‘you will keep an eye on the door, and when anyone wants me, you will pull that spring, which communicates with a bell that will make me hear. I am merely going to my bedroom.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  Todd gave another suspicious glance at her, and then left the shop. She had hoped that he would have gone out, so that there would have been another opportunity, and a better one than the last, of searching the place, but in that she was disappointed; and there was no recourse but to wait with patience.

  The day was on the decline, and a strong impression came over Johanna’s mind, that something in particular would happen before it wholly passed away into darkness. She almost trembled to think what that something could be, and that she might be compelled to be a witness to violence, from which her gentle spirit revolted; and had it not been that she had determined nothing should stop her from investigating the fate of poor Mark Ingestrie, she could even then have rushed into the street in despair.

  But as the soft daylight deepened into the dim shadows of evening, she grew more composed, and was better able, with a calmer spirit, to await the progress of events.

  Objects were but faintly discernible in the shop when Sweeney Todd came downstairs again; and he ordered Johanna to light a small oil lamp which shed but a very faint and sickly ray around it, and by no means facilitated the curiosity of anyone who might wish to peep in at the window.

  ‘I am going out,’ he said, ‘I shall be gone an hour, but not longer. You may say so to anyone who calls.’

  ‘I will, sir.’

  ‘Be vigilant, Charley, and your reward is certain.’

  ‘I pray to Heaven it may be,’ said Johanna, when she was again alone; but scarcely had the words passed her lips, when a hackney coach drove up to the door; and then alighted someone who came direct into the shop. He was a tall, gentlemanly-looking man, and before Johanna could utter a word, he said, ‘The watchword, Miss Oakley, is St Dunstan; I am a friend.’

  Oh, how delightful it was to Johanna, to hear such words, oppressed as she was by the fearful solitude of that house; she sprang eagerly forward, saying, ‘Yes, yes; oh, yes! I had the letter.’

  ‘Hush! there is no time to lose. Is there any hiding-place here at all?’

  ‘Oh yes! a large cupboard.’

  ‘That will do; wait here a moment while I bring in a friend of mine, if you please, Miss Oakley. We have got some work to do tonight.’

  The tall man, who was as cool and collected as anyone might be, went to the door, and presently returned with two persons, both of whom, it was found, might with very little trouble be hidden in the cupboard. Then there was a whispered consultation for a few minutes, after which the first corner turned to Johanna, and said, ‘Miss Oakley, when do you expect Todd to return?’

  ‘In an hour.’

  ‘Very well. As soon as he does return, I shall come in to be shaved, and no doubt you will be sent away; but do not go further than the door, whatever you do, as we may possibly want you. You can easily linger about the window.’

  ‘Yes, yes! But why is all this mystery? Tell me what it is that you mean by all this. Is there any necessity for keeping me in the dark about it?’

  ‘Miss Oakley, there is nothing exactly to tell you yet, but it is hoped that this night will remove some mysteries, and open your eyes to many circumstances that at present you cannot see. The villainy of Sweeney Todd will be espied, and if there be any hope of your restoration to one in whom you feel a great interest, it will be by such means.

  ‘You mean Mark Ingestrie?’

  ‘I do. Your history has been related to me.’

  ‘And who are you—why keep up to me a disguise if you are a friend?’

  ‘I am a magistrate, and my name is Blunt; so you may be assured that all that can be done shall be done.’

  ‘But, hold! you spoke of coming here to be shaved. If you do, let me implore you not to sit in that chair. There is some horrible mystery connected with it, but what it is, I cannot tell. Do not sit in it.’

  ‘I thank you for your caution, but it is to be shaved in that very chair that I came. I know there is a mystery connected with it, and it is in order that it should be no longer a mystery that I have resolved upon running what, perhaps, may be considered a little risk. But our further stay here would be imprudent. Now, if you please.’

  These last words were uttered to the two officers that the magistrate had brought with him, and it was quite wonderful to see with what tact and precision they managed to wedge themselves into the cupboard, the door of which they desired Johanna to close upon them, and when she had done so and turned round, she found that the magistrate was gone.

  Johanna was in a great state of agitation, but still it was some comfort to her now to know that she was not alone, and that there were two strong and no doubt well-armed men ready to take her part, should anything occur amiss; she was much more assured of her own safety, and yet she was much more nervous than she had been.

  She waited for Sweeney Todd, and strove to catch the sound of his returning footstep, but she heard it not; and, as that gentleman went about some rather important business, we cannot do better than follow him, and see how he progressed with it.

  When he left his shop, he went direct to Bell-yard, although it was a little before the time named for his visit to Mrs Lovett.

  THE RING OF THOTH, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  Mr. John Vansittart Smith, F.R.S., of 147-A Gower Street, was a man whose energy of purpose and clearness of thought might have placed him in the very first rank of scientific observers. He was the victim, however, of a universal ambition which prompted him to aim at distinction in many subjects rather than preeminence in one.

  In his early days he had shown an aptitude for zoology and for botany which caused his friends to look upon him as a second Darwin, but when a professorship was almost within his reach he had sudden
ly discontinued his studies and turned his whole attention to chemistry. Here his researches upon the spectra of the metals had won him his fellowship in the Royal Society; but again he played the coquette with his subject, and after a year’s absence from the laboratory he joined the Oriental Society, and delivered a paper on the Hieroglyphic and Demotic inscriptions of El Kab, thus giving a crowning example both of the versatility and of the inconstancy of his talents.

  The most fickle of wooers, however, is apt to be caught at last, and so it was with John Vansittart Smith. The more he burrowed his way into Egyptology the more impressed he became by the vast field which it opened to the inquirer, and by the extreme importance of a subject which promised to throw a light upon the first germs of human civilisation and the origin of the greater part of our arts and sciences. So struck was Mr. Smith that he straightway married an Egyptological young lady who had written upon the sixth dynasty, and having thus secured a sound base of operations he set himself to collect materials for a work which should unite the research of Lepsius and the ingenuity of Champollion. The preparation of this magnum opus entailed many hurried visits to the magnificent Egyptian collections of the Louvre, upon the last of which, no longer ago than the middle of last October, he became involved in a most strange and noteworthy adventure.

  The trains had been slow and the Channel had been rough, so that the student arrived in Paris in a somewhat befogged and feverish condition. On reaching the Hotel de France, in the Rue Laffitte, he had thrown himself upon a sofa for a couple of hours, but finding that he was unable to sleep, he determined, in spite of his fatigue, to make his way to the Louvre, settle the point which he had come to decide, and take the evening train back to Dieppe. Having come to this conclusion, he donned his greatcoat, for it was a raw rainy day, and made his way across the Boulevard des Italiens and down the Avenue de l’Opera. Once in the Louvre he was on familiar ground, and he speedily made his way to the collection of papyri which it was his intention to consult.