"You say you have lost pearls?"
"Yes—yes.—Orient pearls."
Todd dived his hand into the breast of his apparel and produced the string of pearls. He held them before the ravished and dazzled eyes of John Mundell, as he said—
"Were they like these?"
With a cry of joy Mundell grasped at the pearls. Tears of gratified avarice gushed from his eyes.
"My own—my own pearls—my beautiful pearls!—Oh, blessed chance—my pearls back again. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Ha!" echoed Todd, as he stepped behind the chair on which John Mundell was sitting.
With his left hand he took one vigorous grasp of the remaining hair upon the head of the usurer, and forced his back against the chair. In another instant there was a sickening gushing sound. Todd, with the razor he held in his right hand, had nearly cut John Mundell's head off. Then he held him still by the hair. Gasp—gasp—gasp—bubble—gasp—bubble.—Ah! ah! ah!—Goggle—goggle. A slight convulsive movement of the lashes, and the eyes set, and became opaquely dim. The warm blood still bubbled, but John Mundell was dead. Todd picked up the pearls and carefully replaced them in his bosom again.
"How many strange events," he said, "hang upon these baubles. Ah, it's only one more—a dirty job rather—but business is business!"
He stood in the room as silent as a statue, and listened intently. Not the slightest sound indicative of the proximity of any one came upon his ears. He felt quite convinced that the deed of blood had been done in perfect secrecy. But then there he was.—Who but he could be accused? There he stood, the self-convicted murderer. Had he not done the deed with the weapon of his handicraft that he had brought to the house? How was Todd to escape the seeming inevitable cold-blooded murder? We shall see. Huddled up in the chair, was the dead body. Mundell had not fallen out of the capacious easy seat in which he sat when he breathed his last. The blood rolled to the floor, where it lay in a steaming mass. Todd was careful—very careful not to tread in it, and he looked down his garments to see if there were any tell-tale spots of gore; but standing behind the chair to do the deed, as he had done, he had been saved from anything of the sort. There he stood, externally spotless, like many a seeming and smirking sinner in this world—but oh, how black and stained within!