"Humph!" said Todd; "John Mundell was half distracted by a heavy loss. He was ill, and his mind was evidently affected. He could not even shave himself. Oh, it is quite evident that John Mundell, unable to bear his miseries, real or ideal, any longer, in a fit of partial insanity, cut his throat. Yes, that will do."
Todd still kept the razor in his grasp. What is he going to do?—Murder again the murdered?—Is he afraid that a man,
"With twenty murders on his head!"
will jostle him from his perilous pinnacle of guilty safety?—No. He takes one of the clammy dead hands in his own—he clasps the half rigid fingers over the handle of the razor, and then he holds them until, in the course of a minute or so, they have assumed the grasp he wishes, and the razor, with which he, Todd, did the deed of blood, is held listlessly, but most significantly, in the hand of the dead.
The Murder Of The Usurer.
"That will do," said Todd.
The door is reached and unfastened, and the barber slips out of the room. He closes the door again upon the fetid hot aroma of the blood that is there, fresh from the veins of a human being like himself—no—no—not like himself.—No one can be like Sweeney Todd. He is a being of his own species—distinct, alone, an incarnation of evil! Todd was in no particular hurry to descend the stairs. He gained the passage with tolerable deliberation, and then he heard voices in the parlour.
"What a man you are!" said Mrs. Blisset.
"Ah, my dear, I am indeed. Who would not be a man for your sake? As for Mr. Blisset, I don't think him worth attention."