"P. S.—The ship is removed to Crimmins's Wharf, but will be at her old moorings at time mentioned above."
"D—n Crimmins and his wharf, too!" cried Todd.
He flung himself into a chair, and sat for a time profoundly still. During that period he tried to make up his mind as to what it would be best for him, under the circumstances, to do. Many plans floated through his imagination. He could not for a long time bring himself to believe that the letter of the colonel's was anything but a feint to throw him off his guard in some way.
At length he got into a calmer frame of mind.
"Shall I leave at once, or stay till to-morrow night, that is the question?"
He argued this with himself, pro and con.
If he left he would have to secret himself somewhere all the following day, and the fact of his having left would make an active search, safe to be instituted for him, which would possibly be successful. Besides, how was he to conveniently set fire to his house, unless he was off on the moment that the flames burst forth?
Then if he stayed he had Mrs. Lovett to encounter, but that was all; and surely he could put her off for a few hours? Surely she, of all people in the world, was not to run to a police-office and destroy both him and herself, just because she did not get some money at ten o'clock that he had promised to hand to her.
"She shall be put off," he said, suddenly, "and I will stay over to-morrow. I am safer here than anywhere else, of that I feel assured. If there are any suspicious whisperings about me at all, they will grow to loud clamours the moment I am gone, and then they may reach the ears of these ship-owners, and they may say at once, 'Why we have such a man with a passage taken in one of our Hamburgh ships.' Let them say that when the ship is some twenty hours gone with me on board, and I don't care; but with me on land, and the ship only to sail, instead of having actually sailed, it is quite a different matter."
He rose from his seat. His mind was made up. He had not quite decided what he should say to Mrs. Lovett, but he had decided upon staying.