"I wonder," he said, when he reached the top of the first flight; "I wonder where the wily wretch slept. She never would let me up stairs since she occupied the house."
The locking-up propensities of Mrs. Lovett did not continue past the ground-floor; and Todd found all the doors upon the floor he was now on readily enough yield to his touch. The second one he went into was undoubtedly the room he sought. It was rather elegantly furnished as a bed chamber; and as Todd stood in the centre of the floor, he chuckled to himself, and muttered—
"Ha! when she rose this morning, she did not quite fancy she was taking her last look at this chamber. Ha! ha! Well, my dear Mrs. L., you had some taste, I will admit, for this room is very nicely got up. It is a world of pities you had not sense enough to be my slave, but you must try to be my equal, which in your poor vanity you thought I could permit. No—no—no!—that was impossible. Why should I single you out of all the world, Mrs. Lovett, to be just to?"
This, in Todd's estimation, was a very conclusive argument, indeed. Whether it would have been so to Mrs. Lovett is another thing.
And now the arch villain commenced a search in the chamber of his victim of the most extraordinary character for minuteness that could possibly be conceived. It was quite clear that there he expected to find something worth looking for, and that if he were foiled, it should not be for want of due diligence in the investigation.
Todd Destroys Mrs. Lovett's Furniture.
In the course of ten minutes, the trim and well-kept bedroom was one scene of confusion and disorder. The dressing-glass was thrown down, and, being in his way once, was kicked to the other end of the room, and smashed to fragments. The bed-clothes were tossed hither and thither in the most reckless manner. Boxes were burst open and ransacked, but all in vain. Not one penny-piece could Todd discover.
"Confound her!" he said, as he wiped his brow with a lace cap he picked off the dressing-table; "confound her! I begin to suspect that what she had of her own she put in her pocket this morning, and it has gone down to the bottom of the river with her! How infernally provoking!"
He peeped up the chimney, and got nothing by that motion but a flop of soot in his eye.