"Ah, that was the only chance; but of course if he had done so he must have been taken at once into custody—that would have been all. Come on, my friends, come on. Our trouble with regard to Todd is over now, I think."
The two churchwardens of St. Dunstan's and the beadle, and four of Sir Richard Blunt's officers, and the fruiterer from opposite, now came up from below the shop of Sweeney Todd, where they had been all waiting to catch Mr. Wrankley when the chair should descend with him.
"Conwulsions!" said the beadle, "I runned agin everybody when I seed him a-coming. I thought to myself, if a parochial authority had been served in that 'ere way, there would have been an end of the world at once."
"I had some idea of asking you at one time to play that little part for me," said Sir Richard.
"Conwulsions! had you, sir?"
"Yes. But now, my friends, let us make a careful search of this house; and among the first things we have to do is, to remove all the combustible materials that Todd has stowed in various parts of it, for unless I am much deceived, the premises are in such a state that the merest accident would set them in a blaze."
"Conwulsions!" then cried the beadle. "I ain't declared out of danger yet then!"
CHAPTER CXI.
MRS. LOVETT PLANS.
We hasten to Bell Yard again.
Mrs. Lovett's immersion in the Thames had really not done her much harm. Perhaps the river was a little purer than we now find it, and probably it had not entirely got rid of its name of the "Silver Thames"—an appellation that now would be really out of place, unless we can imagine some silver of a much more dingy hue than silver ordinarily presents to the eye of the observer.