"Well," said Sir Richard, as he opened his desk, "since you are not to be knocked down by poverty, what say you to riches? Do you know these, Mr. Ingestrie?"
"Why, that is my String of Pearls."
"Yes. I took this from Todd's escritoire myself, and they are yours and Johanna's. Will you permit me always to call you Johanna?"
"Oh, yes—yes. Do so. All who love me call me Johanna."
"Very well. This String of Pearls, I have ascertained, is worth a sufficient sum to place you both very far above all the primary exigences of life. It will be necessary to produce them at the trial of Sweeney Todd, but after that event they will be handed to you to do what you please with them, when you can realise them at at once, and be happy enough with the proceeds."
"If my poor friend, Thornhill," sighed Mark Ingestrie, "could but have lived to see this day!"
"That, indeed, would have been a joy," said Johanna.
"Yes," said the magistrate; "but the grave has closed on his poor remains—at least, I may say so figuratively. He was one of Todd's victims, one of his numerous victims; for I do believe that, for a long time, scarcely a week passed that did not witness some three or four murders in that man's shop."
"Horrible!"
"You may well use that expression, in speaking of the career of Sweeney Todd. It has been most horrible; but there cannot be a doubt of his expiating his crimes upon the scaffold, together with his partner in guilt, Mrs. Lovett."