That sad woman, they said. A polite one, certainly, eager to chat for a while and offer up a pie if you stop by, but quite, quite mad. It was all a very sad business, they said. That poor woman. Some meant it sincerely.
Rumors circulated, as rumors will, and, as neighbors will, they speculated. Some involved ludicrous tales of lost love and convicts and rape, but the people of Fleet Street laughed. If such things had ever happened around here, they assured each other, we would have known. No, that woman is just plain mad, crazy as can be. Pity, really. But she is such a pleasant creature.
Come and sit in her shop, they urge. Talk to her a bit. Normal on the outside, she is—until you notice her speaking to someone not there, and referring to nonsensical events and people. Harmless, though; simply an amusement. Why lock her up? Certainly not a danger to herself or anyone else. She still runs her little shop as busily as if she were truly sane. But, they laugh, it's gawkers that are the customers nowadays.
Sometimes odd events brought around suspicious authorities. Noises from the bakehouse, screams in the room above the shop. They always wave the inspectors away. Just that woman again, they dismiss. She's nothing to worry about. Same as any day, she'll open up her shop and continue business tomorrow, just like usual.
Some wonder if the rumors are true. All those years ago, remember, that man who lived in the room above the shop killed his wife and was sent to Australia? Had a baby girl, too. What happened to her? Oh, they're sure they couldn't say for sure—sent off somewhere, perhaps. Poor child. Perhaps those events are connected to the woman's insanity, wouldn't they think? No, no, she hadn't become truly mad until more recently—after what she went through, it is understandable.
Yes, it must have been that strange thing that happened a few months back. That beggar woman and the strange man—none of them had ever seen him before—both found dead in the room above the shop. Authorities decided it was a suicide on the man's part, after he had murdered the beggar woman. Had the mad woman been involved? Sound asleep in her bed downstairs, they reported. Couldn't have heard a thing. They all agreed that it was around that time that the woman had opened up her shop and shown her insanity.
Why had that man killed himself and the beggar woman? None of them know for sure; or perhaps they simply do not care. He was, after all, a stranger, and she an uninteresting beggar. Neither of any consequence or interest.
Except that now the pie shop on Fleet Street is run by a cheerful woman handing out pies and talking to the nonexistent Toby and telling her customers about Sweeney Todd's Tonsorial Parlor, newly opened, don't they know. Could her madness possibly be connected to the deaths in the room above the shop? Only through shock, they decide. Mrs. Lovett's mind had never been quite stable.