"Now, you listen to me, lad-"
"I WON'T!"
"You must tell us everything you saw! Everything you heard, do you understand?"
Tobias 'Ragg' Reginald clung to a leg of the butcher table, his entire body cringing against Mrs. Lovett's grimy floor. Sir Blunt was trying his hardest to present a facade of friendliness, but Toby knew better. When he spoke, it was with the innocent poetic eloquence with which he had first admonished the constables for entering into his mistress's bake house.
"You must understand, sir, I should expect a slash were I to divulge such things." His voice quivered. "And my mistress will hear not a word against him, so I must...I must remain silent!"
"Surely now that Mr. Todd is in prison, you are safe from him?" Blunt reasoned.
"Don't say it!" Toby cried, his eyes glittering with fear. The two policemen looked at each other. What had the boy seen?
"Say what, lad?" Blunt knelt now, peering under the table at Tobias.
"That name."
Blunt heaved a sigh of exasperation. "Why don't you think on it. There will be a reward for you if you cooperate. You could go to a boy's school and learn a trade. There would be money in it for you."
"I have my orders," Toby said stubbornly. Sir Blunt gazed at him for a moment, and then pushed himself off the floor.
"At the very least, you should leave the bake house. You're half starved, lad. You can let us fix you up at the inn, no charge."
"You mustn't ask me again about the demon barber," Toby said softly. "It'll be my death and yours too."
"Very well. But will you come?"
Toby considered, and then slowly released the table leg. Shaking the dust from his now white hair, he rose from the floor and let out a sigh as he made a few staggered steps towards the policemen and their captain.
"Thankin' you kindly, sirs...I should like to sleep."
With that, he pitched forward in a dead faint.
--
"I am NOT eating that." Mrs. Lovett wrinkled her nose as she stared down at the crust of gray bread. Despite beatings, abuse, and near death, her attitude had returned with her appetite, and neither were going to be appeased by what she saw on her plate.
"What did you expect, woman, roast pheasant?" Todd scoffed at her. "It's all you've got and probably all you will ever get, so shut up and eat it."
"And this place, it isn't fit for a pig to live in, neither." she added as she stood up, moving gingerly. After a few hours sleep, the bruising still pained her, but not nearly as badly as it did before.
"Mrs. Lovett, how is it possible you can be so undeniably stupid?" Todd snarled. "They mean to hang us. Do you really think they care what state we're in when they send us to the noose?"
"Then I think they ought to treat us kindly, don't you? That would be the right thing to do," Mrs. Lovett grumbled as she stood on her toes, trying to get a peek out of the window.
Todd laughed, a hollow, mirthless sound. "When did you ever care about right and wrong?"
Mrs. Lovett turned her eyes to him. Her gaze was cold, colder than he'd ever seen. It was a hint of the true state of her soul.
"Never," she said softly. "When you grow up like I did, in a world of drunks and louts and murderers and whatever else, you can't afford morality. We can't all be gentile toffs like you, Mister Todd."
"And yet you expect kind treatment."
"It's high time I had it, don't you think? Haven't I earned something for the pains I've been through?"
"The pains you've been through?" Todd exclaimed, his voice full of incredulity. "Never mind the Judge violating my wife, never mind his ill designs on my daughter, and then your outrageous claim that you deserved my affections more than Lucy-"
"Like she could've given you any kind of solace, that half dead street rat-"
Mrs. Lovett let out a cry as Todd pitched the wooden plate at her. She ducked as the plate shattered against the wall. Todd lunged at her, his hand raised, but she dodged away from him, so his fist impacted stone. He hissed with pain and turned to face her, her arms crossed before her face.
"You are VILE," he informed her, breathing heavily. "A vile, cruel, evil little she-devil of the Pit."
"Oh, quite a laugh," Mrs. Lovett spat as she lowered her arms. "You slashing throats right and left. That's all you'll be remembered by, your razor and your madness. D'you think anyone will ever think back on you with pity? And your LUCY, well-"
Todd made a queer exhalation of breath, lifting himself slowly as if to strike again. But Lovett pressed on.
"You sullied her good name when you were arrested first, but with your bloody vengeance now, they won't even remember her except as a pitiful hag that YOU murdered."
"SHUT UP!" Todd roared, diving towards her. But Lovett evaded him again, this time pressing herself against the wall opposite. Growling, Todd again turned to face her, eyes glittering with hate.
"Say whatever you like about me, Benjamin Barker," Mrs. Lovett breathed caustically. "But you were the one who made murder into whimsy, and you paid for it with her life."
"It should've been yours." Todd said with vehement pleasure at the idea.
"The only justice in that is the kind you made up, same as the kind the Judge made up when he first saw your wife. You're no better. It makes your tragedy false," Lovett said, each syllable damning and resentful. Every muscle in Todd's body seized, desperate to make an end of her, to break her flimsy little neck...
But his intellect told him differently. If he wanted to survive this- and he did, despite himself -he would have to swallow his pride and his hatred. It was a painful effort, but he pushed himself against the wall and slid back down to the floor.
"You're right," he said harshly, the words catching in his proud throat. "I have no place to judge you."
Mrs. Lovett blinked. Her expression went from disbelieving, to confused, and finally to graciously righteous.
"Well, then. As long as that's settled."
She eyed him dolefully for a moment, and then went to gather the pieces of the broken plate.
"I'm still going to complain about the food."
Behind his back, Todd was clenching his fists in an effort to prevent them from flying into Lovett's pouting face.
--
Tobias was frightened. He already indicated as much to the police, and they promised his safety, but it did nothing to allay his fears. Though, he couldn't deny that the bath had been fine, and the meal even finer. It was good to sleep now between clean sheets in a room that didn't stink of rot, devoid of ghastly windy hallowing. Hot soup was even better, cleansing the stigma of those hideous pies.
He was clean now. But despite this, despite the good food and the calm room, the fresh clothes and the promise of advancement, Toby Reginald was afraid. He could hear urgent tones behind the thin wooden door. He crept out of his bed and padded over to the door, pressing his ear against the soft wood. Through it, he heard voices he recognized, that of the guard, Constable Mallory, and Sir Inspector Richard Blunt.
Toby liked Constable Mallory far more than Sir Blunt. Mallory was kind and soft spoken, charitable and easy to trust. It would up to him to arrange Toby's transfer to St. Mark's Country School for Boys. It was a boarding school, Toby knew, but he didn't mind. It offered him betterment, he knew better than to resent the chance.
More importantly, Mallory had offered him houseroom until it was time to go to St. Mark's. Toby had not words to express his gratitude for this kindness, this salvation. They had insisted on one thing, however. Cooperation concerning Mr. Todd.
Toby didn't like to think of Mr. Todd. He couldn't straighten out his mind about the man. One occasion, he had seen the barber shedding tears over a fragment of sewn linen. On another, he had spied the epilogue to the bloody massacre of the Beadle Bamford and watched as Todd had laughed over the body. At first, it was a tiny 'ha'. Then it had grown into a sickening whoop of mirth, until he was stamping with glee. Finally after he had recovered himself, Toby watched with horror as he reverently cleaned a razor that was dripping with what was most assuredly blood before stowing them back in its case. When he had taken these suspicions to Mrs. Lovett, she had reacted with incredulity, avoiding his exclamations and his concerns.
Mrs. Lovett. She was there now, Sir Blunt said, with Mr. Todd. Toby had seen their struggles from beneath the floor, peering between the slats of the cellar door. He had seen the vicious conflict between the two, the two remainders of Todd's escapades in the tonsorial parlour lying bloody and pale on the bake house floor, but he had not witnessed the actual demise of either the Beadle Randall Bamford or Judge Thomas Turpin.
Toby considered this as he listened to the rumblings beyond the door.
"I don't see why you're bothering to take so much time with this, sir. You don't usually have qualms about sending your lot straight to the gallows." Constable Mallory's tone was a scoff. He didn't approve of the unctuous Sir Blunt, and that was one of the reasons Toby liked him.
"I contend that neither of the villains need a trial to prove to my satisfaction what occurred here, but since the crime in question involves a judge of the higher circuits, the Courts of Justice are keeping a particularly keen eye on things. They insist that I must follow the formula to the letter. It's troublesome, yes, but that is why I need you to keep a handle on our witness. His is the most damning evidence, but Constable, you must extract it from him!" Sir Blunt sounded irked and impatient. More so, he sounded bloodthirsty, and that disturbed Toby.
"I'm just saying, it won't be easy. The boy was frightened badly by the man, and he needs someone to guide him through this."
"It's excellent that you are concerned, Mallory. Because, you see, I am not. I need information, not melodrama. I need something to put the nail in their coffin."
"I really think the best way to get cooperation is to gain confidence, sir, so I must ask you not to badger the lad. He's been through enough."
"Just as long as you get the job done."
"How long until you plan to go to trial?"
"Preferably next month, but that is unlikely. Once the public defenders get involved, they'll push it for as long as possible, and they'll demand separate trials, but I plan to try and negotiate clemency for the woman if she testifies against him. You can count on at least three or four months."
"So Mrs. Lovett is your job, and Mr. Reginald is mine."
"Exactly."
Toby was brighter than he ever got credit before. He connected three or four months with the length of time until he would have to speak before a jury. He shuddered at the thought of Mr. Todd's eyes on him.
But he knew that sooner or later he would have to pay what he owed in return for this kindness.