Notes: One of the schools I went to as a child was right next to a cemetary. The cemetary was equipped with its own crematorium and on some days the smell would carry down to the school grounds. My highschool was also close to a bonemill, so close that you could smell the bone charring if the wind blew right. I combined my experiences of both smells in this chapter...
Great big black billows of smoke blowing on the wind, a foul, yet distubringly tantalising scent carried in the smog. Several persons in the neighbourhood had complained about it. The smell, like burning meat, riddled with odd wisps of things like charring hair, woodsmoke, and the slightest hint of braised onions. It was at one disgusting, and yet enticing. If you stood too long and breathed too deeply you would begin to feel sick and hungry at the same time.
Was that her pies? They asked, Was that what they smelled like when they were baking? What an odd time to be baking too, they said, but they supposed it was the only time she could find to do it. Digusting, foul smell, conjuring up images of blackened brisket bones, dog food, meat roasted until it was so tender all you had to do was touch it and a piece would simply slide off.
Some neighbours didn't complain. They shut their windows against the breeze and surrounded themselves with dried flower packets, far too polite to consider discussing the dreadful smells. Others had already gone to the police, who had informed them that bad smells were not a cause for arrest. If they were, hundreds of people would be out of jobs as factories were closed down and everyone who broke wind in public would be arrested.
Nobody was satisfied with that answer but most were content to go home and forget trying to get the police to step in. Disgruntled and cursing that woman baker, they retired for the night and hoped for a change in the wind. But one or two people did not go home. These enterprising bodies went elsewhere in their search for justice. They went directly to the scource of justice, a man in charge of justice, a man who was justice. They sought audience with the honourable Judge Turpin.
It was only days later that the Judge took action, sending a man of his own to investigate the matter. That man was Beadle Bamford, and he was knocking on Mrs. Lovett's door. Impatiently he waited on the step, checking his pocket watch as the seconds ticked on. His next knock on the door was more like a hammering, the door rattling on its hinges.
"Alright, alright, keep your trousers on!" The voice sailed up from below his feet and the beadle looked down in surprise. To the side of the building was a set of doors that obviously led down to a cellar of sorts, those doors were open, and moments later he saw the top of Mrs. Lovett's head appear as she trooped up a flight of stairs to meet him. "Now, what's so bloody important that -... Oh! Mr. Bamford," her demeanour changed instantly from irritation to a polite smile in the space of a second. "What can I do for you, sir?"
Mrs. Lovett led the beadle downstairs into the dimly lit kitchen. The smell was even worse down here and mixed with a hint of sewerage, a smell so forbidding that the beadle was forced to cover his mouth and nose with a handkercheif. A fire was burning in the big oven, and through the circular window a pile of charring offal was just barely visible.
"It's the rubbish, sir," Mrs. Lovett explained politely, "and the sewer. This grate here in the floor, it goes right down to a man sewer pipe and there is where we toss the innards so's they don't make a mess. I get my meat straight off the animal, that's why my pies are so succulent. Only polite folk don't want to see animal bones or guts being carried out of the shop. So we put them in here," she gestured to the oven, "until they're nothing but ash."
The beadle considered this information, wandering around the kitchen to look at the table - dusted lightly with flour and carrying reams of fresh pastry covered in muslin - the grinder, the area she obviously used for butchering where the floor was stained a little and a dirty brown-red. Beadle Bamford had not been in many establishments like this, but as far as he could see the kitchen was clean enough; No rats or droppings, very little grime or grease clotting in the corners of the grinder.
As for the widowed baker's explanation, the beadle found himself in a unique position not often afforded to him. He understood. And as he understood it, Mrs. Lovett was not breaking any laws as she might have been if her shop were not in an area directly surrounded by other shops. Though the stench was undesirable... it also appeared to be unavoidable.
"I am sorry ma'am," the beadle spoke, looking down his nose at the cloth covered pastry that would soon become pie crust, "it appears I have wasted your time for nothing." By that he meant that he had wasted his time. For nothing.
"Oh, now sir, I wouldn't say that." Mrs. Lovett fluttered her eyelashes at him, a gesture he noticed was most becoming of her. "I happen to know that Mr. Todd has an opening in his schedule tonight, and wouldn't you know it! I remember Mr. T saying just the other day what an honour it would be if the well respected Beadle Bamford would come to him for a shave." The woman smiled at him and took his arm, beginning to lead him back up the stairs and out into the relative light of the lamp-lit night. "Why I'm sure he'd be so pleased he'd even do you at no charge. So long as you told folks where it was you got such a dashing close shave."
Mrs. Lovett winked, switching her hips so that her skirt bumped his side. Suddenly Beadle Bamford got an inkling. He smiled. Mrs. Lovett was still a fine, attractive woman, for all that she was middle aged and spent most of her time covered in a fine layer of flour, puttering around in a dingy kitchen. She was a fine, attractive woman who also needn't worry too much about her personal reputation. A dallyance with the local law would not affect the number of customers her pie shop brought in.
"Perhaps a quick shave couldn't hurt," Beadle Bamford agreed, allowing Mrs. Lovett to take him upstairs to the barber shop.
The bell chimed as Mrs. Lovett entered the shop. Mr. Todd turned, expecting to see her alone, perhaps carrying a tray of something or a cup of steaming tea. He did not expect to see her on the arm of another man. That was all that registered for a moment, that Mrs. Lovett had brought someone upstairs, that she was acting as though this someone was very familiar to her. A stab of anger made his face darken breifly, his palms throbbed to remind him of her past misdoings. Then he saw who it was that she had brought and the anger turned into something else. Mr. Todd's eyes locked with hers, just long enough to see the wicked little glint she was holding in them. Oh, she was a devil.
Mr. Todd put a smile on his face, and bowed slightly. "Beadle Bamford," he drawled, "a pleasure as always, sir."
Mr. Todd smiled still more deeply and bade the beadle to alight on the large leather chair in the middle of the room.
"Ingenius design," the beadle remarked, setting his feet on the odd built-in foot rest, "it's very comfortable." Surprisingly so, in fact.
"The chair is manufactured to make my services as enjoyable as possible," Mr. Todd replied. He liked to hear the metallic pop that preceeded the chair's collapse into a ramp, and the hiss of fabric as the corpse slithered into the chute through the open trap door. Eveing the beadle's middle, Mr. Todd wondered if this man would even fit through the chute. Light flashed on silver. Mr. Todd unsheathed his favourite razor and flicked it open with a flourish that made the silver wink. The barber barely restrained himself from winking back. He looked at Mrs. Lovett, offering her a cue. He wanted to be alone to savour the moment.
"I'll just pop downstairs and make some tea for you gentlemen. How do you like your tea Mr. bamford?" Mrs. Lovett asked sweetly.
"No milk," the beadle replied absently, settling himself into the chair properly, "one cube of sugar."
Mrs. Lovett dipped and impromptu curtsy before scurrying back downstairs. Mr. Todd could hear her footsteps recede, pattering as fast as his heartbeat and dropping away into silence. Mr. Todd drew his razor across a strap, making sure the edge was as keen as he could make it. Once, twice, like a lover's caress. he had waited so long for this, so long and now part of his revenge was once again within his grasp. No more waiting! He had waited long enough. Mr. Todd turned again to the beadle and smiled one last time.
A single slashing motion and it was over. Blood sprayed, drenching his shirt cuff and spraying droplets across his vest. The beadle's eyes were comically wide, staring at him in disbelief as the light drained. Mr. Todd slammed the lever for the trap door and the dying mess disappeared. There was a crunch, the trap door shut. The bell over the door jingled as Mrs. Lovett entered with a tea tray, with only one cup of tea.
"Now, it's your own fault, luv." A heavy thud echoed around the room, accompanied a second later by a squelchier thump as something large and covered in fat hit the floor. "For taking up with that man, becoming his servant, all in th name of money and power." The cleaver hacked joint from torso and Mrs. Lovett shook her head sadly. "You had the wrong motivation, dear. And now look where it's got you." A head rolled a few feet, coming to a stop beside the grinder. Mrs. Lovett clucked her tongue at it. "There's no use running away now. You'll just have to face it. You're dead, and that's what comes of sending innocent men into exile, or to the gallows."
"Here at least," she added, peeling layers and layers of fat away from the Beadle's torso to get at the few bits of meat beneath, "we can make something of you. You'll get turned into a nice, crispy meat pie all smothered in gravy on the inside. You'll get to make people happy, instead of making them miserable"
Mrs. Lovett threw the fat into a small wheelbarrow beside the table, wrinkling her nose at the wet slap. "Lousy sod," she said, "I bet all you ate was cakes."
It took such a small time to separate the decent meat from the Beadle's body. The small mound was pitiful, lumpy, and all of it dark meat. The rest of it Mrs. Lovett piled into her wheelbarrow and took to the oven. A life of rich living, paid for by Judge Turpin's pocket, had rendered the Beadle almost as unhelpful in death as he had been in life. The five pound in his pockets made up for that, a little. And the brass buttons on his waistcoat. At least it made Mr. Todd a little happier. Although... happier might not be the right word for it.
Mr. Todd had tried to sit down and drink the tea that Mrs. Lovett had brought. He got so far as settling into the small wooden seat in front of Lucy's old bureau, now just a table where he kept his pots full of soap and his brushes. He had sat down, the cup of tea in front of him, and had even taken a sip before he had spontaneously leapt to his feet again. The chair propelled back by the force of his movement, it teetered a moment but didn't fall.
Mr. Todd paced restlessly back and forth across the length of his shop, listening anxiously for the sound of Mrs. Lovett's voice filtering up from below. She wasn't there. Not yet. His ears strained, trying to hear her footsteps, listening for the sound of the door. He paced, then stopped and fell silent, breathing as quietly as he possibly could. He paced again, growing more and more anxious with each passing moment.
Somewhere there was a distant clang. Mr. Todd stopped; He stood as still as he possibly could, body as taut as a bow string. Soon he heard the sound of footsteps, distant and soft, coming from below. A scrape was a body being dragged across the floor. Then... yes, yes, that was it.
Mr. Todd looked back at the cup of tea he had left on the bureau. It was no longer steaming, but it may yet be warm enough to drink. Certainly still warm enough to drink. The barber hesitated, creeping towards the cup of tea as if it were something dangerous, a hand on the holster that held his best razor. He dragged the small wooden chair back into place, sitting down only slowly, as if he expected it to bite. The tea sat in front of him, innocent and aromatic. Dimly, Mr. Todd wondered if this was what domesticity felt like - he couldn't remember how it felt before.