The String of Pearls (1850), p. 445

"Does she really? Well—well, we will manage with one glass, my dear Mrs. Stag. It is the first time we have had a drop together, and I have only to hope that it will not be the last. I ought not, perhaps, to say it before your face, but you are the most entertaining company that I have met with for a long time.—Drink, madam."
"After you, sir."
"No—no, I insist."
Mrs. Stag drank off the full glass that Todd presented her with, and then affecting to pour one out for himself, but dexterously keeping the bottle between him and the lady, he only carried the empty glass to his lips. Now, Mrs. Stag was a decided connoisseur in gin, and she suddenly assumed a thoughtful air, and looked up to the ceiling as she slightly moved her lips.
"Rather an unusual taste after its down, don't you think, sir?" she said.
"Has it ? Well, I don't know. Perhaps you have been tasting a pie, madam, and that may have influenced the flavour. Try it again. You never can tell the taste of a glass of gin, in my opinion, until you have taken two at least. Try this, Mrs. Stag."
"Really I—I. Thank you, sir."
Off went a second glass, and then Todd glared at her with the eyes of a fiend, as he said; placing the bottle upon the counter, "That ought to be a dose,
I think."
"Sir?" stammered Mrs. Stag. I—I—God bless me—I—sir—gin—I—that is lots of pies—gin—gravy. Mrs. Lovett—in the crown of a bonnet—I—my dear, my dear—Bless us all. Lock it all up—no—no—no. Gin—I—good again—Pies—gravy."
Todd caught her by the throat or she would have fallen; and then, as she became quite insensible, he thrust her under the counter.

CHAPTER CL.
TODD MAKES HIMSELF QUITE AT HOME IN BELL-YARD.

"Idiot!" said Todd, as he spurned the insensible form of Mrs. Stag with his foot. "Idiot! I would kill you, but that it would not do me any good. The narcotic you have taken in the gin may or may not carry you off for all I care. It don't matter to me one straw."
He glared around him for a few moments with the fierceness of an ogre, and then walking to the shop-door, he deliberately locked and bolted it, so that no one could get in, even if they were expiring for a pie.
"Humph," he said. "This is a time of day when it is not likely the shop will be troubled with many customers. It is between the batches, I know, so I am safe for an hour; and during that time if I do not make some discoveries here, it will surely be my own fault."
Again he glared around him with the ogre-like aspect, and he ran his eyes carefully over the whole shop, from corner to corner—from floor to roof, and from roof to floor. At length he said—
"Where now, if I were hiding anything, would I select a place in this shop?"
After putting this question to himself Todd again ran his eyes over the shop, and at lenght he came to the conclusion that it was not there he should seek for any hiding place at all, and he certainly paid the sagacity of Mrs. Lovett one of the highest compliments he possibly could by concluding that she would do as he would under like circumstances."
"No," he said. "The shop is no hiding place for the secret store of my late friend Mrs. Lovett. No—no. I must seek in the very centre of her home, for that which 1 would find. Let me think—let me think."