"The String of Pearls" is the first installment of the Sweeney Todd penny part serial. It introduces the homicidal barber who became a staple of Victorian melodrama. In his barber shop on Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd murders his clients by tipping them down a chute and cleaning them off afterward with his straight razor. The bodies are then carried through an underground passage to Mrs. Lovett's pie shop, where they're made into pies.