As he did so his attention was attracted by two figures advancing toward the saloon from the street above. One was a youth of twenty or twenty-one, the other a boy, his junior, perhaps, by a year or two. Both were roughly dressed in cheap, worn clothes, the younger of the pair carrying a bundle of newspapers under his arm. At the same instant the woman, having seemingly satisfied her curiosity, opened the door and entered the saloon. "Now, then," muttered the detective, "this has gone as far as it must. Unless I greatly mistake, there's business inside there for me." He moved rapidly forward as he spoke toward the door of P. Slattery's Shades. At the same moment the two boys came to a halt beneath a street lamp before the saloon, toward which the younger of the pair pointed with his raised right hand, addressing his companion in hurried words, spoken in too low a tone for the detective to hear. As he did so, in the light of the lamp above their heads Detective Hook, glancing carelessly at them, obtained a good view of the features of both. With a smothered exclamation of surprise he came to a sudden halt--stood staring for an instant only at the features of the elder boy. It was Frank Mansfield who stood before him--the youthful clerk of the Webster Bank, who had so strangely vanished from beside the Trinity church-yard wall. Fatal pause! In that instant of hesitation the eyes of the boy met his own. Seizing his companion by the arm, he turned and sped along the icy walk like a deer. "Stop there!" cried Hook, springing forward with a bound. "Halt! you young rascal!" and he reached forth his hand to catch the flying boy by the tails of his coat, now almost within his grasp. But a sudden obstacle intervened. At this identical moment a roughly dressed individual emerged hastily from the Donegal Shades, carrying upon his arm a large open basket loaded with fish, thrusting himself inadvertently directly in the detective's path. It all happened in an instant, and indeed, it is difficult to explain how it happened at all. But the foot of the detective slipping beneath him, he came in sudden and violent contact with the basket of fish, throwing the owner backward in the snow, falling himself at full length by his side, while Frank Mansfield and his newsboy companion sped up the street with the speed of the wind. In an instant they had turned the corner of Cherry street and were lost to view. The owner of the basket leaped to his feet, and sprang away up the street with a bound. He paid not the slightest heed to the fish scattered around him--stopped for nothing at all. "Confound the luck," muttered Detective Hook, scrambling up as best he could. "If I ain't a clumsy ass, there never was one! Where's the----" He paused suddenly, and stood staring down at the wreck of the fish-basket beneath his feet.