CHAPTER VI.
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CATHERINE MARKET.
Of all the quaint old landmarks still standing in the city of New Yorkthat serve to remind the more ancient of its inhabitants of the dayswhen they were young, surely none so quaint and curious as the oldCatherine Market and its surroundings can be said anywhere to exist.
It stood there at the foot of the street whose name it bears when thewriter was a boy--and many long years before--and will, no doubt,stand there long after he is dead and gone, a low, narrow shed ofrotten wood, in color a dingy brown, with three half-round windows onthe ferry side--we mean the ones over the oyster booth, where theyused to give a round dozen saddle-rocks to every stew, and over thecoffee and cake saloon, where the butter-cakes were always fresh on thepan--looking like the eyes of some great monster standing majesticallyalone in the center of the little square, calmly watching the crowdsthat pour out of the ferry-gates as the sun rises up, and pour in againas it goes down.
Now there is nothing stylish about the Catherine Market, nothing in anyway smacking of "tone."
It is not one-third the size of the Washington Market, nor does itprofess to have that far-famed celebrity for succulent meats, fatturtle, fish, oysters and clams to which Fulton Market lays claim.
But it does a driving, thriving business of its own, just the same,does the Catherine Market--make no mistake about that!
For here come to purchase their daily supplies the denizens of Water,Cherry and Oliver streets, of Madison, Monroe and Hamilton streets, tosay nothing of East Broadway, equal in number, when taken all in all,to the population of a good-sized city in themselves.
If one wants to see the Catherine Market in the full tide of itsbustling trade, Sunday morning is the time to come--when the fishpeddlers cluster outside its walls, between the hours of four and five.
They spread themselves up South street; they stand beside their pails,tubs and baskets on the sidewalk facing the old tumble-down rookerieson the side of Catherine street to the right of the market itself, andbefore the second hand clothing stores on the left.
Blue-fish, white-fish, weak-fish, porgies, twisting eels, and softclams strung on strings, lobsters alive and lobsters boiled, soft-shellcrabs, packed in moss-lined boxes, hard-shell crabs, not packed atall--all are spread about outside of this singular building on thesidewalk in the gutter--yes, even in the very street itself, while thebawling of the fishermen as they cry the merits of their wares, thecackle of housewives, moving about here and there with giant marketbaskets on their arms, are all mingled in one unearthly clatter and din.
Nor is this all.
Other branches of trade must needs elbow their way into this busy spotas well, all carried on from baskets in the open streets, be it plainlyunderstood, whose owners sit or stand beside them on the pavement asbest they can.
But waste no time in seeking what is new.
This is most emphatically the bartering-place of the worn and old.
Second-hand coats, trousers, hats and shoes. Damaged crockery, rustycutlery, half-worn articles of ladies' apparel, whose uses we would, ofcourse, not even dare to name. Lace curtains, kitchen pots and pans,cheap chromos, candlesticks and beads, all are represented here, whilesmall peddlers, whose stock in trade is carried in their hands, movehere and there in the crowd, adding, with their various cries, to thestrangeness of the scene.
We left Detective Hook by the church-yard wall at the moment of hisencounter with the woman who with strange mutterings hurried past.
We find him at the early hour of half-past four moving down Catherinestreet in the direction of the singular scene we have just described.
And just before him is the woman, still treading wearily along thesnow-covered sidewalk, her wild eyes ever roving here and there, nowto the right and now to the left, never resting for even one moment oftime.
The storm has ceased at last. The clouds have rolled away to theeastward; the stars shine brightly in the cold, wintry sky.
And the busy market is teeming with activity and life while theremainder of the great city is still locked in slumber and repose.
Who is this strange creature with her singular mutterings concerning"bats in the wall?"
It is just this that the detective sought to learn; and in the endeavorto learn it had not suffered the woman to pass from his observationfrom the moment of their first encounter until now.
At the instant of their meeting he had stopped her and questioned hersharply.
That she was beyond all question insane was perfectly clear.
Her remarks were most incoherent, and yet they bore direct reference tothe subject weighing most heavily upon the mind of Detective Hook: therobbery of the Webster Bank.
"He robbed the bank! He robbed the bank! I warned him, but he would notheed."
This was her sole answer to the questions the detective had pressedupon her, mingled with muttered words of thankfulness to the "bats inthe wall."
Now nine men out of ten, under similar circumstances, would havearrested this woman at once.
Detective Hook was of a different sort.
Let him arrest this woman mad beyond a doubt--and, save for such vagueinformation as could be drawn from her muttered ravings, her usefulnesswould at once be destroyed.
Follow her, and there was no telling where she might lead him--possiblyto the abode of the bank-robbers themselves.
That she had seen those who blew open the vault, either enter orleave the bank, from her rambling words the detective became firmlyconvinced; so he let her go, and, dropping all else, followed herthrough the streets on that Sabbath morning. If nothing came of it hecould at least arrest her whenever he pleased.
And a long road she had led him, until at the Catherine Market we findthem now, with Caleb Hook seriously debating in his mind whether itwould not be best to take her in charge at once and end this so faruseless chase.
Crossing Cherry street, the woman pushed her way among the old clothesdealers and second-hand venders whose baskets were crowded together inthe snow-covered street upon this side, and passing along the wall ofthe market itself, paused among the fish-mongers who cluster oppositethe ferry gate.
"Fresh fish this morning, ma'am?" cried a runty vender, well wrapped upin a coat that looked as though it might have done service in the daysof Noah's flood. "Blue-fish, weak-fish, flounders, sea-bass, eels. Anykind you want you'll find right here!"
But the woman did not heed him.
Moving slowly on among the baskets, she passed the front of the marketand crossed the street to the other side.
There she turned, and proceeding perhaps half way up the block,stopped before the window of a low rum-shop, and, raising her handto her forehead, stood peering in behind the corner of the batteredcurtain which shielded its lighted interior from the gaze of anover-inquisitive outer world.
"At last she stops," muttered the detective to himself, as he took hisstation by the side of the old hotel on the corner of Catherine streetand South, watching to see what her next move would be. "Now, whoseplace is that, I wonder, and what does she expect to see?"
He glanced at the sign above the door of the groggery.
"The Donegal Shades, by P. Slattery," was the way it read.
It was evidently a saloon for the accommodation of the marketmen, openat this early hour on Sunday morning in defiance of the law.
As he did so his attention was attracted by two figures advancingtoward 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 thepair carrying a bundle of newspapers under his arm.
At the same instant the woman, having seemingly satisfied hercuriosity, 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'sShades.
At the same moment the two boys came to a halt beneath a street lampbefore the saloon, toward which the younger of the pair pointed withhis 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 DetectiveHook, glancing carelessly at them, obtained a good view of the featuresof both.
With a smothered exclamation of surprise he came to a suddenhalt--stood staring for an instant only at the features of the elderboy.
It was Frank Mansfield who stood before him--the youthful clerk of theWebster Bank, who had so strangely vanished from beside the Trinitychurch-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 walklike a deer.
"Stop there!" cried Hook, springing forward with a bound. "Halt! youyoung rascal!" and he reached forth his hand to catch the flying boy bythe tails of his coat, now almost within his grasp.
But a sudden obstacle intervened.
At this identical moment a roughly dressed individual emerged hastilyfrom the Donegal Shades, carrying upon his arm a large open basketloaded with fish, thrusting himself inadvertently directly in thedetective's path.
It all happened in an instant, and indeed, it is difficult to explainhow it happened at all.
But the foot of the detective slipping beneath him, he came in suddenand violent contact with the basket of fish, throwing the ownerbackward in the snow, falling himself at full length by his side, whileFrank Mansfield and his newsboy companion sped up the street with thespeed of the wind.
In an instant they had turned the corner of Cherry street and were lostto view.
The owner of the basket leaped to his feet, and sprang away up thestreet with a bound.
He paid not the slightest heed to the fish scattered aroundhim--stopped for nothing at all.
"Confound the luck," muttered Detective Hook, scrambling up as best hecould. "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 thefish-basket beneath his feet.
There, mingled with the fish upon the surface of the snow, lay a heapof bright silver dollars--not one, but ten, twenty--a hundred or more,with three or four bags beside the pile, evidently filled with the samesort of coin.