Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery

by Locke, M. Louisa

  Since he didn’t know if she would find it insulting if he offered to help pay for things, he kept silent. She could be prickly about her financial independence. He also kept his mouth shut about the wedding trip he was planning for them to Los Angeles. Three days of uninterrupted privacy in one of the best cabins on a Pacific Coast steamship, then a week at a first-rate hotel with plenty of time to find the ranch she grew up on, see her mother’s grave, take in the sights. Then three days back. With the fee he would get from Pitts Stevens if the case went to trial, he’d have plenty of money to splurge. But when Annie started worrying about money for the wedding, he got cold feet and just said he was hoping they could get away for at least two weeks—didn’t give her any details.

  “Mrs. Sullivan will see you,” the matron said, standing in the office doorway and bringing him back sharply to his surroundings.

  As Nate stood up, he said, “Mrs. Gross, I meant to ask. Have any news reporters showed any interest in Mrs. Sullivan?”

  “There was the regular police beat reporter from the Evening Bulletin. He asked what she was in for, but when I said she hadn’t even been arraigned yet, he let it drop.”

  “Any other visitors?”

  “Just a woman, said her name was Iris Bailor, that she’d worked with Mrs. Sullivan. She has come several times, brought her some changes of clothing, some books to read.”

  Nate wondered if Alan Sullivan had simply given up trying to see his wife. Was it significant that none of the women Florence currently worked with at Rashers had tried to see her—just her old friend from the WCPU?

  Before leading him back down the corridor, the matron turned to Nate and said, “Lunch was just delivered to her...if you could encourage her to eat. I’m really worried about her health.”

  As Nate entered the cell, Florence looked up at him from where she sat on her bed, a tray of untouched food at her side. She looked worse than on Thursday. Her cheek bones were even more prominent, making her eyes look sunken, and the dress she was wearing gapped at the neck and puckered in the front, as if she were wearing clothing that belonged to a much larger person.

  Why was she starving herself to death? He could understand it if she were guilty, but the more he learned about the assault on Rashers, the less likely that seemed to be the case.

  After getting her permission to sit down across from her, Nate said, “Mrs. Sullivan, I am sorry to see you looking unwell. The matron told me that you haven’t been eating. Although looking at the lunch they provided for you, I can understand your reluctance.”

  Waving dismissively at the plate of congealing stew, which seemed mostly a thin gravy with a few lumps of white that he thought might be potatoes, he said, “If I were to bring you a basket of food this evening, would you promise to try and eat some of it?”

  He ignored the fact that she didn’t indicate agreement, deciding to include in his next report to Mrs. Pitts Stevens a request that she authorize him to have meals delivered to Mrs. Sullivan. The matron could probably advise him on this.

  Trying to sound bracing, he said, “I have to tell you, I am feeling increasingly confident about our chances when your case comes to trial. For example, the police are looking into several of Rashers’ competitors as possible suspects. I don’t suppose I need to tell you how some of them blamed him when their printing businesses failed.”

  Florence raised her head at his words, and Nate thought he saw a spark of interest, so he continued, saying, “I know it is distressful for you to talk about this. But I wondered if I could just tell you what I think happened, based on the evidence so far. All you have to do is correct me if I have gotten it wrong. Would that be acceptable?”

  Not really giving her time to respond, Nate started his recitation. He told her that he knew that on Friday she left work a little early, mentioning to Seth Timmons that Rashers had asked her to come back to work that evening. That she arrived home at five-thirty, had dinner with her mother, and then left for work about five after seven, leaving instructions with her maid that she would be home in time to get her mother into bed at nine.

  He didn’t mention what the maid said about overhearing Florence having an argument with her husband or him leaving the house without his dinner. Last time Nate brought up her husband, she threw him out, and he didn’t want that to happen again––although at some point he needed to convince her to let her husband visit. Otherwise Dart might use this as evidence that a breach between the two of them was related to Mrs. Sullivan’s supposed infatuation with Rashers.

  Instead, he recounted how she arrived back at Rashers at seven-fifteen, said good evening to the night porter, and came upstairs to work. He then said, “I assume you took off your coat, put on your apron, and picked up the copy you were supposed to typeset.”

  This was a guess on his part, but she didn’t contradict him, so he risked asking her a direct question. “Could you tell me where this copy was? My sister, remember I told you she sets type for the WCPU? She told me that their copy is stuck on something they call the hook. Is that where you got it?”

  Florence nodded.

  “I have been led to understand that the copy you got down from the hook was for an invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Rashers to their home for a farewell party before they started on an extended trip. Is that correct?”

  Florence nodded again.

  “And then a short time later you went into Rashers’ office with what I believe is called the ‘galley proof’ to show to Rashers. That was...”

  “No, that is wrong,” Florence said loudly. “I hadn’t even set the type for it yet, much less pulled the proof.”

  Nate, taken aback by her vehemence, said calmly, “All right, I must have been confused, but you did go into his office. And I believe that there you found him lying face down on the floor. You kneeled down to see what was wrong, with some effort pulled him over, and then saw all the blood. When you discovered there was nothing you could do for him, you got up and left the office, running into Seth Timmons. At which point you told him Rashers was dead and you fainted.”

  Nate looked carefully at Mrs. Sullivan’s face throughout this last part of his recital, and while she looked distressed when he mentioned finding Rashers’ body, she was nodding ever so slightly at each of his points, as if to check them against her own memories.

  Delighted to have some confirmation that she didn’t attack Rashers, if only in the fact she didn’t contradict his version of events, Nate leaned forward and said, “And I just spent a very informative hour with the City Physician, Dr. Blach, who did the autopsy. I believe his testimony will be quite helpful. He said that Rashers could have received his wounds any time after 6:30. So all we need to do now is find out who might have had a reason to attack Rashers and didn’t have an alibi for the period between 6:30 and when you arrived back at work at 7:15.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Monday, evening, July 12, 1880

  “...the compositors employed in the Chronicle office were called together by one of the proprietors and notified that...a reduction of ten per cent-from 50 cents to 45 cents per 1000 ems-was a necessity...” San Francisco Chronicle, April 22, 1880

  Laura looked nervously at her small pocket watch then slid it back into her brown leather purse. Six twenty-five, exactly. She’d timed it so that she would be approaching the corner of Sansome and Clay, where the Niantic was located, when Seth Timmons should be leaving Rashers for his dinner break.

  She’d spent the hour since she’d gotten off work looking through the bookstore on the first floor of the local publishers, Cunningham, Curtis, and Welch, just a block south of Nate’s law offices on Sansome. She’d bought a new Latin grammar, in case she needed an excuse to give Seth for why she was still downtown at this time. She thought she would say that Nate had mentioned where he worked and she had spontaneously decided to see if she could catch him on his break on her way home from the bookstore.

  Truth was, ever since her brother told her last week that Seth was
working at Rashers, she’d wrestled with the temptation to see him. When he turned down her invitation to go to the Kant lecture last spring, she vowed that she wouldn’t make the next move. If he really wanted to see her, he knew where she lived. Then, when she learned from Annie that Seth had been forced to find a second job in March, she suddenly felt petty. No wonder he’d not been able to come with her to the lecture. He was working days at his teaching job and nights at Rashers. He must have been exhausted all the time.

  Somehow, she felt she needed to do something to make up for her pettiness. So her plan today was to invite him to join the small group she’d formed with two friends to study for the university entrance exam next month. Show him she was still interested in pursuing the friendship.

  She also hoped he would be more forthcoming about the murder that happened at Rashers than either Annie or Nate had been. She understood why they were both so nervous about her getting mixed up in anything that might put her in danger. But honestly, her involvement in the events of last winter was all purely accidental. It wasn’t as if she’d been doing the sort of investigation that Annie engaged in all the time. She had just as much right to help her brother out in his case as Annie.

  There he is. Couldn’t miss him; that tall frame, the battered stetson, the full mustache. What luck, he is by himself. She waved but couldn’t tell if he saw her, so she concentrated on getting across Clay Street before he got to the corner.

  When she stepped up onto the wooden sidewalk and saw him waiting for her, all her prepared explanations for why she was in this part of town evaporated, and she found herself speechless.

  He took off his hat, ever the gentleman, and said, “Miss Dawson, why am I not surprised to see you? This couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that I’ve found myself mixed up in a case your brother is working on, could it?”

  Laura had forgotten how penetrating his grey eyes could be, but his teasing did have the effect of restarting her brain, and she said, “Mr. Timmons, how pleasant to run into you. When my brother told me you were also preparing for the university entrance exams, I decided to invite you to join me and some of my friends on Sunday...we are meeting at my boarding house in an informal study group.”

  Seth looked startled and began to mumble something about not wanting to intrude, so Laura rushed on, trying to forestall an outright rejection.

  She said, “Please don’t say no until I have had a chance to tell you a little more about how we are preparing for the exams. But I expect you can’t afford to be dilly-dallying on the street but must get your dinner. I haven’t eaten yet, so perhaps I could accompany you. My brother seemed to think highly of the place where he met you. Perhaps we could eat there?”

  Nate hadn’t said anything one way or the other about the restaurant, apart from it being Seth’s usual place to eat, but she thought a little white lie wouldn’t hurt in the circumstances. And she rather liked the feeling of being a daring modern woman, inviting a man to accompany her to dine.

  His response was immediate. With only a slight tinge of amusement showing in his voice, Seth said, “Miss Dawson, I would be honored if you would join me for dinner. Hank’s is just down the block. Not real high-class, but the food is good and cheap. Shall we?”

  He put his stetson back on and moved so he would be on her left, or street side, and touched her lightly on the elbow to urge her forward. As they walked down Clay, they re-established the pattern they followed last fall when he took her on buggy rides on the weekends; she babbled on while he listened silently. Only this time, the subject wasn’t her students at the Cupertino Creek School but what it was like working at the Women’s Co-operative Printers Union. In only a few minutes, they were at the restaurant, and he held the door open for her as she entered into a small room holding about a dozen tables.

  A young waitress hurried over, saying, “Mr. Timmons, you’re a bit late. I kept your table for you. No young man with you tonight?” She gave Laura a sharp glance.

  “Thanks, miss. Hope you didn’t have to inconvenience anyone.”

  The warmth of Seth’s polite response surprised Laura, but she told herself that of course Seth was the kind of man who treated waitresses with respect. She sat and gratefully pulled off her gloves, wishing she could unfasten the top button of the bodice of her brown wool polonaise. For the past few days, San Francisco had decided to behave like other cities in the summer, with temperatures hitting the high eighties. She’d thought about wearing her new ivory and bronze outfit today since it was lighter weight, but she couldn’t risk getting ink on it during the day while she was working. Maybe on Sunday? If he agreed to come.

  After Laura ordered a breast of chicken and a salad, and Seth got the veal cutlets and a side of potatoes, she said, “You may imagine my surprise when I learned that you were working for a printer as well. My brother said the machine you were working on was huge—and run by steam. What kind is it? Mr. Owen at the San Jose Mercury hoped to buy one of Hoe’s two-cylinder presses. At the WCPU, we just have a Koenig and a lot of Gordon jobbers.”

  “Rashers has a Cottrell and Babcock cylinder steam press that I––along with my apprentice Dunk––run. But at the Ledger, where I worked in Emporia, I worked on one of Hoe’s two-cylinder presses. That’s how I paid my way through the first two years of normal school in Kansas. I also did some typesetting for the paper.”

  Pleased at how downright loquacious Seth was being, Laura continued on in this vein, talking about her time working for the Mercury and her plans to become a skilled compositor. She said, “Iris Bailor, my forewoman, lets me do some page composing and proofing, as practice. I must say, the drills we had to do at San Jose in spelling and grammar certainly do help—you wouldn’t believe some of the errors that show up in the copy I am given to typeset. My seventh graders wouldn’t make some of those mistakes.”

  Seth laughed and said, “Since I am the only one at Rashers who reads German, I do all the proofing for the California Demokrat, and while the copy comes to us very clean, the apprentice typesetters do a terrible job on it. They never can figure out how to put in the special characters for the German words that show up.”

  Laura pounced on his mention of the apprentices, remembering that Iris was quite irate about how Rashers treated them. “I understand that Rashers hires a lot of female apprentices, and they don’t get paid much.”

  Seth replied, “Right now there are seven, all quite young. They do most of the typesetting as well as running the jobber presses. Some of them are pretty skilled. Mrs. Sullivan, the woman your brother is defending, is really an excellent teacher. But they were all forced to sign a four-year contract, and while they start to get paid after the first three months, the rate goes up very slowly. Two of the girls who have been with us longest are working at a speed nearing 700 em’s an hour, but only making about a dollar a day.”

  Laura was shocked. Three months with only getting free room and board was standard for an apprentice, but she’d never heard of any apprentice being held to a four-year contract. Typesetters were usually paid a certain amount for a 1000 em’s of type they set––ems being the standard measurement. An em varied depending on the type face, but usually was 1/6 of an inch in pica type. A moderately good typesetter should be able to set between 600 to 700 ems of type in an hour. She was proud that after a month of working at the WCPU she had finally gotten her typesetting speed up to 900 to 1000 ems an hour. And she was paid forty cents per 1000 ems.

  Of course, you couldn’t set type the whole day—you also had to redistribute the type between jobs and pull galley proofs of the type you’d set. But this still meant that on a good day, with fat copy (copy with a fair amount of blank spaces), she could make more than three dollars a day. Those apprentices must be making more like fifteen or twenty cents per 1000 ems. A terrible rate.

  Seth said, “I take it that you all get paid better at the WCPU?”

  “I’ll say. Why would anybody sign a contract like that?”

 
“Most times it’s their parents who sign them up, and they really don’t understand how the pay works. Rashers is, was, a very smooth talker. By the time he’d painted a glowing picture of how their daughters were going to be learning such a valuable skill—while being taken care of as if they were his own children––you would think that the girls should pay him for the privilege of working for him.”

  “Well, I would think that once you figured out how much you were being exploited, this would be reason enough to kill the man!”

  Seth gave her one of his rare smiles and said, “I wondered when we were going to get to the murder.”

  Laura decided to ignore his jibe, and she said, “I’m serious. Do you think that an apprentice could have done it?”

  Seth put down his fork, wiped his mustache carefully, and gestured to the waitress, who nodded and grabbed a pot and came over to pour him another cup of coffee.

  He said, “I don’t know. Rashers was one of those men who have natural charm. You could see it when he walked the floor. The girls would blush and giggle as he stopped by, but then when he’d left, they worked harder and faster. But he didn’t get along on charm alone. He worked long hours. He did the final proof on everything that went out of the firm. He was the first in and the last to leave. He knew exactly what his competitors were charging and charged just enough less to win away their customers.”

  “You sound like you admired him,” Laura said.

  “Actually, I despised him. Rashers was an arrogant man who thought he was better than everyone else––didn’t care who got hurt in the process of making money. The first lieutenant in my company in the war was like that. Most of the men would follow him to hell and back and not question why. A lot of good men got killed because of that lieutenant, and not everyone was under his spell. In the first skirmish of the battle of Plymouth, he was killed...rumor was the shot came from behind.”