Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (20 page)

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.”

*****

T
wenty minutes later, Seth watched as Laura walked towards Kearney. There she’d get one of the North Beach and Mission cars that would take her to within a few blocks of the O’Farrell Street boarding house. Damn it all, he’d forgotten how her height and long stride translated into such a bewitching sway. Such a treat to see a woman who was comfortable walking, who didn’t wear one of those dresses that caused them to mince along. She grew up on a ranch so was probably a good horsewoman, too. Maybe if he could find a couple of decent horses in one of the city stables he should ask her...

Seth shook his head and started back to Rashers. An hour spent in Laura’s company and he started to think like a fool. She did that to him. He began to imagine a future. No good ever came of that for him. But she was all about the future. Even after her grand plans with her friend Hattie were ruined, she recovered. He shouldn’t have mentioned studying for the university entrance exam to her brother. Now he had to go through with taking them. She’d expect it of him. Just like she expected that he’d go along with her intentions to find out who killed Rashers so Florence Sullivan didn’t end up in jail for something she didn’t do. Her brother wasn’t going to be pleased when he found out Laura had gotten the names of Rashers’ most recent flirtations out of him.

He just plumb forgot how to guard his tongue when he was with her. Like mentioning the war. Something in her response made him think she already knew that he’d been one of the soldiers who fought at the battle at Plymouth, North Carolina. Fought and survived, only to be incarcerated in the deadly Confederate prison at Andersonville. She immediately turned the conversation to the question of whether Seth thought that any of Rashers’ business competitors could have killed him. But her eyes betrayed her.

Who told her? He never talked about his war experiences. But Baskin, his natural sciences professor at San Jose Normal School, had been a clerk in the capitol right after the war, processing discharge papers, and he was that odd type who seemed never to forget a name. Last year, Baskin came right out and asked him if he’d been in the 101st Pennsylvania regiment. Seth didn’t answer—but he guessed that was answer enough for Baskin, who probably told someone, who’d shared the rumor with someone else. God damned bunch of gossips.

At least Laura had the decency or good sense not to ask him about it. He wondered if it was Ned Goodwin who’d told her. He was one of her “friends” in the study group, but he’d also attended the Normal School with them. Seth didn’t much care for Goodwin. You’d think being wealthy, good-looking, and of reasonable intelligence, Ned wouldn’t need to be the center of attention at all times. But the boy never stopped talking––inside the classroom and out. Seth wished he hadn’t promised Laura he’d come to their study session on Sunday. Not sure he could stomach a couple of hours of Goodwin.

Seth picked up his pace as he crossed Montgomery, not wanting to be late getting back to work. He knew Griggs would be waiting for him, wanting to know all about Laura. There was another man who had to know everyone’s business. Sure had been unfortunate, running into him and Orrie Childers that way just as he and Laura left Hank’s. Odd, too. Orrie generally treated Griggs with lightly veiled distain. It was Rashers she’d set her sights on. Not that it had done her any good. No chance he’d have given her any of Florence’s responsibilities or pay—even if Mrs. Rashers was telling the truth and her husband had decided to give Florence the sack. Orrie just wasn’t that good a typesetter. Didn’t have enough education or experience to proof galleys either, much less lay out a page.

Of course who knew what would happen now that Rashers was dead? Maybe Orrie had the right idea. Made sense that Rashers’ widow would rely on the foreman to decide who to keep and who to let go. When he first started work, Griggs kept inviting him to have a drink with him after their half-day shifts on Saturdays. He’d eventually given up, saying Seth “was a hard nut to crack.”

Except for Dunk, Seth generally kept his distance from his co-workers. Safest way to get along. Worked for him...until he met Laura Dawson. Somehow, despite her youth and her unbridled tongue, she’d made him feel safe...safe enough to let down his guard. And that scared the blazes out of him.

*****

A
nnie’s last consultation of the day had been Mr. Abercrombie, one of Madam Sibyl’s former clients who recently made the transition to taking advice from just plain Mrs. Annie Fuller. He was a mechanical engineer, and she was helping him figure out how to raise the capital needed to produce a new kind of steam engine valve he had invented. She now sat on the front porch of the boarding house, enjoying the cooler evening air. She was trying not to worry that Laura wasn’t home yet, even though it was now quarter to eight, three hours after her usual time.

Laura told Beatrice that morning not to expect her at dinner, and she was a grown woman. If she wanted to do something with one of her friends from work, it was her business. But Annie still worried. What if she’d decided to do some investigating on Nate’s case?

As the ambient light from the recent sunset faded, she found herself peering down the street, hoping that Laura would be the next person who stepped into the pool of light cast by the gas lamp on the corner of Taylor and O’Farrell. This was why she didn’t notice when her boarder, the Girls High teacher, Barbara Hewitt, and her son Jamie arrived from the other direction until she heard the exuberant yip from Dandy, their little black and white terrier.

She smiled and said, “Good evening, Jamie, Barbara. And good evening to you too, Dandy.”

The dog, who Jamie insisted was a new breed called a Boston Terrier, stood up on his hind legs and pawed at her knee––his small neat ears erect and his tiny crooked tail twirling. He wore a smart black harness, and Jamie was carefully holding on to his lead.

“Dandy, you wretch. Behave yourself,” said Barbara. “I’m sorry, Annie. He is always so excited to see you. Jamie, pick him up so he won’t damage Mrs. Fuller’s skirts.”

“Don’t you worry. This is one of my old black silks...I would see it as a favor if he rendered it unwearable. Here, let me have him.”

Annie lifted the dog into her lap and let him lick one of her hands, while scratching him behind his ears. He was called Dandy because the white around his neck and down his front––contrasted against the black of the rest of him––looked like the white shirt-front of a gentleman. Jamie had bathed him yesterday, so his wiry fur was unusually soft and sweet smelling. She kissed the top of his hard head, and he wiggled in ecstasy.

“Do you mind if I join you?” said Barbara. “It is going to take awhile for our rooms to cool off.”

“Of course not. I could do with the company.”

As she sat down on the wooden chair next to Annie, Barbara said to her son, “Jamie, run upstairs and make sure the windows at the end of the hall and in our rooms are open and leave the door to the hallway open as well. And if the Misses Moffet are in, ask if they would like you to fetch them a pitcher of cool water from the kitchen. We’ll keep Dandy with us.”

“Hot today, wasn’t it? Last year it didn’t get this hot until late summer,” Annie said as Jamie disappeared inside.

“I know. I remember how oppressive the beginning of fall term was, particularly for the students in their new wool outfits.”

Barbara sighed, and Annie suspected she was also remembering the events of last September when Dandy, now curled up in her lap, proved his extraordinary detective abilities. So sad what happened—but not nearly as upsetting as what had occurred to both Barbara and her son this winter. Yet both mother and son appeared to be finding their equilibrium, and Annie thought Barbara seemed more at peace than she’d ever been before. The strain she must have lived under all those years. Annie couldn’t even imagine—her own troubled marriage and widowhood paled in comparison.

Wishing to turn both of their thoughts to more pleasant subjects, Annie said, “That blue and white tartan looks so cool. You did a lovely job on it. I can barely sew a straight hem.”

“Oh, it was easy once Miss Minnie cut out the pieces for me. Miss Millie also taught me how to use the sewing machine. The tutoring I do in in the summer doesn’t nearly fill up the time or the family purse, so I was delighted to get an outfit for only the cost of the material. I hope to complete a few more shirts and trousers for Jamie this summer. He is growing so fast.”

“Did the Moffets show you the material they found for my wedding dress?”

“Yes, it is gorgeous.”

“At least one thing will be done right.”

“What’s gone wrong?” Barbara leaned closer, looking concerned. “I know that you and Mr. Dawson have been through some difficult patches, but I thought everything was going well between you.”