Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (40 page)

Annie thought that Griggs’ drinking may have accelerated even more after Rashers’ death because of his guilty conscience—and Orrie’s blackmail.

Mrs. Sullivan intruded on this thought, saying, “How could Franklin have paid Orrie three hundred dollars? He doesn’t make any more than I do.”

“If he’s been saving up over a long period of time, he could have accumulated that much money—particularly since he doesn’t have anyone else to support,” said Annie, who knew from her own experience how a small amount invested each week could grow over time.

Nate snapped his fingers and said, “I just remembered. Griggs said something the first day I met him about being able to help Mrs. Rashers out if she were in economic difficulty because he had saved up a little money.”

Annie felt a surge of optimism. She hated to think of the poor man as a murderer, but he certainly had a motive if all their speculations were correct—and Dart would be much more likely to consider him an alternative than Mrs. Rashers or Jack Neppier.

“But how can we prove any of this?” Nate asked.

Annie heard chimes coming in through the open window and realized it was already eight. They had been talking for an hour, and Laura would be here soon. She stifled a yawn and said, “Maybe we need to sleep on this. See if any of our ideas still sound viable tomorrow.”

“The proof!” Mrs. Sullivan cried, startling Annie.

“You have proof that Griggs did it?” asked Nate.

“No—well, maybe.” Mrs. Sullivan hesitated. “Remember, Mr. Dawson, how you kept asking me about the galley proof of the invitation?”

“Yes, Chief Jackson seemed to think this was the most damning evidence against you. Said it proved that you had read the invitation and knew that Rashers was going away. And because it was found under his body, he believes that this shows that you were in his office while he was still alive. That you quarreled over the invitation, stabbed him, causing him to let go of the galley proof and fall on it.”

“But don’t you see. As I kept telling you, I didn’t pull that proof. I didn’t even set the type for it. I got in at about 7:15, put on my apron, and then I went and got the single copy that was on the hook to see how much work I had ahead of me. That is when I first saw the wording of the invitation, and I immediately went to his office to ask about it. I remember thinking what a relief it would be for me to have him gone. That I might even get up the nerve to leave the firm while he was away. The main point is that I didn’t have time to set the type or pull the proof. So the murderer must have been the one to do it.”

Nate, frowning, said, “Are you saying that someone did the work you were supposed to do before you got there—just so they could frame you?”

“I don’t even know that Joshua had called me in to do the invitation. It was a pretty easy job. But certainly if this was an elaborate plan on the part of Mrs. Rashers, it would be possible that she would try to implicate me this way.”

“But could she set the type and pull the galley proof?” Nate asked.

“Of course she could,” Annie answered for her. “Mrs. Richmond told me that Catherine Rashers worked in her fathers’ print shop as a girl. That is where she met Joshua. And Laura told me typesetting is like riding a horse—not something you forget how to do even if you haven’t done it in a long time. Jack Neppier would have the skill to do it as well.”

Annie paused and thought for a moment, then she said, “What if Neppier made an appointment with Rashers at seven to finalize the business plans? While he was in the office, Catherine could have snuck into the shop and found the copy on the hook where Rashers would have left it (since she is the one who demanded that he get the proof of the invitation done that night). She could have quickly set the type and use the galley press to pull the copy. The noise from the steam engines on the floor above would mask any sound.”

Nate added, “I also noticed when I visited the Rashers that you couldn’t see out of the office window into the shop. So, after pulling the proof, Mrs. Rashers could have taken it to the office and distracted her husband while Neppier stabbed him. Then, if Orrie, hiding in the supply room, saw them leave the office—she would later blackmail them. Eventually, Neppier strangles her and Catherine Rashers puts the note in Seth’s pocket to frame him.”

They all stared at each other for a moment, imagining the sequence of events. Then Annie said, “You know, this version of what happened works even better for Griggs. We already know that he stayed after the evening shift left at five-thirty. So let’s assume that Mr. Rashers gave him the invitation to set up. After pulling the proof, he goes in and asks about the possibility of taking over while Rashers is out of town...they have an argument...he grabs up his bodkin and stabs Rashers.”

“But if Griggs was to do the invitation, why did Joshua have Mrs. Sullivan come back in?” said Nate. “That is what I would ask if I were the district attorney.”

Annie turned to Florence. “You said you thought that it was odd that Rashers would have you come back to do something so simple as the invitation. What kind of work would you have expected to do?”

“A legal document. He always left those for me. And they often are brought in as special rush orders.”

“That’s it,” Annie said, standing up and pacing in a tight circle at the back of the cell. “When I was going through the correspondence for my audit, there was a letter from a local lawyer who complained because his document had not been printed on that Friday night. He did have the decency to say he understood the death of the firm’s owner could explain why that happened—but his complaint was that when he came the next day to pick up the document—no one could find the copy he had sent in—so he had to have it redone.”

“So, you are saying this is evidence we could offer in the trial that Mrs. Sullivan wasn’t called in to do the invitation—despite the widow’s claim, but that Griggs had been given the invitation to set up. ”

“And that Griggs took the copy that was for her from the hook and threw it away—to help frame Florence, who he knew was due to arrive at seven-thirty,” said Annie.

Nate said, “The police report that Jackson gave me said that Griggs left with Timmons and his apprentice at six-thirty and that he went on to a local saloon after they split—providing him an alibi from six-thirty on. This means if he did kill Rashers, it must have been before he left. In fact, that when Seth and Dunk saw him step out of the office and say good night, Rashers was already lying unconscious on the floor, slowly bleeding to death.”

“Nate, didn’t you say that the doctor who did the autopsy said that since none of the arteries were cut completely––that whoever stabbed him might not get much blood on them?”

“Yes. And he said it could take as much as an hour for Rashers to completely bleed out. So Griggs could just walk out of the office after stabbing Rashers, take off his apron, put on his coat, and on his way out he could go by the hook and take off the legal copy and replace it with the invitation copy. Then leave with Seth and Dunk, thereby establishing his alibi.”

Annie shuddered at the image of Rashers lying unconscious for nearly an hour, maybe regaining consciousness eventually but being too weak to move or call out.

Nate went over to join her, putting his hand on her shoulder, and said, “That would take nerves of steel. And I don’t know how we can prove that is how it happened.”

“I need to see the galley proof.”

Annie looked over in surprise at Mrs. Sullivan, who was still sitting on her bed, and said, “Why? What good would that do?”

Looking more animated than Annie had ever seen her, Mrs. Sullivan stood up and went to Nate, saying, “Please, do you have a copy of the galley proof that was found under Joshua?”

Nate went over to the folder and began going through the materials, saying, “I don’t have the original, of course, but Sergeant Thompson had someone print off another copy for me. Yes, here it is.”

When he handed the strip of paper with the printed invitation to Mrs. Sullivan, she took it over to where there was an oil lamp on a small table at the foot of her bed and bent over to look at it closely under the pool of light.

She then stood up slowly and said, “Oh dear. I am so very afraid you are correct, Mrs. Fuller. I would have never believed it. But Franklin Griggs definitely was the one who set the type for this invitation. A good compositor can recognize the type set by different people, and I have been looking at Franklin’s work for five years.”

Annie walked over to stand beside her and said, “Can you show me how you know it’s Griggs’ work?”

Mrs. Sullivan pointed to the capital
V
in the line “Bon Voyage Party.” She said, “See the way the little serif on the top of the right hand stroke of the
V
is broken. That is from Griggs’ case. He only has two capital V’s of that font in his case, and he’s been too lazy or cheap to replace the one that got broken several months ago. And see the way that every time there is a small letter
g
in the copy? How it is slightly blurred in the lower section? He never remembers to tamp down the form, and the letter
g
tends to stick up. He also didn’t do a good job of centering the last line. That happens when he is upset—which I imagine he might have been that night.”

“So you are saying this proves that Griggs is the murderer?” Nate asked.

“Well, the use of the type face from his case could have happened if someone like Mrs. Rashers used his case to set the type. But the other markers—well—I don’t know that a jury would accept it as evidence. But it has convinced me.”

Nate looked at the galley proof and said, “Well it is worth at least running our ideas by Jackson. And talking to Seth and Dunk to see if they remember anything from that night that would confirm that Griggs had been setting the type for the invitation in the hour before they all left the shop. Maybe one of them will remember seeing him exchange the invitation copy for the copy of the legal document that was supposed to be waiting for Mrs. Sullivan. And we need to ask them if it was possible that Orrie could have slipped into the shop or the supply room while they were all working. Although I suppose that she could have come after right they left—found Rashers—and maybe figured out that it must have been Griggs who killed him.”

He then looked at Annie and said, “I know you both are tired, and this can definitely wait until tomorrow. I don’t even know if Jackson is still around. But you did say that Seth was working tonight? Maybe I will stop by and ask him.”

Annie was about to remind him that Laura was probably on her way over to the jail to meet them when she suddenly felt a wave of terror.

Nate, who must have seen something in her face, left Mrs. Sullivan’s side and came over, saying sharply, “Annie, what is it?”

“I just had an awful thought. This morning, Griggs still believed that he was going to be asked by Mrs. Rashers to manage the company. But she told me she was going to tell everyone in the shop about the new partnership at the end of the day, as soon as the papers were signed. He will be furious. What if he tries to do something to Mrs. Rashers or Neppier and tries to pin it on Seth again?”

“All the more reason for me to go over there now and tell Timmons what we’ve been thinking,” said Nate.

Annie grabbed his arm, crying, “We must hurry. Laura told me she might stop by to see Seth on her way here. They could both be in danger!”

Monday, late evening, August 2, 1880

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“In the Police Court yesterday morning a woman named Maggie Getty was tried and found guilty of stealing a copy of the
German Demokrat
from the door of a subscriber.”
San Francisco Chronicle
, August 4, 1880

––––––––

S
eth stood on the Babcock’s high platform, slowly feeding in the pages for the next day’s edition of the
California Demokrat
. Dunk was on the floor catching the printed pages and sliding them over to the growing stack beside him. It was a little before eight, and Seth had been at work since four. His plan was to skip dinner tonight so he could still get everything done by midnight and leave at his regular time.

He chatted with Dunk over the sound of the machine, so as not to lose his concentration. He’d tried to get a few hours of rest before coming into work but wasn’t successful. When he was driving cattle, he could go for days without much sleep, but the sheer nervous energy he’d run on for the past few days was taking its toll. And he wasn’t a young man anymore.

Two years ago, when he turned thirty, he discovered that he couldn’t skimp on sleep for too many nights in a row without paying a cost in the clarity of his mind. And last night’s vigil, sitting on a hard bench in his jail cell, left him with an aching lower back and a stiff neck.

All of which he’d forgotten when Laura swept up to him at the city jail and pulled him along in her wake. Before he knew it, he was sitting on the Oakland ferry, in clean clothes, his flesh still stinging from the dousing with cold water Ned had gleefully given him under the pump at the back of the alley. They made it to the exam rooms at the university with ten minutes to spare.

On the ferry he tried several times, to no avail, to get Laura aside from Kitty and Ned so he could thank her for what she’d done for him. Finally, as he waited outside the door to the examination room, he found himself alone with her and started to speak. She’d just put her finger up to his mouth and shushed him. She said that one thing she’d learned this past year was that real friendship wasn’t conditional. She’d surprised him by stretching up to kiss him on the cheek, while whispering, “Good Luck.”

Then the exam door opened, and some downy-cheeked boy staggered out, looking very much like he’d been through a wringer and muttering something about how he’d said the Amazon was in Africa. That made Seth laugh, and he’d gone into the room in good spirits. Not much they could throw at him that didn’t pale in comparison to how he’d spent the past twenty-four hours—fearing he was going to swing at the end of a rope for a murder he’d not committed.