This chapter marks the beginning of the second part of this little story.
Rachel sighed in exasperation as she looked at the mess in front of her. The bowls and pans scattered across the kitchen table were all coated with a fine layer of flour and every here and there was a streak of sweet butter. The tin of cocoa had, at some point, fallen to the floor; luckily it had remained sealed. If it had spilled, Rachel probably would have set the entire kitchen on fire in order to clean up the mess. That would have been the only solution.
Still, there was a chocolate cake, mostly baked, on a dish by the range. It was lopsided and still raw in the middle but it seemed to be a cake. Rachel hazarded a taste, breaking off some of the outer edge of the cake, although she immediately spat it out into her handkerchief. Oh, God, she thought, it was truly awful.
She stood in the middle of the kitchen for several minutes, unsure of what to do. It had been a waste of money to bake this cake, for neither butter nor cocoa could be considered inexpensive and a colossal waste of time. On top of that, she had absolutely no idea why the others had asked her to bake a cake in the first place – not that any of them would have known what a truly horrendous cook she'd turn out to be – as Richard's housekeeper and cook, Mrs. O'Doyle, was more than qualified for such a task. Perhaps the cook had far too many other things to prepare; Rachel would never understand the reasoning behind it. In the end, she tied her apron strings tighter set about cleaning the place. It took the greater part of an hour but eventually the kitchen resembled how Rachel's landlady, Mrs. Feinsohn, normally kept it.
A quick glance at the mantelpiece clock reminded Rachel that she would have to be at Pacific Heights within the next hour if she should wish to be on time. She was usually one to be strictly punctual and so she grabbed her coat and her hat and bolted out the front door of the tenement. The remains of the chocolate cake still sat on the dish by the range. She'd pick up some confection from a local bakery on her way.
oOo
It was not long before Rachel had arrived at Richard Grayson's house in Pacific Heights, two parcels wrapped in brown paper tucked under her arm. The smaller parcel was a slice of cake – thankfully, not chocolate – from the German baker just off of Minna Street and the larger parcel contained a birthday gift for Victor. While Victor Stone's twenty-seventh birthday wouldn't take place for another four days, the Titans were gathering the Sunday before for a party of sorts.
Since the whole debacle during Kitty Walker's debutante ball, the five members of theTitans had only met up a few times. Not that crime was particularly slow in San Francisco, mind you, but it seemed slower that it had been before. So, when our five protagonists did meet, they did so mostly as friends, as comrades, content to just spend time in one another's company. Richard's Pacific Heights home – more of a mansion, really – had become the new gathering place of this intrepid quintet. Signor Annella's restaurant lacked the privacy they desired in their conversations and Richard had refused to step foot in any of the saloons or ice cream parlors that Garfield and Victor suggested. And since the previous October, in a span of nearly eleven months, they had all only managed to meet at Richard's home four times. I suppose this can be explained by lack of availability. Most everyone worked six days a week and thus were only free on the week-end; on Sunday. Yet, leisurely Sunday afternoons were rare, as chorse and errands occupied quite a bit of time.
Rachel knocked firmly on the front door, eager to step inside and get out of the heat. San Franciscan weather during the month of September was always incredibly hot. Despite the arrival of autumn in a week's time, it still felt like the sweltering days of summer. And, dressed in the sturdy blue wool dress, as was dictated for women at the time, Rachel felt like she was positively melting.
Luckily for her, the front door soon opened and Rachel was greeted by Mrs. O'Doyle.
"Miss Roth," Mrs. O'Doyle said, "the others are in the guest parlor. I'll show you in."
The housekeeper ushered Rachel inside the house and into the guest parlor, which was tastefully furnished and sparsely decorated.
On her way into the room, Rachel nearly bumped into the piano that was pushed against the left wall of the room. She managed to dodge it in the nick of time, one should note.
Richard was the first to rise from his seat to greet her – he had been conversing quietly with Stella on a burgundy velvet sofa that lay underneath a fashionable stained-glass window. The two of them had been seated quite closely and yet Richard disentangled himself easily, though not before he pressed a kiss to Stella's cheek in a sentimental gesture of parting (never mind that he wouldn't even be leaving the room).
"Ah, Ms. Roth," Richard said. "I'm glad you've arrived."
Rachel nodded as she removed her hat and set it on the hat rack in the doorway of the parlor.
"I apologize that I was not able to bring the cake for Victor with me today," she said. She gestured to the smaller parcel that she was carrying under one arm. "Nobody sought to consult me beforehand to ensure that I was actually a decent cook. So, I bought Victor a piece of cake from a local bakery. I suppose he shall appreciate that more than whatever monstrosity I had inadvertently created."
Still seated, Stella laughed at this. "Do not worry," she said. "Recall that I was tasked with the baking of those ginger cookies. Ginger snaps, I think they are called. Even with Mrs. O'Doyle showing me how to bake them, I still added too much flour and ginger. They did not turn out very well at all and went straight into the rubbish bin."
Rachel raised her eyebrows at this, saying, "You were here at Sergeant Grayson's house making use of the kitchen?"
Stella blushed, looking bashful. "My apartments do not have such facilities," she said, by way of an excuse. She must have decided to go on record, however, as she added, "But, I have been spending more time with Richard here. We both agreed that if I were to be here more often than not, with just the two of us, perhaps I could learn more about the running of this household."
"I see," Rachel said. Her voice was short. "Well, is there any place in particular you should like me to set down what I've brought?"
Richard pointed to an end table on which two parcels were already resting.
"If you've brought any gifts, they belong there," he said. He then pointed to a side-board that was practically groaning under the weight of cut-china bowls filled with jellies and ice-creams. "You may set the cake for Mr. Stone down there."
Rachel nodded and did so, later taking a seat on a nearby armchair. She pulled a novel out of her purse – The Two Brothers, in the most recent English translation – and set to reading. Seeing as Rachel was not open to any small talk, Richard then rejoined Stella on the sofa and the two began conversing amongst themselves once more.
Not a half-hour had passed before Mrs. O'Doyle reentered the room. She carried a tray of water glasses and came bearing a visitor.
"I hope I'm not too late," the visitor said. This was Victor Stone himself, apologetically holding his cap in his hands and smiling sheepishly. He gestured to the sideboard. "Seems the ice-cream's close to melting."
What a shame that would be, to not enjoy any of Mrs. O'Doyle's famed apricot ice-cream.
The housekeeper merely shrugged and went off to fetch a bucket of ice on which she could place the cut-china glasses to keep the desserts cool. "Why hadn't I thought of that earlier?" one could hear her mutter as she bustled off.
"We're glad you've made it, nonetheless, Mr. Stone," Richard said. "Is Mr. Logan with you? I do not think I saw him in the foyer."
Victor shook his head, glancing over his shoulder as if in hope that Garfield had somehow materialized behind him in the past fifteen seconds.
"No," he said. "I s'ppose he's late; missed the trolley or something. Not much we can do about that except wait."
Rachel rolled her eyes at hearing this, utterly surprised at Garfield's lack of punctuality and it seemed that the others echoed this sentiment.
With a ringing of small bell, Mrs. O'Doyle reentered the guest parlor carrying the bucket of ice she had apparently forgotten, this time accompanied by her daughter, who worked as a maid in the Grayson household and who was carrying a single china plate and silver fork. The younger Miss O'Doyle picked up the cake that Rachel had brought and unwrapped it, plating it on the dish she had brought in a most becoming manner. One could hardly tell that it had been wrapped much like a common piece of meat from the butches when she had finished with it! She handed the plate to Victor, who had since sat down in an armchair near Rachel, and demurely said, "Happy birthday, Mr. Stone."
Victor thanked her, although he then looked quizzically at Rachel.
"Ain't there supposed to be a whole cake?" he asked, a bit miffed that he couldn't ask for seconds.
Shrugging, Rachel said wryly, "I'd make a terrible housewife, for I have no skill in the kitchen. I was only able to buy one slice of cake from the bakery at such short notice and you should be grateful I didn't bring my little baking attempt with me."
Victor snorted with laughter at hearing this as he practically inhaled his cake. It was gone within thirty seconds.
As Victor (far too quickly) enjoyed his dessert, Rachel walked over to the bookshelf that lay by the fireplace. She reached down to one of the lower shelves and pulled out a wooden box – a chess set - that, from the looks of the dust gathering on its surface, hadn't been touched in a long while.
"Do you play?" she asked Victor.
Victor's only response was a smug smile and the words, "I haven't yet lost a game."
Rachel doubted that would last any longer and she resolved to put Victor's ego to the test.
"Very well," she said, drawing up a nearby table and setting up the board. "We shall see if you remain the champion at the end of this."
If Victor's smirk could've grown any larger, it would've. "We'll see," he said. And so, the match began. It was over soon enough, as Victor loudly proclaimed that he had once more gone undefeated. Rachel simply huffed in annoyance and demanded that they play again.
They did. Four more times. All in which Rachel lost spectacularly.
"I'll admit it," Rachel said with a small smile, "you play well."
Victor helped her clean up the chess set and put it back on the bookcase before the two of them took their seats once more. While Rachel eagerly returned to her book – she had always enjoyed the works of Balzac – Victor sat there awkwardly, doing little more than twiddling his thumbs in idleness.
After a pregnant silence, Stella spoke.
"It is awfully quiet now," she said. She was currently eating one of the fruit jellies that Mrs. O'Doyle had prepared when she gestured to the piano over which Rachel had nearly tripped earlier. "I regret that I cannot play very well. What about one of you?"
"Don't look at me," Richard said, raising his hands defensively. "The piano came with the house. For all I know, it's never been used."
From the look of its crocheted cover and the layer of dust that rested atop of that, it clearly hadn't been.
Victor admitted that he couldn't play, although he added, "If Garfield was here, I know he'd be able to play something. He's always liked those songs outta Tin Pan Alley."
The room had nearly resigned themselves to sit in silence when Rachel said, "I can."
Clearly the reaction she got was overly skeptical, for she added, "I received lessons back at the orphanage and I occasionally practice on a neighbor's piano. I admit that I am not very talented but I can tap out a tune well enough."
This seemed to satisfy the others and Richard then helped Rachel to take the dustcover off of the piano and to find the piano bench – it had been repurposed as a decorative stool underneath one of the parlor's windows.
"Are there any requests?" Rachel asked. "I cannot guarantee that I will know any of the pieces but I can try."
The other three in the room shook their heads; Richard helped pass around the glasses of ice-cream while they were still relatively frozen, as he had belatedly remembered them. He also knew that Mrs. O'Doyle would feel insulted if she knew that her guests didn't enjoy her culinary efforts.
Clearing her throat, Rachel began to play the piano. There were a few rough patches, but she eventually hit her stride by the end of a relatively simple piece: Schubert's Allegretto in C Minor. If she were ever asked, Rachel would place that piece as one of her favorites. She had always liked how it was written for the parting of a dear friend. Rachel could never have called herself sentimental but she appreciated the piece despite that.
She then moved on to a lighter and brighter piece – another one of Schubert's, this time being one of the composer's Moments Musicaux. This one she played well, and she had just begun an Ecossaise when there was a great knock at the door. Rachel immediately stopped playing and stood quickly, nearly knocking the piano lid down in her haste.
"Shall someone get the door?" Stella said, also standing up. "Where is Mrs. O'Doyle?"
Richard didn't answer but he instead strode into the foyer and answered the door himself, not wary in the slightest, for he had a suspicion as to who it could be.
That is why, when he opened the door, he said, "Ah, Mr. Logan. We're delighted that you've made it."
Garfield Logan had the good graces to turn a nice vermillion color in his shame. "Heh, yeah," he said, awkwardly laughing as Richard opened the door further and let him in.
When Garfield arrived in the guest parlor, after a few cursory apologies, he looked at Rachel.
"You know, you didn't have to stop playing," he said to her. "I could hear it from down the block. You must like Schubert or somethin'."
Rachel looked at Garfield askance. "I admit that I am surprised you could recognize those pieces."
Garfield shrugged modestly, saying, "I've always liked music – the piano, especially – and I play when I can. And, saying what I said earlier, you must like Schubert or somethin'."
"I do prefer his works over Weber's or Rubinstein's," Rachel said, "although that might be an unpopular opinion and mostly due to the collection of Schubert's works that my neighbor brought over with him from Germany. It isn't as if I keep sheet music around."
Nodding, Garfield acknowledged that this was a fair point. Belatedly, he remembered an envelope he was carrying with him in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out and excitedly handed it over to Victor, who had been regarding this musical exchange with amusement.
"Here, Vic," Garfield said. "It's tickets to the base-ball championship game next Sunday, between Oakland and San Jose, with reserved seats."
As an afterthought, he also added, "I'm sorry, again, for being so late to the party."
Victor brushed this off, saying, "Don't worry about it. It's good that you finally got here, though. Now I can open the gifts that everyone brought for me."
He walked over to the end table and picked up a lumpy parcel wrapped in blue tissue paper.
"Oh, that is from me!" Stella said excitedly, as Victor eagerly tore the paper open. Inside the paper was a knitted cap and matching gloves. By way of explanation, Stella added: "I know that you have found that job as a driver for that doctor. You work during the night and it is almost the winter, so I have made these gloves and this hat for you myself!"
As he held the hat and gloves in front of him, Victor couldn't help but admire the fine detail and care that Stella had put into her work. He thanked her and tucked the gloves inside the hat, placing them inside his jacket pocket.
The next parcel that he reached for was one wrapped in cheap brown paper, addressed from. Inside was a similarly-cheap writing pad. Victor suppressed a grimace as he couldn't help but be slightly disappointed at how impersonal and ill-thought-out this gift was. He'd never thought that Richard could be so stingy. However, Victor always considered himself a largely practical person and he knew that he would use this writing pad nonetheless. He thanked Richard with a tight-lipped smile, although he noticed that Garfield was giving Richard a more overt display of his disappointment. Victor shot Garfield a glare, as if to tell him to desist. Garfield complied.
Lastly, Rachel handed the parcel she had brought with her to Victor.
"It isn't much," she said. "In fact, they're a bit used and full of markings, but I think that you will be able to look past that."
Victor nodded, tearing away the brown grocer's-paper, revealing two worn books, one stacked atop the other.
"The Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism." He read the title of the first book aloud, before he looked at Rachel in disbelief. "I don't know if I can understand something like this," he said. "I ain't been in school since I was ten or so."
"I cannot understand a single word written in it," Rachel said. "I only finished the eighth grade and I am sure that this is a university-level text. However, I know you've mentioned an interest in physics and engineering before, in passing, and I thought that you should have a book to work towards, so to speak. I've also included a book that you might find a bit more 'on your level.'"
Victor took a look at the second book, placing the first aside. "Rose's New Arithmetic."
This second book must have been written in the mid-30s, by the look of it, and Rachel seemed to notice Victor's hesitation, for she said, "I know that the arithmetic is quite old, but I've used it to reinforce what I learned back in school at the orphanage. With my own mathematical knowledge, I suppose I could begin working through a high-school algebra book. Thus, I have no further need for this volume and so, I thought that you might like it. I do quite like how it includes theory as well as applications even for something as simple as sums."
For once, Victor was speechless. "I don't know what to say."
Rachel continued: "If you should like, I can help tutor you, in a way, until we are on the same page. Perhaps, then, we could begin with an algebra text, continuing on through geometry and calculus, until you are able to comprehend the first book. It might be difficult to find a moment of spare time; I work dawn to dusk and you work dusk to dawn most days. But, I do think that we should be able to make time."
Victor stammered out a few words of thanks as Garfield crowed with laughter, saying, "She'll make a college man out of you, yet!"
"I don't know about that," Victor said, eventually. "Imagine a man like me, with a bum leg and no schooling, at a university."
"One can never know," said Richard, who had finally decided to interject into the conversation once more. Perhaps he had been feeling a bit left out. "At that new university, over in Palo Alto that the Stanfords founded last year, I hear they've admitted a man of your – I don't mean to sound rude – skin color. He graduated high school but his father never finished the third grade. Who knows? One day, you could join him. And, besides university, there are always correspondence schools and there's that normal school in San José, if you have any inclination towards teaching."
"Noted," Victor said, as he gave Rachel one last grateful look. He then changed the subject, turning towards Garfield. "You know, you never did explain to us why you were late."
Garfield laughed nervously, wiping his forehead with his felt cap. He seemed to be debating whether or not to tell the truth. From his admission, though, it would be clear he had not told any sort of falsehoods – it was far too embarrassing of a thing to admit.
"I was out at the card tables in a certain district," he said, eventually.
Victor groaned, saying, "Not the Barbary Coast again."
Indignantly, Garfield said, "Hey, I ain't that much of a bum. It was just your average, almost-legal gambling parlor. I'd lost almost all my money at poker – I should've known I'd be awful at it – so I thought I'd try my hand at craps. Turns out I had even less luck there."
This earned a round of uneasy laughter at Garfield's expense from the rest of the group, although Victor was definitely laughing the hardest. Perhaps, reader, this was not an uncommon experience in the life of Garfield Logan.
"I'm serious!" Garfield said, his voice rising in frustration. "When the bouncer found out I was flat broke, he picked a fight with me. I respectfully declined his generous offer but got caught up in the brawl anyway. And sure, I was a fool to lose all my money today, but something seemed off."
"Maybe the dice were weighted?" Victor suggested. "It ain't uncommon, you know."
Garfield brushed this off, saying, "That ain't it. I know weighted dice and these seemed fine. It was the owners of this gambling den. I ain't never seen them be so inverted-"
"'Invested'," Rachel interjected, as if having predicted with supernatural abilities the word that Garfield had originally meant to say.
"-invested with the card tables, if you know what I mean. There was this dame – light red hair and eerily pale skin – who kept hoverin' over me. With her breathing down my neck, I had no chance of winning anything."
"Are you sure you aren't imagining things?" Richard asked. "Perhaps she was just curious as to what you were doing. If you had truly lost so badly as you say, perhaps she wanted to know how such a thing was possible."
Garfield shook his head adamantly. "No, he said. "I know what I felt, even if it ain't much. I could've sworn I've seen that dame around before."
He paused to think for a few moments, before he had a realization: "The parlor down the street. She'd been there, too. I think she must be the owner or something. That dame'd acted like she was the empress of the world. She has to've been the owner of that joint, which is weird, as I could've sworn it used to be run independently by an old man from Hoboken. I don't know how to explain it, but things today just seemed wrong."
"Establishments change hands. It's natural," Richard said.
Once again, Garfield denied this.
"Sure, I lost my money fair and all," he said. "I don't care about that. But, I want to investigate closer. Maybe I can find an undercover gambling ring or somethin'; add a bit of excitement back into our lives. It's been so boring this past year. Nothing's happened! I'm going to take a closer look this week."
Victor rolled his eyes but soon said, "I suppose I'll come with you. I don't want you doing anything stupid like that ever again without me, you hear?"
"Loud and clear," Garfield said. He turned to the rest in the room. "Anyone else want to join?"
Stella and Rachel quickly agreed. To be fair, Stella seemed quite excited to visit a genuine American house of gambling. During her employment within the world's oldest profession, she had never managed to visit one. As for Rachel, she considered such a place to be full of financially-inept fools and considered it beneath her. However, she, along with the others, had grown bored in recent months without as little as an act of petty larceny to keep them occupied. If there was some truth to Garfield's suspicions, maybe Rachel's spare time wouldn't be as lacking, after all.
The only one to refuse was Richard.
"You understand why I cannot take part in this," he said. "To be seen in a second-class female boarding-house is one thing but I, as an officer of the law, cannot be step foot in an establishment so blatantly illegal and corrupt. I left Manhattan to escape those embroiled in the likes of Tammany. I won't lose my position over this."
Of course. This was a reasonable statement to make. The other four were in agreement on this.
"Great!" Garfield said, once they were all in agreement. He quickly set a time and date for their little rendezvous. "Next Thursday should do," was what was suggested. And so, five Titansbecame four, eager to step down into some tobacco smoke-filled basement in the name of one of Garfield's crackpot intuitions. Hopefully they'd escape with their coin-purses still intact.
