Evan Hunter - Lizzie

“About two minutes.”

“How long to do the rest of the things?”

“She’d done that when I came down.”

“All that was left was what?”

“To put on the pillow slips.”

“Can you give me any suggestions as to what occupied her when she was up there? When she was struck dead?”

“I don’t know of anything. Except she had some cotton-cloth pillowcases up there, and she said she was going to commence to work on them. That’s all I know. And the sewing machine was up there.”

“Whereabouts was the sewing machine?”

“In the corner between the north and west side.”

“Did you hear the sewing machine going?”

“I did not.”

“Did you see anything to indicate that the sewing machine had been used that morning?”

“I had not. I didn’t go in there until after everybody had been in there, and the room had been overhauled.”

“If she’d remained downstairs, you would undoubtedly have seen her.”

“If she’d remained downstairs, I should have. If she’d remained in her room, I should not have.”

“You didn’t see her at all?”

“No, sir. Not after the dining room.”

“After that time,” Knowlton said thoughtfully, “she must have remained in the guest chamber.”

“I don’t know.”

“So far as you can judge.”

“So far as I can judge, she might have been out of the house. Or in the house.”

“Had you any knowledge of her going out of the house?”

“No, sir.”

“ Had you any knowledge of her going out of the house?” Knowlton asked again.

“She told me she’d had a note. Somebody was sick. And said, ‘I am going to get dinner on the way’. And asked me what I wanted for dinner.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Yes. I told her I didn’t want anything.”

“Then why did you not suppose she’d gone?”

“I supposed she’d gone.”

“Did you hear her come back?”

“I didn’t hear her go or come back, but I supposed she went.”

“When you found your father dead,” Knowlton said, and paused. “You supposed your mother had gone?”

“I didn’t know. I said to the people who came in, ‘I don’t know whether Mrs. Borden is out or in. I wish you’d see if she’s in her room’.”

“You supposed she was out at the time?”

“I understood so. I didn’t suppose about anything.”

“Did she tell you where she was going?”

“No, sir.”

“Did she tell you who the note was from?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you ever see the note?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you know where it is now?”

“No, sir.”

“She said she was going out that morning?”

“Yes, sir.”

Judge Blaisdell cleared his throat. Knowlton turned toward the bench.

“Your Honor?” he said.

“Mr. Knowlton, the hour’s almost six, and Miss Borden appears a trifle weary. I wonder if we might continue this in the morning.”

“Yes, of course,” Knowlton said at once.

“Miss Borden?” Blaisdell said. “Would ten o’clock be a convenient hour for you?”

“Yes, sir,” Lizzie said.

“This hearing is adjourned till ten tomorrow morning,” Blaisdell said.

The Newbury house looked rather forbidding.

Surrounded by a tall iron fence (the coachman stepped down to open the gilded gate), approached by a driveway that circled round a grassy oval, it resembled nothing so much as the courthouse back home in Fall River, with its Grecian columns and solid gray stonework. She climbed two low, flat steps to the massive wooden front door, lifted the handsome brass knocker fashioned in the shape of a Medusa with snaky locks, let the knocker fall, and waited. The door opened almost at once. A pretty young woman, wearing a black dress, a white apron and a lacey black cap, smiled out at Lizzie, and in an Irish accent said, “Miss Borden, mum? Do come in, please, mistress is expecting you.”

The interior of the house came as something of a surprise. The floor of the vestibule was paved in alternating squares of black and white marble. Immediately facing the entrance door was a mantelpiece upon which stood a pair of terra-cotta vases. To one side of the mantel was a carved oaken bench; to the other was a Gothic-style chair that looked like a king’s throne. An ornately designed bronze umbrella stand, its supporting rod decorated with sculpted flowers and flanked by sculpted birds resembling flamingos, stood to one side of an opening beyond which a short flight of steps led downward to another area. Plant stands and pedestals surrounded the umbrella stand, creating a flowering arbor in which the sculpted birds seemed quite at home. On the other side of the opening was a statue of a voluptuous nude woman, surely Italian in origin, its marble illuminated by the soft light of the gas fixture overhead. Beyond the steps was a paneled wall. One of the huge doors in that wall opened, and Alison came through it, a smile on her face, her hand extended.

“Do forgive our monstrous home,” she said at once. “It’s Palladian, I fear, and quite out of fashion at the moment.”

She was wearing a satin tea apron over a skirt and blouse, the apron edged with embroidery and pastel satin ribbons. Her blond hair, frizzed onto her forehead in front, was swept straight back into a French twist and a bun worn rather higher than American women were wearing them.

“Moira,” she said to the maid, “do bring in the tea, won’t you? Come in, dear Lizzie, come in,” she said, and took Lizzie’s hand in both her own and led her into a room that quite took her breath away.

“You’ll find the drawing room a bit cluttered,” Alison said. “Albert so loves clutter. Please sit down, my dear. Tea will be here in a moment.”

She had called it a drawing room, and Lizzie assumed it was the equivalent of what at home would have been either their parlor or sitting room. But, oh, the immensity of it! A fireplace dominated the room, a carved wooden mantel above it — stained the same darkish brown as the woodwork and the bookshelves — a brass coal scuttle beside it, a huge mirror in a gilded frame above it. The bookshelves ran around all four walls of the room, standing as tall as Lizzie herself did, brimming with books bound in red and green leather. The wallpaper above the bookshelves echoed the books themselves, a leafy green embossed upon a deep red field. The carpeting on the floor looked to be Oriental, with glowing reds and muted beiges and here and there a touch of blue that complemented the jungle green of the wallpaper’s embossing. The green was again repeated in the plush velvet upholstery on a buttoned, padded sofa and the armchairs beside it. As in the vestibule outside, there were any number of stands topped with blooming flowers and ferny plants, as well as lower inlaid tables bearing porcelain and glass. In one corner of the room—

A knock sounded at the door. The maid came in and placed the tea tray on a gateleg table flanked by a smaller sofa (again done in the green plush velvet) and two chairs upholstered in red.

“Thank you, Moira,” Alison said, and the maid curtsied and soundlessly left the room.

“Now then,” Alison said, “would you prefer lemon or milk?”

“Milk, please,” Lizzie said, and sat in one of the armchairs facing the sofa.

“We’ve all sorts of goodies to tempt you,” Alison said, and began pouring from a richly ornamented silver pot.

In one corner of the room was a small, upright piano with music spread on its rack and a piano stool before it. There was a needlework cushion on the stool’s seat, and all about the room were framed needlework samplers. Lizzie wondered all at once if the handiwork was Alison’s. She wondered, too, if the predominately green theme of the upholstery and heavy draperies had been deliberately selected to complement Alison’s eyes. Behind the drapes on each window were white lace curtains that seemed a trifle gray from London’s interminable soot. A writing desk stood against a wall upon which hung framed water colors of nude women frolicking in a vernal—