Evan Hunter - Lizzie

“No, sir, I think not.”

“Was he not in the dining room, sitting down?”

“I don’t remember him being in the dining room sitting down.”

A direct contradiction of Bridget Sullivan’s sworn testimony. Knowlton decided to pursue it.

“At that time, wasn’t Maggie washing the windows in the sitting room?”

“I thought I asked him for the mail in the sitting room. I’m not sure.”

“Wasn’t the reason he went in the dining room because she was in the sitting room, washing windows?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he not go upstairs to his own room before he sat down in the sitting room?”

“I didn’t see him go.”

“He had the key to his room down there...”

“I don’t know whether he had it. It was kept on the shelf.”

“Don’t you remember he took the key, and went into his own room, and then came back?”

“No, sir. He took some medicine. It wasn’t doctor’s medicine, it was what we gave him.”

“What was it?”

“We gave him castor oil first, and then Garfield tea.”

“When was that?”

“He took the castor oil sometime Wednesday, I think, sometime Wednesday noon. And I think the tea Wednesday night. Mrs. Borden gave it to him. She went over to see the doctor.”

Again the welter of meaningless detail, as though she hoped by sheer accumulation to bury the truth under an obfuscating mountain of trivial information.

“When did you first consult Mr. Jennings?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you that. I think my sister sent for him. I don’t know.”

“Was it you or your sister?”

“My sister.”

“You didn’t send for him?”

“I didn’t send for him. She said did we think we ought to have him. I said do as she thought best. I don’t know when he came first.”

Not fair, perhaps, he thought, to use an old lawyer’s trick, leading the witness down the garden path, causing her to expect a line of questioning for which she would prepare her defense, and then going off on an entirely different tack, as he was about to do now.

“Now, tell me once more, if you please, the particulars of that trouble you had with your mother four or five years ago.”

“Her father’s house on Fourth Street was for sale...”

“Whose father’s house?”

“Mrs. Borden’s father’s house. She had a stepmother and a half sister, Mrs. Borden did, and this house was left to the stepmother and a half sister, if I understood it right. And the house was for sale. The stepmother, Mrs. Oliver Gray, wanted to sell it, and my father bought out the Widow Gray’s share. She didn’t tell me, and he didn’t tell me, but some outsiders said that he gave it to her. Put it in her name. I said if he gave that to her, he ought to give us something. Told Mrs. Borden so. She didn’t care anything about the house herself. She wanted it so this half sister could have a home. Because she’d married a man that wasn’t doing the best he could. And she thought her sister was having a very hard time, and wanted her to have a home. And we always thought she persuaded father to buy it. At any rate, he did buy it, and I’m quite sure she persuaded father to buy it. I said what he did for her people, he ought to do for his own children. So he gave us grandfather’s house. That was all the trouble we ever had.”

“You haven’t stated any trouble between you and her.”

“I said there was feeling four or five years ago, when I stopped calling her mother. I told you that yesterday.”

“That’s all there is to it, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You had no words with your stepmother then?”

“I talked with her about it, and said what he did for her he ought to do for us. That’s all the words we had.”

“That’s the occasion of his giving you the house that you sold back to him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did your mother leave any property?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your own mother.”

“No, sir. Not that I ever knew of.”

Knowlton nodded and walked back to his table. Still standing at the table, hoping to surprise her with a sudden shift of questioning, he turned to her abruptly and asked, “Did you give to the officer the same skirt you had on the day of the tragedy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know whether there was any blood on the skirt?”

“No, sir.”

“Assume that there was... do you know how it came there?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you any explanation of how it might come there?”

“No, sir.”

“Assume that there was... can you give any explanation of how it came there? On the dress skirt?”

“No, sir.”

“Assume that there was... can you suggest any reason how it came there?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you offered any?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you ever offered any?”

“No, sir.”

He hesitated before asking his next question. In addition to the witness who — if she had committed murder — might not prove squeamish about discussing the loss of blood experienced during a woman’s menstrual flow, there was nonetheless another woman in the courtroom, busily taking her stenographic notes, and he had no wish to offend her sensibilities. Nor had he any idea where or when the expression “having fleas” had originated as a euphemism for menstruation, but such it was, and the question had to be put because blood was a matter of some keen interest in this case.

“Have you said it came from flea bites?” he asked.

“On the petticoats, I said there was a flea bite. I said it might have been. You said you meant the dress skirt.”

“I did. Have you offered any explanation how that came there?”

“I told those men that were at the house that I’d had fleas. That’s all.”

“Did you offer that as an explanation?”

“I said that was the only explanation that I knew of.”

“Assuming that the blood came from the outside... can you give any explanation of how it came there?”

“No, sir.”

“You cannot now?”

“No, sir.”

“What shoes did you have on that day?”

“A pair of ties.”

“What color?”

“Black.”

“Will you give them to the officer?”

“Yes.”

“Where are they?”

“At home.”

“What stockings did you have on that day?”

“Black.”

“Where are they?”

“At home.”

“Have they been washed?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you give them to the officer?”

“Yes, sir.”

Judge Blaisdell suddenly asked, “Was this witness — on Thursday morning — in the front hall, or front stairs, or front chamber? Any part of the front of the house at all?”

“What do you say to that?” Knowlton asked.

“I had to come down the front stairs to get into the kitchen.”

“When you came down first.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were you afterwards ?”

“No, sir.”

“Not at all?”

“Except the few minutes I went up with the clean clothes, and I had to come back again.”

“That, you now say, was before Mr. Borden went away.”

“Yes, sir.”

He was, in a way, grateful for the judge’s interruption; he could think of nothing further to ask Lizzie Borden, could conceive of no ground they had not already covered. “Your Honor,” he said, “there are other witnesses waiting to be heard, and I do not wish to overly tire Miss Borden. I have no further questions at this time, and I wonder if we might excuse her for the present, to recall her sometime tomorrow should the need arise.”