Evan Hunter - Lizzie

“That’s entirely in the hands of the Court,” Moody said. “We wanted to prove, however, one or two preliminary things, not at all turning in the direction of the prisoner.”

“I understand what the question is,” Robinson said, “and I say that it isn’t quite the statement that should be made — because it really involves and touches this case somewhat.”

“I’m entirely content to state it,” Moody said.

“I think you’d better not state it now,” Robinson said.

“No, I understand. I’m entirely content to state it upon the argument to Your Honors.”

“It’s nothing that ought to be stated now,” Robinson insisted.

Chief Justice Mason looked at both men.

“The jury may retire with the officer and remain until sent for,” he said. “The witness may return downstairs.”

Lizzie sat in the airless courtroom and watched Bence and the jurors filing out. Was it only her imagination that Bence tossed a look at her over his shoulder as he departed? She recalled suddenly the words Knowlton had put to her in Fall River last year, recalled her own answers as vividly as if the exchange were taking place here and now:

“Your attention has already been called to the circumstance of going into the drugstore of Smith’s on the corner of Columbia and Main Streets — by some officer, has it not? — on the day before the tragedy.”

“I don’t know whether some officer has asked me. Somebody has spoken of it to me. I don’t know who it was.”

“Did that take place?”

“It did not.”

“Do you know where the drugstore is?”

“I don’t.”

“Did you go into any drugstore and inquire for prussic acid?”

“I did not.”

Her own attorneys had asked her these same questions over and again. She had repeatedly told them that she had not gone to any drugstore in Fall River or anyplace else and had made no attempts to buy prussic acid or any other sort of poison on the day before the murders. Her attorneys knew the government had witnesses who claimed they could identify her as the woman who’d made the inquiries for prussic acid. In the end Robinson had felt it best — considering the danger such patently mistaken identification might present — to argue for exclusion of the testimony once the matter came up in court.

It had come up now.

It was fully upon them now.

She leaned forward intently as Moody began speaking.

“I perhaps ought to state what the testimony is that we offer,” he said. “We offer to show that prussic acid is not an article in commercial use, that it is an article which is not sold except upon the prescription of a physician and as a part — a minute part — of a prescription. That this witness during his experience as a drug clerk, up to the third of August, 1892, never had a call for prussic acid. That it is not used for the purpose of cleaning capes — sealskin capes, or capes of any other sort — and has no adaptability to such use.

“We now offer to show that upon the third day of August, sometime in the forenoon, the time of which isn’t material, the prisoner came to this shop in which the man was employed and asked for ten cents’ worth of prussic acid, stating that she wished it for the purpose of cleaning capes — either sealskin capes, or capes, I’m not sure which — and that she failed to procure the poison for which she asked. Perhaps I ought to state it with some accuracy,” Moody said, and went to the defense table where his co-counsel sat. Knowlton immediately handed him the document he was seeking, and Moody approached the bench again.

“These are Mr. Bence’s exact words,” he said, and began reading from the typewritten sheet of paper in his hands. “This party came in there, and inquired if I kept prussic acid. I informed her that we did. She asked me if she could buy ten cents’ worth of me. I informed her that we did not sell prussic acid unless by a physician’s prescription. She then said that she had bought this several times, I think. I think she said several times before. I says, ‘Well, my good lady, it’s something we don’t sell unless by prescription from the doctor, as it’s a very dangerous thing to handle.’ I understood her to say she wanted it to put on the edge of a sealskin cape, if I remember rightly. She left without buying anything, no drug at all, no medicine.”

Moody looked up from the typewritten sheet.

“Then follows merely the identification of the prisoner by Mr. Bence,” he said. “I don’t know in what way Your Honors desire to hear the discussion.”

“Perhaps we’d better hear the objection,” Mason said.

Robinson, sitting at the defense table with his co-counsels, did not rise for a moment. Lizzie looked at him expectantly, wondering why on earth he didn’t immediately spring up. Jennings, on his left, who had been her father’s attorney at the time of the murders, and who had been called into the case from virtually the very beginning, handed Robinson a sheet of paper, which he glanced at and then nodded.

Sitting on Robinson’s right, Melvin Ohio Adams leaned over to whisper something in his ear. Adams might have been considered handsome, Lizzie thought, were it not for his ridiculous waxed mustache. He was forty-two years old, a graduate of Dartmouth College who’d met Jennings at Boston University while both men were studying law there. A resident of Boston, Adams had been district attorney for that city until seven years ago, and both her other attorneys had assured her he would be a valuable asset in their cause.

He seemed to whisper for an eternity. Robinson listened, nodded again and — still not rising from his chair — turned to Moody and said, “I understand that the offer doesn’t include facts to show that there was any sale.”

“No, sir,” Moody said.

“And — we perhaps may anticipate — but I believe it may be fair to ask whether there is any evidence of any sale to this defendant?”

“No, sir.”

“In any other place?”

“No, sir. It would be fair to say we have evidence to show some attempt to purchase prussic acid in another place, with the same negative result.”

“You propose to bring evidence upon attempts, but no success.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well,” Robinson said, and rose at last to approach the bench. “It appears that the stomachs of the deceased persons showed no traces of any poison whatever. Certainly not any prussic acid. So there is shown no connection as assailing the lives of those two persons. Lizzie Borden is charged in the indictment with slaying or killing those two people with a sharp instrument; committing the murder with an ax, for instance. Nothing else. Now here, if it has any force at all, suppose it were carried away up to its legitimate result? It is an attempt to charge her with an act causing death by a wholly different means — for which, of course, she is not now on trial. It must be shown, I maintain, that any act which is to be put in evidence on the part of this defendant must have some natural tendency to show that she has committed the act for which she stands on trial.

“To my mind, it does not show that. It is an attempt to buy an article which is used for other purposes. It is said that it is an article that is not used in the arts, but it is an article which a person may legitimately buy. Its sale is provided for under the statute, and it is not to be said that because a person may wrongfully use, in a distinct transaction, an article which he purchases, therefore its purchase has a tendency to show that he has committed some other crime for which he is indicted. Does it have any tendency at all to show that this defendant killed those two persons with an ax? I maintain it does not. I must say I have said all the Court desires to hear, and I have made my meaning, I trust, plain.”