Evan Hunter - Lizzie

“Large number of capital cases?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When was your attention, professor, first called to this matter?”

On the fifth of August last year, I received by express a box which was unopened. I opened the box and found in it four preserve jars, one of which was labeled Milk of August 3rd, 1892; the other, the second, was labeled Milk of August 4th, 1892; the third tag was labeled Stomach of Andrew J. Borden; the fourth was labeled Stomach of Mrs. Andrew J. Borden. These tags were tied closely about the neck of the bottles, with strings, the strings being sealed. I opened the jars simply by cutting the strings, leaving the seals intact.

I first examined the jar marked Stomach of Mrs. Andrew J. Borden. The jar was opened and the stomach removed. I found what was apparently a stomach — so far as the external appearance was concerned — of perfectly normal appearance. And it was unopened, a ligature, or string, a cord being tied about the upper and lower end of the stomach. Surgically unopened, I mean. I cut the ligatures and opened the stomach myself while it was fresh, shortly after I received it, and removed the contents into a separate vessel and thoroughly examined the inner surface of the stomach which I found to be, so far as I could determine, perfectly healthy in appearance. There was no evidence of the action of any irritant whatever.

The contents of the stomach were then examined and their quantity noted to be about eleven ounces. It was of semisolid consistency, consisting of at least four-fifths solid food and not more than one-fifth — I should say probably not more than one-tenth — of liquid, of water. And upon examination of those contents of the stomach, I found them to consist of partially digested starch, like wheat starch such as would be found in bread or cake or any other food in the making of which wheat flour is used.

There was also a large quantity of partially digested meat — muscular fiber — with the food and a considerable quantity of oil and some pieces of bread and cake. Some of the pieces of meat were quite sizable pieces — as large, for instance, as a whole pea. And one or two pieces were larger than that — as large as the end of my forefinger — so that their nature was very readily determined.

In addition to this, there was a large number of vegetable pulp cells which resembled those of some fruit, or a pulpy vegetable such as boiled potato. Or an apple or pear. And there was also an undigested skin of a vegetable or of a fruit, one piece of which I have here. It looks like the red skin of an apple or pear.

So far as anything could be determined from the appearance of the food, it was undergoing the normal stomach digestion. And from the quantity of the food in the stomach, it would — if the digestion had progressed normally in the individual before death — indicate a period of approximately somewhere from two to three hours of digestion from the last meal taken, possibly a little longer than that.

That was the stomach of Mrs. Borden.

The character of the food found in the stomach of Mr. Borden differed from that in the stomach of Mrs. Borden in that there was very much less of it, and that it consisted mostly of water and contained only a very small quantity of solid food. This would indicate that the digestion — had it gone on normally, at the normal rate — in the stomach of Mr. Borden was much further advanced than that in the case of Mrs. Borden, since nearly all of the solid food had been expelled from the stomach into the intestine. It would make it, therefore, somewhere in the neighborhood of four hours, say from three — anywhere from three and a half to four and a half hours, the digestion.

Both of those contents of the stomachs were immediately tested for prussic acid. Because prussic acid — it being a volatile acid, it is necessary to make an immediate test for it as it would escape very shortly after its exposure to the air, and escape detection therefore. Therefore, those were both tested for prussic acid, with negative results. Afterwards they were analyzed in the regular way for the irritant poisons, with also a negative result.

I found no evidence of poison of any kind.

Both jars of milk were also tested in the same way, and without obtaining any evidence of poison in either the milk of August third or the milk of August fourth.

Assuming that the two persons whose stomachs I had under examination ate breakfast at the same table and time and partook of the same breakfast substantially, the difference in the time of their deaths — assuming the digestion to have gone on naturally in both cases — the difference would be somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour and a half, more or less.

Digestion stops at death. It stops so far as the expulsion of food from the stomach is concerned. There is a sort of digestion that goes on after death in which the stomach wall itself is partially digested. Taking all the facts as I’ve heard them and also the examinations that I made myself, taking all those circumstances that I regard as important — the difference in the period of digestion, both stomach and intestinal, the drying of the blood and the temperature of the body — I should think that one corroborated the other, that they all tended to the same conclusion as to the difference in time of death of the two people.

And that conclusion is an hour and a half, more or less.

They left for the Riviera on August 26, a Wednesday, and although they arrived at the rail station a full hour before the scheduled departure of the express, there were nonetheless great crowds milling about, and the consequent confusion Alison claimed was to be expected at any French terminus.

“These people cannot bear to see any member of the family departing without arranging a bon voyage gathering of monstrous proportions,” she said as they waited in line to purchase their tickets. “One witnesses what appears to be a general exodus caused by a revolution or a plague, only to discover that but a sole member of the family is leaving, and the rest are here en masse only to wave the pilgrim tearfully on his way.”

They nonetheless managed to have their luggage weighed and tagged, and were walking leisurely toward their wagon-lit by a quarter of eleven, fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure. “During the season, of course, one can take a train direct from London,” Alison said, “but I assure you this is by far the best time of the year to enjoy the pleasures the Riviera has to offer.” The journey to Marseilles, she said, would occupy the better part of fifteen hours, and from thence to Cannes yet another four. If all went well, they should arrive at the villa sometime before lunch tomorrow, “A tiring enough trip, but imagine, dear Lizzie, what it was like for us before they put on sleeping cars only seven years ago!”

They entered the car at one end of it, stepping into an enclosed vestibule and then walking past the ladies’ dressing room, its door open to reveal a water closet and a lavatory over which was hanging a mirror that reflected yet another mirror on the wall opposite. There were four divided compartments opening off the corridor, two of them containing single berths, the remaining two fitted with seats that converted into double berths at night. Their own double compartment was at the far end of the corridor, near the gentlemen’s lavatory and water closet. It was not quite so commodious as Lizzie’s shipboard accommodations had been, but it was nonetheless carpeted and richly appointed, its plush-upholstered seats comfortably enclosed by wood-paneled walls, its large windows affording a splendid view of the French countryside.