“Alice Rose, I have to put you on notice here: I’m getting drunk. You’re going to have to start making some sense very soon or you’re going to lose me entirely.”
“Young man, I have every intention of telling you with absolute clarity what has been eating away at my very soul for all of these past four — what is it—five days. But I must exact a double promise from you in exchange.”
I made my face as open and amenable to hearing the proposal as possible.
“That you should first tell no one what it is that I intend shortly to impart to you, and that you should at a later hour make passionate love to me in the manner of that gorgeous, soft-spoken cowboy Gary Cooper in that new western picture The Winning of Barbara Worth.”
“So as I am to understand it, you’ll be Miss Worth and I am to be the cowhand who will ‘win you’?”
“Oh, you have won me already, dear boy. We must now simply consummate the transaction.”
In my gin-clouded head this sounded like a fair arrangement. For a woman of a certain age, Alice Rose Carteret was youthful in nearly every aspect.
Or I was perhaps even more intoxicated than I thought.
Our drinks refreshed and the Negro chanteuse on the gin-mill’s little stage having switched from bawdy Black Bottom jazz to a quiet, introspective, “he-done-me-wrong” torch song, Alice Rose leaned back in her chair and asked in a playful, not unmelodious voice of her own, “So, Blue Eyes. Do you think she did it?”
“The jury acquitted her,” I answered matter-of-factly. “It took them scarcely an hour, didn’t it?”
“How closely have you studied the case? The judge was notoriously biased in her favor. All of that incriminating inquest testimony was disallowed. And, as I recall, no one seemed to care. The whole town wanted her acquitted.”
“I wasn’t alive then, and I haven’t studied the case very closely.”
Alice Rose effected stupefaction. “You live in Fall River and don’t even know the details of the double murder trial that made the town world-famous?”
“I suppose what I’m saying is that I know the case just as well as most, but unlike some of my colleagues at the Globe, I don’t make revisiting the minutiae of it a lifelong obsession. Are there facts that have come to your attention which you’d like to share with me?”
“I should say so. I maintained a healthy acquaintance with both of the sisters, you know. We had a bond — our love of animals. Both Lizzie and Emma were very supportive of the Animal Rescue League. I sought to make them even more supportive. Here was my thinking, cowboy: neither woman married. They were richer than Croesus from that sizeable inheritance they received from their father. Remember that it was the stepmother who was hacked to pieces first, so her pre-decease put every penny of that miser’s fortune directly into the scrabbling hands of his two surviving daughters. They both died quite wealthy. I have no idea to whom they have left the lion’s share of their many thousands, but I suspect that the Animal Rescue League will get only a fraction. Despite all my best efforts.”
“What efforts are you talking about?”
The singer on the stage had now begun a special rendition of Fanny Brice’s “My Man.” I commended her with an unsteady bow and salaam for classing up the song by returning to the original French.
“Am I to compete with this Negress singer?” asked my suddenly indignant companion.
“She’s distractingly good, but I’ll try my best to give you my undivided attention. To what efforts are you referring?”
“There was a party that was given by Lizzie at Maplecroft back in ’05. Lizzie’s lover was there — let’s just call a spade a spade. Lizzie Borden and Nance O’Neil were lovers. And the house was filled with all of Nance’s intemperate theatre friends, and Emma, who was a good nine years older than Lizzie and was quite temperate by her nature, didn’t much care for Nance and her unruly companions. And so they were having themselves a little sisterly spat just outside the library, where I was sitting primly and patiently waiting for Lizzie. You see, she was supposed to come in and sign a petition I was circulating on behalf of the superannuated draft horses of Fall River—”
“Do you ever take a breath?”
My loquacious companion smiled. She inhaled and exhaled compliantly, then barreled ahead with renewed vigor. “My sweet, dimpled Adonis, you simply would not believe it: I am sitting in that library and I am hearing everything that is said between the quarreling sisters in spite of the pounding of the Ragtime piano and the squeals and screams of those theatrical debauchees. Here is what I hear. I am no actress, so I can’t give you the sort of performance that Nance O’Neil might give, but I’ll do my best. Garçon! Garçon!”
“Is that Lizzie Borden you’re imitating or her sister Emma?”
“Neither. I want another drink.”
The story was temporarily suspended for the waiter to bring us both another drink. I watched as the Negro singer surrendered the stage to a jazz quartet featuring a Beiderbeckian cornetist of no small talent. With musical accompaniment more appropriate for her purpose, Alice Rose began her little play.
“‘Lizzie, I want all of these drunkards and dope fiends out of this house immediately. Their presence here is an absolute scandal!’
“Now you must imagine that I am laughing rudely and raucously, for this is how Lizzie proceeded to laugh in that next moment. Then she crowed, ‘Emma, you forgetful old fool! If you feel that this harmless little gathering constitutes a scandal, then how would you characterize what Maggie and I did, under your perfectly planned orchestration?’
“‘Apples and oranges, Lizzie. One is hardly harmless, for it disturbs my peace and the peace of everyone on this block. The other comprises a chapter of ancient history in which, in the opinion of the law and of this community, we played absolutely no part. Do you understand the distinction?’
“‘The only thing I understand at the moment, Emma, is that there is a letter on my desk in the library of which you should take serious note. It bears a Montana postmark.’
“‘Is it from the murderous housemaid, our very own Maggie?’
“‘Who else? She asks for more money.’
“‘What of it? We’ll send her more money. She’s greedy, but we have more than the necessary funds to accommodate her.’
“‘I don’t like the little hussy blackmailing us like this.’
“‘Then take the train to Montana and hack her up.’
“‘No, dear sister, I think it’s your turn.’
“‘This isn’t funny, Lizzie. Pay her what she wants and then destroy the letter. Where did you say it was?’
“‘On my desk in the library.’
Returning to the role of narrator, Alice Rose said (as she caressed my elbow with a silken hand), “But, of course, my little handsome cowpoke, they didn’t find the letter on the desk in the library, for it was now in my reticule, where I had hastily deposited it, knowing how very valuable such a letter could be to me.”
“And has it turned out to be valuable to you?”
“Oh, goodness, yes. Generous contributions by both of the sisters have allowed my animal-loving colleagues and myself to found the Fall River Animal Rescue League. Of course I wanted more for our abandoned kittens and puppies and those poor, spavined old workhorses than what we were originally able to give them. I was determined, therefore, that with that letter in hand, which indicts both sisters and the family maid, I should exact even more money from the Sisters Borden for the benefit of all of my furry friends.”