“You think at that time you’d begun to iron your handkerchiefs?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long a job was that?”
“I didn’t finish them. My flats weren’t hot enough.”
“How long a job would it have been? If the flats had been right?”
“If they’d been hot... not more than twenty minutes, perhaps.”
“How long did you work on the job?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“How long was your father gone?”
“I don’t know that.”
“Where were you when he returned?”
“I was down in the kitchen.”
“What doing?”
“Reading an old magazine that had been left in the cupboard. An old Harper’s Magazine.”
“Had you got through ironing?”
“No, sir.”
“Had you stopped ironing?”
“Stopped for the flats.”
“Were you waiting for them to be hot?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was there a fire in the stove?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When your father went away... you were ironing them.”
“I hadn’t commenced. But I was getting the little ironing board and the flats.”
Knowlton hesitated before putting his next question. This morning Bridget Sullivan had testified under oath that she’d heard Miss Lizzie on the stairs when she was letting Mr. Borden in after his walk downtown. Lizzie had just told him she was down in the kitchen when he returned.
“Are you sure you were in the kitchen when your father returned?” he asked.
“I’m not sure whether I was there or in the dining room.”
“Did you go back to your room before your father returned?”
“I think I did carry up some clean clothes.”
“Did you stay there?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you spend any time up the front stairs before your father returned?”
“No, sir.”
“Or after he returned?”
“No, sir. I did stay in my room long enough when I went up to sew a little piece of tape on a garment.”
“What was the time when your father came home?”
“He came home after I came downstairs.”
“You were not upstairs when he came home?”
“I was not upstairs when he came home. No, sir.”
“What was Maggie doing when your father came home?”
“I don’t know whether she was there or whether she’d gone upstairs. I can’t remember.”
“Who let your father in?”
“I think he came to the front door and rang the bell. And I think Maggie let him in. And he said he’d forgotten his key. So I think she must have been downstairs.”
“His key would have done him no good if the locks were left as you left them,” Knowlton said.
“But they were always unbolted in the morning,” Lizzie said.
“Who unbolted them that morning?”
“I don’t think they’d been unbolted. Maggie can tell you.”
“If he hadn’t forgotten his key, it would have been no good.”
“No. He had his key and couldn’t get in. I understood Maggie to say he said he’d forgotten his key.”
“You didn’t hear him say anything about it.”
“I heard his voice. But I don’t know what he said.”
“I understood you to say he said he’d forgotten his key.”
“No. It was Maggie said he said he’d forgotten the key.”
“Where was Maggie when the bell rang?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Where were you when the bell rang?”
“I think in my room upstairs.”
“Then you were upstairs when your father came home.”
“I don’t know sure. But I think I was.”
“What were you doing?”
“As I say, I took up these clean clothes, and stopped and basted a little piece of tape on a garment.”
“Did you come down before your father was let in?”
“I was on the stairs coming down when she let him in.”
“Then you were upstairs when your father came to the house on his return.”
“I think I was.”
“How long had you been up there?”
“I had only been upstairs long enough to take the clothes up and baste the little loop on the sleeve. I don’t think I’d been up there over five minutes.”
“Was Maggie still engaged in washing windows when your father got back?”
“I don’t know.”
“You remember, Miss Borden — I will call your attention to it so as to see if I have any misunderstanding, not for the purpose of confusing you. You remember that you told me several times that you were downstairs, and not upstairs, when your father came home. You’ve forgotten, perhaps.”
“I don’t know what I’ve said,” Lizzie answered, shaking her head violently from side to side. “I’ve answered so many questions, and I’m so confused I don’t know one thing from another!” She took a deep breath. Her eyes met his again. “I’m telling you just as nearly as I know,” she said.
“Calling your attention to what you said about that a few minutes ago,” he said calmly, “and now again to the circumstance, you’ve said you were upstairs when the bell rang, and were on the stairs when Maggie let your father in. Which — now — is your recollection of the true statement of the matter? That you were downstairs when the bell rang and your father came?”
“I think I was downstairs in the kitchen.”
“And then you were not upstairs.”
“I think I was not. Because I went up almost immediately... as soon as I went down... and then came down again and stayed down.”
“What had you in your mind when you said you were on the stairs as Maggie let your father in?”
“The other day, somebody came there and she let them in, and I was on the stairs. I don’t know... whether the morning before or when it was.”
“You understood I was asking you exactly and explicitly about this fatal day?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I now call your attention to the fact that you had specifically told me you’d gone upstairs, and had been there about five minutes when the bell rang, and were on your way down, and were on the stairs when Maggie let your father in that day.”
“Yes, I said that. And then I said I didn’t know whether I was on the stairs or in the kitchen.”
“Now how will you have it?”
“I think... as nearly as I know... I think I was in the kitchen.”
He knew he would not, at the moment, get more from her on that single important point. She seemed to have lost control back then, but only for the briefest instant, and she’d recovered again almost at once. The most telling thing about her testimony, he realized all at once, was that from the very start she had adopted an adversary position. Small wonder when Mayor Coughlin had bluntly and inadvisedly told her, on the very day they’d put her father and stepmother in the ground, that she herself was suspected of having committed the murders. But given this advance warning, as it were, should she not now have been more eager to assist, in every way possible, toward finding a solution that pointed to someone other than herself? Why had she adopted this oddly belligerent posture — the stubborn set of mouth and jaw, the pale fire in her gray eyes — unless she herself was indeed the “maniac” the Reverend Jubb had described?