“How long was your father gone?” Knowlton asked, his voice softer. There was no sense bullying her now. She was composed again, and she would only resist such an approach.
“I don’t know, sir. Not very long.”
“An hour?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“Will you give me the best story you can, so far as your recollection serves you, of your time while he was gone?”
“I sprinkled my handkerchiefs. And got my ironing boards. And took them in the dining room. And left the handkerchiefs in the kitchen on the table, and... whether I ate any cookies or not, I don’t remember. Then I sat down looking at the magazine, waiting for the flats to heat. Then I went in the sitting room and got the Providence Journal and took that into the kitchen. I don’t recollect of doing anything else.”
“What did you read first? The Journal or the magazine?”
“The magazine.”
“You told me you were reading the magazine when your father came back.”
“I said in the kitchen, yes.”
“Was that so?”
“Yes. I took the Journal out to read, and hadn’t read it. I had it near me.”
“You said a minute or two ago you read the magazine awhile, and then went and got the Journal and took it out to read.”
“I did. But I didn’t read it. I tried my flats then.”
“And went back to reading the magazine?”
“I took the magazine up again, yes.”
“When did you last see your mother?”
“I didn’t see her after... when I went down in the morning and she was dusting the dining room.”
“Where did you or she go then?”
“I don’t know where she went. I know where I was.”
“Did you or she leave the dining room first?”
“I think I did. I left her in the dining room.”
“You never saw her or heard her afterwards?”
“No, sir.”
“Did she say anything about making the bed?”
“She said she’d been up and made the bed up fresh, and had dusted the room and left it all in order. She was going to put some fresh pillow slips on the small pillows at the foot of the bed, and was going to close the room because she was going to have company Monday and she wanted everything in order.”
“How long would it take to put on the pillow slips?”
“About two minutes.”
“How long to do the rest of the things?”
“She’d done that when I came down.”
“All that was left was what?”
“To put on the pillow slips.”
“Can you give me any suggestions as to what occupied her when she was up there? When she was struck dead?”
“I don’t know of anything. Except she had some cotton-cloth pillowcases up there, and she said she was going to commence to work on them. That’s all I know. And the sewing machine was up there.”
“Whereabouts was the sewing machine?”
“In the corner between the north and west side.”
“Did you hear the sewing machine going?”
“I did not.”
“Did you see anything to indicate that the sewing machine had been used that morning?”
“I had not. I didn’t go in there until after everybody had been in there, and the room had been overhauled.”
“If she’d remained downstairs, you would undoubtedly have seen her.”
“If she’d remained downstairs, I should have. If she’d remained in her room, I should not have.”
“You didn’t see her at all?”
“No, sir. Not after the dining room.”
“After that time,” Knowlton said thoughtfully, “she must have remained in the guest chamber.”
“I don’t know.”
“So far as you can judge.”
“So far as I can judge, she might have been out of the house. Or in the house.”
“Had you any knowledge of her going out of the house?”
“No, sir.”
“Had you any knowledge of her going out of the house?” Knowlton asked again.
“She told me she’d had a note. Somebody was sick. And said, ‘I am going to get dinner on the way’. And asked me what I wanted for dinner.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Yes. I told her I didn’t want anything.”
“Then why did you not suppose she’d gone?”
“I supposed she’d gone.”
“Did you hear her come back?”
“I didn’t hear her go or come back, but I supposed she went.”
“When you found your father dead,” Knowlton said, and paused. “You supposed your mother had gone?”
“I didn’t know. I said to the people who came in, ‘I don’t know whether Mrs. Borden is out or in. I wish you’d see if she’s in her room’.”
“You supposed she was out at the time?”
“I understood so. I didn’t suppose about anything.”
“Did she tell you where she was going?”
“No, sir.”
“Did she tell you who the note was from?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you ever see the note?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know where it is now?”
“No, sir.”
“She said she was going out that morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
Judge Blaisdell cleared his throat. Knowlton turned toward the bench.
“Your Honor?” he said.
“Mr. Knowlton, the hour’s almost six, and Miss Borden appears a trifle weary. I wonder if we might continue this in the morning.”
“Yes, of course,” Knowlton said at once.
“Miss Borden?” Blaisdell said. “Would ten o’clock be a convenient hour for you?”
“Yes, sir,” Lizzie said.
“This hearing is adjourned till ten tomorrow morning,” Blaisdell said.
3: London — 1890
The Newbury house looked rather forbidding.
Surrounded by a tall iron fence (the coachman stepped down to open the gilded gate), approached by a driveway that circled round a grassy oval, it resembled nothing so much as the courthouse back home in Fall River, with its Grecian columns and solid gray stonework. She climbed two low, flat steps to the massive wooden front door, lifted the handsome brass knocker fashioned in the shape of a Medusa with snaky locks, let the knocker fall, and waited. The door opened almost at once. A pretty young woman, wearing a black dress, a white apron and a lacey black cap, smiled out at Lizzie, and in an Irish accent said, “Miss Borden, mum? Do come in, please, mistress is expecting you.”
The interior of the house came as something of a surprise. The floor of the vestibule was paved in alternating squares of black and white marble. Immediately facing the entrance door was a mantelpiece upon which stood a pair of terra-cotta vases. To one side of the mantel was a carved oaken bench; to the other was a Gothic-style chair that looked like a king’s throne. An ornately designed bronze umbrella stand, its supporting rod decorated with sculpted flowers and flanked by sculpted birds resembling flamingos, stood to one side of an opening beyond which a short flight of steps led downward to another area. Plant stands and pedestals surrounded the umbrella stand, creating a flowering arbor in which the sculpted birds seemed quite at home. On the other side of the opening was a statue of a voluptuous nude woman, surely Italian in origin, its marble illuminated by the soft light of the gas fixture overhead. Beyond the steps was a paneled wall. One of the huge doors in that wall opened, and Alison came through it, a smile on her face, her hand extended.