“She asked me how I felt. I said I felt better than I did Tuesday, but I didn’t want any breakfast. She asked me what I wanted for dinner. I told her nothing. I told her I didn’t want anything. She said she was going out, and would get the dinner. That’s the last I saw her, or said anything to her.”
“Where did you go then?”
“Into the kitchen.”
“Where then?”
“Downcellar.”
“Gone perhaps five minutes?”
“Perhaps. Not more than that. Possibly a little bit more.”
“When you came back, did you see your mother?”
“I did not. I supposed she had gone out.”
“She did not tell you where she was going?”
“No, sir.”
“Now I call your attention to the fact that yesterday you told me, with some explicitness, that when your father came in you were just coming downstairs.”
“No, I did not. I beg your pardon.”
“That you were on the stairs at the time your father was let in, you said with some explicitness. Do you now say you did not say so?”
“I said I thought first I was on the stairs. Then I remembered I was in the kitchen when he came in.”
“First you thought you were in the kitchen. Afterwards, you remembered you were on the stairs.”
“I said I thought I was on the stairs. Then I said I knew I was in the kitchen. I still say that now. I was in the kitchen.”
“Did you go into the front part of the house after your father came in?”
“After he came in from downstreet, I was in the sitting room with him.”
“Did you go into the front hall afterwards?”
“No, sir.”
“At no time?”
“No, sir.”
“Excepting the two or three minutes you were downcellar, were you away from the house until your father came in?”
“No, sir.”
“You were always in the kitchen or dining room, excepting when you went upstairs.”
“I went upstairs before he went out.”
“You mean you went up there to sew a button on.”
“I basted a piece of tape on.”
“Do you remember you didn’t say that yesterday?”
“I don’t think you asked me. I told you yesterday I went upstairs directly after I came up from downcellar, with the clean clothes.”
“You now say — after your father went out — you didn’t go upstairs at all.”
“No, sir, I did not.”
“When Maggie came in there washing the windows, you didn’t appear from the front part of the house?”
“No, sir.”
“When your father was let in, you didn’t appear from upstairs?”
“No, sir. I was in the kitchen.”
“After your father went out, you remained there either in the kitchen or dining room all the time.”
“I went in the sitting room long enough to direct some paper wrappers.”
“One of the three rooms.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So it would have been extremely difficult for anybody to have gone through the kitchen, and dining room, and front hall without your seeing them.”
“They could have gone from the kitchen into the sitting room while I was in the dining room. If there was anybody to go.”
“Then into the front hall?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were in the dining room. Ironing.”
“Yes, sir. Part of the time.”
“You were in all of the three rooms.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A large portion of that time, the girl was out of doors.”
“I don’t know where she was. I didn’t see her. I supposed she was out of doors. As she had the pail and brush.”
“You know she was washing windows?”
“She told me she was going to. I didn’t see her do it.”
“For a large portion of the time, you didn’t see the girl?”
“No, sir.”
“So far as you know, you were alone in the lower part of the house a large portion of the time. After your father went away, and before he came back.”
“My father didn’t go away, I think, until somewhere about ten... as near as I can remember. He was with me downstairs.”
“A large portion of the time, after your father went away and before he came back, so far as you know, you were alone in the house.”
“Maggie had come in and gone upstairs.”
“After he went out,” Knowlton persisted doggedly, “and before he came back, a large portion of the time after your father went out, and before he came back, so far as you know, you were the only person in the house.”
“So far as I know, I was.”
“And during that time, so far as you know, the front door was locked.”
“So far as I know.”
“And never was unlocked at all.”
“I don’t think it was.”
“Even after your father came home, it was locked up again.”
“I don’t know whether she locked it up again after that or not.”
“It locks itself.”
“The spring lock opens.”
“It fastens it so it cannot be opened from the outside.”
“Sometimes you can press it open.”
“Have you any reason to suppose the spring lock was left so it could be pressed open from the outside?”
“I have no reason to suppose so.”
“Nothing about the lock was changed before the people came.”
“Nothing that I know of.”
One of them was lying; either the servant girl or the woman who now sat watching him, her gray eyes unreadable. Bridget Sullivan had testified under oath that Lizzie had been upstairs when she’d let Andrew Borden into the house. Either in the entry or at the top of the stairs. She had specifically stated that she’d had difficulty unlocking the door, and had said “Oh, pshaw,” and had heard Lizzie laughing, upstairs. Lizzie herself had yesterday claimed she’d been upstairs when her father came back to the house. She was now claiming she’d been in the kitchen. Why the lie, if indeed it was a lie? And if it was not a lie, he wanted all the details.
“What were you doing in the kitchen when your father came home?” he asked.
“I think I was eating a pear when he came in.”
“What had you been doing before that?”
“Reading a magazine.”
“Were you making preparations to iron again?”
“I’d sprinkled my clothes and was waiting for the flats. I sprinkled the clothes before he went out.”
“Had you built up the fire again?”
“I put in a stick of wood. There were a few sparks. I put in a stick of wood to try to heat the flat.”
“You had then started the fire?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The fire was burning when he came in?”
“No, sir. But it was smoldering and smoking as though it would come up.”
“Did it come up after he came in?”
“No, sir.”
“How soon after your father came in before Maggie went upstairs?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see her.”
“Did you see her after your father came in?”
“Not after she let him in.”
“How long was your father in the house before you found him killed?”
“I don’t know exactly. Because I went out to the barn. I don’t know what time he came home. I don’t think he’d been home more than fifteen or twenty minutes. I’m not sure.”
“When you went out to the barn, where did you leave your father?”
“He had laid down on the sitting-room lounge. Taken off his shoes and put on his slippers. And taken off his coat and put on the reefer. I asked him if he wanted the window left that way.”