“I think not.”
“When last? That you know of?”
“About five years ago.”
“What about?”
“Her stepsister. Half sister.”
“What name?”
“Her name now is Mrs. George W. Whitehead.”
“Nothing more than hard words?”
“No, sir, they were not hard words. It was simply a difference of opinion.”
“You have been on pleasant terms with your stepmother since then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Cordial?”
Lizzie smiled. The smile quite transformed her face, startling him, the gray eyes softening, her mouth relaxing from its grim, set position of a moment earlier. “It depends on one’s idea of cordiality, perhaps,” she said.
Knowlton returned the smile. “According to your idea of cordiality,” he said.
“Quite so,” Lizzie said. She was still smiling.
“What do you mean by ‘quite so’?”
“Quite cordial. I don’t mean the dearest of friends in the world,” she said, and leaned forward a bit, as though taking him into her confidence, “but very kindly feelings. And pleasant.” The smile widened. “I don’t know how to answer you any better than that.”
“You didn’t regard her as a mother,” Knowlton said flatly, and the smile dropped from her face.
“Not exactly, no,” she said, and paused. “Although she came here when I was very young.”
“Was your relation toward her that of mother and daughter?”
“In some ways it was, and in some it wasn’t.”
“In what ways was it?” Knowlton asked.
“I decline to answer,” Lizzie said.
Knowlton looked at her as though he hadn’t quite heard her. He glanced at the stenographer. He looked at Blaisdell. Then he turned back to Lizzie.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I don’t know how to answer it.”
Knowlton kept looking at her. At last, he said, “In what ways was it not?”
“I didn’t call her mother,” Lizzie said.
“What name did she go by?”
“Mrs. Borden.”
“When did you begin to call her Mrs. Borden?”
“I should think five or six years ago.”
“Before that time you’d called her mother?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What led to the change?”
“The affair with her stepsister.”
“So then the affair was serious enough to have you change from calling her mother, do you mean?”
“I didn’t choose to call her mother,” Lizzie said.
“Have you ever called her mother since?”
“Yes, occasionally.”
“To her face, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Often?”
“No, sir.”
“Seldom?”
“Seldom.”
“Your usual address was Mrs. Borden.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did your sister Emma call her mother?”
“She always called her Abby. From the time she came into the family.”
“Is your sister Emma older than you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What is her age?”
“She’s ten years older than I am. She was somewhere about fourteen when she came there.”
“What was your stepmother’s age?”
“I don’t know I asked her sister Saturday, and she said sixty-four. I told them sixty-seven. I didn’t know. I told as nearly as I know. I didn’t know there was so much difference between she and father.”
“Why did you leave off calling her mother?”
“Because I wanted to,” Lizzie said.
“Is that all the reason you have to give me?”
“I haven’t any other answer.”
“Can’t you give me any better reason than that?”
“I haven’t any reason to give, except that I didn’t want to.”
“In what other respect were the relations between you and her not that of mother and daughter? Besides not calling her mother?”
“I don’t know that any of the relations were changes. I’d never been to her as a mother in many things. I always went to my sister. Because she was older and had the care of me after my mother died.”
“In what respects were the relations between you and her that of mother and daughter?”
“That’s the same question you asked before,” Lizzie said. “I can’t answer you any better now than I did before.”
“You didn’t say before you could not answer, but that you declined to answer.”
“I decline to answer because I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“Yes, sir.”
Knowlton nodded. He moved closer to her chair, and — almost in a whisper, almost as though he were sharing a secret with her — said “You called your father... father?”
“Always.”
“Were your father and mother happily united?”
Lizzie did not answer for several seconds. Then she said, “Why, I don’t know but that they were.”
“Why do you hesitate?” Knowlton asked.
“Because I don’t know but that they were, and I’m telling the truth as nearly as I know it.”
“Do you mean me to understand that they were happy entirely? Or not?”
“So far as I know, they were.”
“Why did you hesitate then?”
“Because I didn’t know how to answer you any better than what came into my mind. I was trying to think if I was telling it as I should. That’s all.”
“Do you have any difficulty in telling it as you should? Any difficulty in answering my questions?”
“Some of your questions I have difficulty in answering. Because I don’t know just how you mean them.”
Knowlton paused as though trying to frame his next question so that she would understand completely and without doubt exactly how he meant it. Slowly and deliberately he said, “Did you ever know of any difficulty between her and your father?”
“No, sir.”
“Did he seem to be affectionate?”
“I think so.”
“As man and woman who are married ought to be?”
“So far as I have ever had any chance of judging,” she said, and lowered her eyes. He thought she was making reference to the fact that she was still unmarried at the age of thirty-two, and felt faintly reprimanded. For a moment, he was flustered. He said, as if in summary, “They were.”
“Yes,” she said simply.
Their eyes met, and held.
Abruptly, he asked, “What dress did you wear the day they were killed?”
“I had on a navy blue,” she answered without hesitation, “sort of a bengaline. Or India silk skirt, with a navy blue blouse. In the afternoon, they thought I’d better change it.” She paused. “I put on a pink wrapper.”
“Did you change your clothing before the afternoon?” Knowlton asked.
“No, sir.”
“You dressed in the morning — as you have described — and kept that clothing on until afternoon.”
“Yes, sir.”
A fly was buzzing somewhere in the courtroom above his head, near the gas fixture above his head. It distracted his attention. He looked up with some annoyance and recognized all at once how suffocatingly hot it was in this room. The heat still seemed not to affect her. She sat quite motionless, her gloved hands folded in her lap, her head erect watching him, waiting for his next question. For a moment he himself wondered what the next question might be. He had as yet uncovered no reasonable motive for her having committed the murders. As for the means, the only possible weapons found in the Borden house had not yet been delivered to Professor Wood of Cambridge for his examination and report. The only remaining avenue, for the time being, was to question her regarding opportunity. Her uncle, John Vinicum Morse, had unquestionably been away from the house on the morning of the murders. Had she known he would be gone? Had she indeed expected his arrival the day before?