I’m a family man, I have a house, but I’ve never used benzine for cleansing purposes, except for taking out spots or removing grease. Benzine would be destructive to small animal life, bugs, flies, moths, all those things would go. They’d either emigrate or die. Ether would probably cause death to insects, too. All those creatures. The same is true of chloroform and naptha. They’re all volatile. Their volatility renders them unsuitable for such use, and yet they’re used that way right along in everyday life. All of those articles.
As another example, arsenic is an ingredient of the common article known as Rough on Rats. Something that’s very commonly used in households to dispose of rats. Well, I would rather have the rats than have such stuff about my house. I think we’re all going wrong in using those poisons that’ll kill rats. Because somebody may get it by accident into his own stomach, or find a chance to use it criminally. It’s a dangerous commodity to have in the house, arsenic.
As for prussic acid, what is known as the two-percent solution, you could mix it with water or mix it with alcohol, you could dilute it a hundred times more, until it contained two hundredths of a percent. But as to whether or not that would kill a piece of animal life on a fur, it would be impossible for me to say without experimenting on it. I have used the two-percent solution, tried its effects on insects. It’ll promptly kill them. But whether any greater dilution would accomplish the result, I don’t know.
I tested the effect of prussic acid upon insect life between last night and this morning, took the common prussic acid used in commerce, the two-percent solution, and tried that. On ants. No difficulty about killing them and various nondescript bugs. Unfortunately, I’m not a naturalist — I can’t tell what the various small insects I used were. I remember some spiders.
But to my knowledge, prussic acid in any form is not used for the purpose of cleaning furs.
In my opinion, it’s unsuitable in connection with furs.
It has no suitability or adaptability for use in cleaning furs.
“What is your full name?”
“My name is Eli Bence.”
“Do you live in Fall River?”
“I do.”
“What is your occupation?”
“I’m a drug clerk.”
“For whom do you work?”
“For D. R. Smith.”
“Where is Mr. Smith’s shop?”
“On the corner of South Main and Columbia Streets, in Fall River.”
“How long have you been connected with that business?”
“Something between thirteen and fourteen years.”
“How long have you been employed by Mr. Smith?”
“Something over four years now.”
“And always at the same place?”
“For Mr. Smith, yes, sir.”
Robinson leaped to his feet.
“May it please Your Honors,” he said, “there’s a question here that we consider of vital importance, and I believe the Commonwealth also recognizes it as of that character. This inquiry, I suggest, ought to stop here, and the question be discussed with the Court alone.”
“There are certain preliminary things and characteristics,” Moody said, “that are to be considered, that we want to prove. Perhaps, however, if it would suit the convenience of the other side, we could state what we expected to prove upon that subject better.”
“I’m speaking of this evidence,” Robinson said, “when there’s any question about it. It’s deemed important to both sides, and it’s important for the Court to consider and pass upon it.”
“That’s entirely in the hands of the Court,” Moody said. “We wanted to prove, however, one or two preliminary things, not at all turning in the direction of the prisoner.”
“I understand what the question is,” Robinson said, “and I say that it isn’t quite the statement that should be made — because it really involves and touches this case somewhat.”
“I’m entirely content to state it,” Moody said.
“I think you’d better not state it now,” Robinson said.
“No, I understand. I’m entirely content to state it upon the argument to Your Honors.”
“It’s nothing that ought to be stated now,” Robinson insisted.
Chief Justice Mason looked at both men.
“The jury may retire with the officer and remain until sent for,” he said. “The witness may return downstairs.”
Lizzie sat in the airless courtroom and watched Bence and the jurors filing out. Was it only her imagination that Bence tossed a look at her over his shoulder as he departed? She recalled suddenly the words Knowlton had put to her in Fall River last year, recalled her own answers as vividly as if the exchange were taking place here and now:
“Your attention has already been called to the circumstance of going into the drugstore of Smith’s on the corner of Columbia and Main Streets — by some officer, has it not? — on the day before the tragedy.”
“I don’t know whether some officer has asked me. Somebody has spoken of it to me. I don’t know who it was.”
“Did that take place?”
“It did not.”
“Do you know where the drugstore is?”
“I don’t.”
“Did you go into any drugstore and inquire for prussic acid?”
“I did not.”
Her own attorneys had asked her these same questions over and again. She had repeatedly told them that she had not gone to any drugstore in Fall River or anyplace else and had made no attempts to buy prussic acid or any other sort of poison on the day before the murders. Her attorneys knew the government had witnesses who claimed they could identify her as the woman who’d made the inquiries for prussic acid. In the end Robinson had felt it best — considering the danger such patently mistaken identification might present — to argue for exclusion of the testimony once the matter came up in court.
It had come up now.
It was fully upon them now.
She leaned forward intently as Moody began speaking.
“I perhaps ought to state what the testimony is that we offer,” he said. “We offer to show that prussic acid is not an article in commercial use, that it is an article which is not sold except upon the prescription of a physician and as a part — a minute part — of a prescription. That this witness during his experience as a drug clerk, up to the third of August, 1892, never had a call for prussic acid. That it is not used for the purpose of cleaning capes — sealskin capes, or capes of any other sort — and has no adaptability to such use.
“We now offer to show that upon the third day of August, sometime in the forenoon, the time of which isn’t material, the prisoner came to this shop in which the man was employed and asked for ten cents’ worth of prussic acid, stating that she wished it for the purpose of cleaning capes — either sealskin capes, or capes, I’m not sure which — and that she failed to procure the poison for which she asked. Perhaps I ought to state it with some accuracy,” Moody said, and went to the defense table where his co-counsel sat. Knowlton immediately handed him the document he was seeking, and Moody approached the bench again.
“These are Mr. Bence’s exact words,” he said, and began reading from the typewritten sheet of paper in his hands. “This party came in there, and inquired if I kept prussic acid. I informed her that we did. She asked me if she could buy ten cents’ worth of me. I informed her that we did not sell prussic acid unless by a physician’s prescription. She then said that she had bought this several times, I think. I think she said several times before. I says, ‘Well, my good lady, it’s something we don’t sell unless by prescription from the doctor, as it’s a very dangerous thing to handle.’ I understood her to say she wanted it to put on the edge of a sealskin cape, if I remember rightly. She left without buying anything, no drug at all, no medicine.”