Lizzie, p.29
Lizzie, page 29
“How long have you held that position?”
“As an assistant professor of chemistry from 1871 to 1876, and professor of chemistry since 1876.”
“Have you given special attention to any particular branch of science?”
“To medical chemistry.”
“Does that also include what is also called physiological chemistry?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you had experience in that sort of work? In medical or physiological chemistry?”
“Yes, sir.”
“To what extent?”
“To a very great extent in medicolegal cases, poison and bloodstain cases.”
“Have you been called upon as to that branch of science in the trial of cases?”
“Yes, sir.”
“To what extent?”
“I don’t know, sir. Several hundred, I should think.”
“Large number of capital cases?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When was your attention, professor, first called to this matter?”
On the fifth of August last year, I received by express a box which was unopened. I opened the box and found in it four preserve jars, one of which was labeled Milk of August 3rd, 1892; the other, the second, was labeled Milk of August 4th, 1892; the third tag was labeled Stomach of Andrew J. Borden; the fourth was labeled Stomach of Mrs. Andrew J. Borden. These tags were tied closely about the neck of the bottles, with strings, the strings being sealed. I opened the jars simply by cutting the strings, leaving the seals intact.
I first examined the jar marked Stomach of Mrs. Andrew J. Borden. The jar was opened and the stomach removed. I found what was apparently a stomach — so far as the external appearance was concerned — of perfectly normal appearance. And it was unopened, a ligature, or string, a cord being tied about the upper and lower end of the stomach. Surgically unopened, I mean. I cut the ligatures and opened the stomach myself while it was fresh, shortly after I received it, and removed the contents into a separate vessel and thoroughly examined the inner surface of the stomach which I found to be, so far as I could determine, perfectly healthy in appearance. There was no evidence of the action of any irritant whatever.
The contents of the stomach were then examined and their quantity noted to be about eleven ounces. It was of semisolid consistency, consisting of at least four-fifths solid food and not more than one-fifth — I should say probably not more than one-tenth — of liquid, of water. And upon examination of those contents of the stomach, I found them to consist of partially digested starch, like wheat starch such as would be found in bread or cake or any other food in the making of which wheat flour is used.
There was also a large quantity of partially digested meat — muscular fiber — with the food and a considerable quantity of oil and some pieces of bread and cake. Some of the pieces of meat were quite sizable pieces — as large, for instance, as a whole pea. And one or two pieces were larger than that — as large as the end of my forefinger — so that their nature was very readily determined.
In addition to this, there was a large number of vegetable pulp cells which resembled those of some fruit, or a pulpy vegetable such as boiled potato. Or an apple or pear. And there was also an undigested skin of a vegetable or of a fruit, one piece of which I have here. It looks like the red skin of an apple or pear.
So far as anything could be determined from the appearance of the food, it was undergoing the normal stomach digestion. And from the quantity of the food in the stomach, it would — if the digestion had progressed normally in the individual before death — indicate a period of approximately somewhere from two to three hours of digestion from the last meal taken, possibly a little longer than that.
That was the stomach of Mrs. Borden.
The character of the food found in the stomach of Mr. Borden differed from that in the stomach of Mrs. Borden in that there was very much less of it, and that it consisted mostly of water and contained only a very small quantity of solid food. This would indicate that the digestion — had it gone on normally, at the normal rate — in the stomach of Mr. Borden was much further advanced than that in the case of Mrs. Borden, since nearly all of the solid food had been expelled from the stomach into the intestine. It would make it, therefore, somewhere in the neighborhood of four hours, say from three — anywhere from three and a half to four and a half hours, the digestion.
Both of those contents of the stomachs were immediately tested for prussic acid. Because prussic acid — it being a volatile acid, it is necessary to make an immediate test for it as it would escape very shortly after its exposure to the air, and escape detection therefore. Therefore, those were both tested for prussic acid, with negative results. Afterwards they were analyzed in the regular way for the irritant poisons, with also a negative result.
I found no evidence of poison of any kind.
Both jars of milk were also tested in the same way, and without obtaining any evidence of poison in either the milk of August third or the milk of August fourth.
Assuming that the two persons whose stomachs I had under examination ate breakfast at the same table and time and partook of the same breakfast substantially, the difference in the time of their deaths — assuming the digestion to have gone on naturally in both cases — the difference would be somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour and a half, more or less.
Digestion stops at death. It stops so far as the expulsion of food from the stomach is concerned. There is a sort of digestion that goes on after death in which the stomach wall itself is partially digested. Taking all the facts as I’ve heard them and also the examinations that I made myself, taking all those circumstances that I regard as important — the difference in the period of digestion, both stomach and intestinal, the drying of the blood and the temperature of the body — I should think that one corroborated the other, that they all tended to the same conclusion as to the difference in time of death of the two people.
And that conclusion is an hour and a half, more or less.
11: Cannes — 1890
They left for the Riviera on August 26, a Wednesday, and although they arrived at the rail station a full hour before the scheduled departure of the express, there were nonetheless great crowds milling about, and the consequent confusion Alison claimed was to be expected at any French terminus.
“These people cannot bear to see any member of the family departing without arranging a bon voyage gathering of monstrous proportions,” she said as they waited in line to purchase their tickets. “One witnesses what appears to be a general exodus caused by a revolution or a plague, only to discover that but a sole member of the family is leaving, and the rest are here en masse only to wave the pilgrim tearfully on his way.”
They nonetheless managed to have their luggage weighed and tagged, and were walking leisurely toward their wagon-lit by a quarter of eleven, fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure. “During the season, of course, one can take a train direct from London,” Alison said, “but I assure you this is by far the best time of the year to enjoy the pleasures the Riviera has to offer.” The journey to Marseilles, she said, would occupy the better part of fifteen hours, and from thence to Cannes yet another four. If all went well, they should arrive at the villa sometime before lunch tomorrow, “A tiring enough trip, but imagine, dear Lizzie, what it was like for us before they put on sleeping cars only seven years ago!”
They entered the car at one end of it, stepping into an enclosed vestibule and then walking past the ladies’ dressing room, its door open to reveal a water closet and a lavatory over which was hanging a mirror that reflected yet another mirror on the wall opposite. There were four divided compartments opening off the corridor, two of them containing single berths, the remaining two fitted with seats that converted into double berths at night. Their own double compartment was at the far end of the corridor, near the gentlemen’s lavatory and water closet. It was not quite so commodious as Lizzie’s shipboard accommodations had been, but it was nonetheless carpeted and richly appointed, its plush-upholstered seats comfortably enclosed by wood-paneled walls, its large windows affording a splendid view of the French countryside.
Some three miles outside of Paris, they passed Charenton (“Where the loonies are kept,” Alison remarked drily) and did not stop for the first time — and then for only five minutes — until they reached Melun, some twenty-eight miles further on. The train rolled into the valley of the Seine, lushly verdant in the bright August sunshine. They took their lunch, and later their dinner, in the elaborately decorated restaurant car. Night had fallen upon the countryside. Outside there were only the lights in the farmhouses now, and then not even those. They were both ready to retire long before their train pulled into Tonnere.
An attendant miraculously transformed their seats into the bed upon which they would sleep that night, rotating the seats a full 180 degrees upon their axes so that they formed a berth at right angles to the route of travel, the bedclothes already upon it and enclosed in a stout oiled silk that prevented them from slipping to the floor. As the attendant made up their bed, first Alison and then Lizzie — both wearing their daytime garments, and reluctant to traipse down the corridor in nightdresses and robes — separately went to the ladies’ dressing room. When Lizzie returned to the compartment, Alison was lying naked on the bed.
She closed the door quickly behind her, realizing with a start that she had never seen her friend completely disrobed before this moment; in the Paris hotel, there had been the vast salle de bain, and Alison had always retreated there when performing her nighttime and morning toilettes. She was rather more beautiful nude than Lizzie could have guessed. The only light in the compartment came from an electrified lamp over the bed, diffused by a translucent rose-colored shade. Her blond hair was spread loose on the pillow under her head. Her eyes were closed, her exquisite face utterly serene. She lay in repose with her arms at her sides, her slender body softly illuminated, her breasts rather larger than she had demeaningly described them, the aureoles and nipples a pale pink softened by the rosy glow of the overhead lamp. The hair at the joining of her long legs seemed extravagantly lush, a wild golden garden — Lizzie looked away, and turned to lock the door behind her.
“Forgive me,” she said.
“Whatever on earth for?” Alison asked.
“I didn’t mean to... waken you.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
Lizzie had still not turned from the door.
“Are you having trouble with that dicey lock?” Alison asked.
“No, it seems to be secure now.”
“Then hurry to bed,” Alison said, “or we shall have precious little sleep before the thunder and bellow of Marseilles. You’ll find it a trifle stuffy in here, I don’t think you shall need a nightdress. We might do best, in fact, to sleep without a cover.”
Lizzie turned from the door. Without so much as glancing again at Alison, she clicked off the lamp over the bed, undressed in the dark, and then — despite Alison’s suggestion — pulled a nightdress over her head.
She felt quite warm and flushed lying beside Alison in the dark, the wheels of the train clattering beneath them, but she did not remove the nightdress. When the train roared into the Marseilles station sometime in the empty hours of the night, she was drenched in perspiration, and wondered if she might be suffering a relapse.
They had telegraphed ahead from Paris, but the Newbury coachman was not waiting at the Cannes railroad station for them and Alison was beside herself with anger. She engaged a porter to carry their luggage to a waiting carriage, snapping her fingers imperiously, shouting instructions in rapid French, and then settling back beside Lizzie and sighing deeply as the carriage got under way.
“I can never stay agitated for long in this delightful spot,” she said. “The telegram must have gone astray, wouldn’t you say? I shouldn’t put it past the French. Either that, or there was some sort of domestic crisis which that financial wizard was unable to resolve.” She was referring, of course, to Albert. Lizzie wondered, suddenly, if she spoke of him in this fashion to all her other friends.
“You shall find the town utterly deserted,” Alison said. “Even the cheaper hotels and pensions here near the railway station are abandoned during the summertime.” The carriage was passing a garden-enclosed establishment with a sign advising that it was the Pension Mon Plaisir. “ ‘My Pleasure,’ indeed,” Alison said. “It’s probably crawling with vermin and lice. You’ll find your better hotels fronting the beach east and west of the town center, although some visitors prefer the ones inland, which are less conducive to wakefulness — did you sleep well last night, Lizzie?”
“Restlessly,” Lizzie said.
“Ah, yes, the compartment was close, wasn’t it? Beachfront or hillside, you shall find them all moribund at this time of year. The moment there are lilacs in England, don’t you know, it’s simply time to go home. Never mind the fact that London often has snow in May. And the instant the British depart, of course, the links and the tennis courts and the casino and most of the restaurants shut down tighter than crypts. Which is exactly how I prefer them. I love it here during the summertime!”
The air was indeed balmy at this late hour of the morning, and the scent of oranges wafted in through the open carriage windows as they made their way slowly through the town center and then began moving steadily inland on a gradually sloping road, leaving the broad blue stripe of the Mediterranean behind them. Higher and higher they climbed. “Their villas are scattered all about town,” Alison said. “The Duke of Albany’s, who died six years ago, the Villa Edelweiss, owned by Mr. Saville and visited by the queen — when was it? 1887? Well, quite recently at any rate. The Rothschild villa, and Lord Brougham’s — we passed his statue on the Allées de la Liberté, did you notice it? Between the Hôtel de Ville and the Splendide? He died two years ago, but he’s the acknowledged founder of modern-day Cannes. Before him the place was an insignificant little fishing village — oh, would that it were again! That was back in 1834, dear Lizzie, long before either you or I were born. We’re almost there, be patient, I know the ride is bumpy.”
It seemed at first that they were only moving further inland, yet more distant from the sea. The woods through which the road wound were white with myrtle, scattered here and there with the vibrant red of geraniums. They passed through a stand of pines, and then a copse of tropical growth that ended abruptly against an escarpment of vine-covered rock. The carriage turned a bend around the boulders, and Lizzie caught a glimpse of the cobalt sea again, glistening with pinpoint pricks of sunlight, framed with a dense and fragrant white floral growth that began again on the southern side of the rock formation. The carriage rounded another turn in the road, the horse struggling with the steep incline, and suddenly she saw the house.
Where Alison’s home in London had seemed a pile of structured gray granite softened only somewhat by the Grecian-style columns supporting the entrance portico, Lizzie saw now a low and sprawling array of interconnected stucco buildings, painted a white that blindingly reflected the rays of the sun. Tropical plants grew low against the walls, vines climbed toward the sun, the exotic fragrance of alien blooms wafted through the open carriage windows and mingled with the aroma of dust to create an oddly heady scent.
“Kensington is Albert’s,” Alison murmured beside her. “This is mine.”
The cabman stepped down and opened the carriage doors on either side for them. The thick entrance doors to the villa were set back in a shadowed arch and fashioned of a pale wood diagonally joined, studded with great black iron bolts and strapped with massive black hinges. The doors were wide open, and through them Lizzie could see a tiled interior court with a tiled center fountain and surrounding beds of flowers, small blooming trees in tubs and tiled columns supporting a gallery that ran clear around the upper story. A vagrant breeze idled through the courtyard as they entered, carrying on it the unmistakably salty aroma of the sea.
And now came Moira, dressed quite differently here in the south of France than she had been in London, wearing a full white skirt and petticoats, a lace-edged blouse and an apron embroidered in reds and blues and yellows that echoed the blooms everywhere in the courtyard.
“Miz Newbury, mum,” she said, beaming, “welcome! We’ve missed you,” and curtsied, and shouted “George! Come see to the luggage! Welcome, Miss Borden,” she said, and curtsied again, and then picked up her skirts and went clattering over the tiled floor, disappearing through an arched doorway, shouting “George!” as she went.
“Come,” Alison said proudly. “Let me show you.”
More arched doorways at the far end of the courtyard opened onto a terrace floored with orange tiles, and beyond that was the most luxuriant garden Lizzie had ever seen, blooming with jasmine and sunflowers, fuchsias and nasturtiums, chrysanthemums and dahlias, zinnias, asters and other flowers that were entirely strange to her but that spread a fragrant scent on the air. The garden sloped off onto a vast grassy lawn which the Newbury gardener, wearing a French workman’s blue smock, was watering down with a hose. Beyond the garden and the lawn, far below, was the pristine sea. The sky above it was a paler cloudless blue. The air was balmy; it kissed her face and caused a smile to appear on her mouth.
“Ah, there’s my husband,” Alison said, and called, “Albert! No welcome? After all your fussing, I should have expected a band, at least.”
He was sitting in a wicker chair in the sun, reading an English-language newspaper, wearing white trousers and shirt, white shoes and a straw hat with an overly large brim. “Well, well,” he said, putting down the newspaper and rising. “Better late than never, eh?”
“Never might have been more appropriate as regards George,” Alison said. “Where was he? Didn’t you receive my telegram?”
“George has sprained his ankle,” Albert said, coming to where they were standing. “More than likely in pursuit of these comely Cannois virgins. You’ll be fortunate if he can struggle your luggage into the house.” He kissed his wife perfunctorily on the cheek, took Lizzie’s hand, lowered his lips to it and said, “Was your journey a pleasant one?” Without waiting for a reply, he said, “You look terribly pale, Lizzie, we shall have to set you out in the sun. Cook has been gone all morning,” he said to Alison, “haggling with these French brigands over tonight’s meal. Her French leaves something to be desired, to say the least. You must inform her that there is no such thing as a neuter article in this beastly language, and that the locals take offense at her casual intermingling of the ‘le’ and ‘la’. So then, have you had lunch? I know cook has prepared a cold tray, and I’m famished myself, having spent an energetic morning reading this sorry excuse for a newspaper. Shall I ask Moira to set it out while you both change into something more suitable to the climate? You shall suffocate in those heavy garments. Breathe in deeply of the sea air, Lizzie. I’m told it does wonders for all the cripples and invalids who make their permanent residence here. Will you show Lizzie to her room? I know Moira spent all morning tidying it. There should be fresh lemonade in a carafe on the bedstand, though I fear ice is a virtual impossibility here — as it is in England as well. I know how terribly fond of ice you Americans are. Well, do get hopping, both of you, or I shall die of starvation.”
