And now, tonight's presentation of radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
Tonight, we bring you transcribed a story of what might have happened in the famous
Lizzie Borden case.
We call it Goodbye, Miss Lizzie Borden.
So now, starring Paula Winslow, Virginia Gregg and Irene Tedrow, here is tonight's Suspense
play, Goodbye, Miss Lizzie Borden.
What did I do with my purse?
Oh, there it is.
Oh dear, oh dear, I know I've forgotten something.
Something.
Is that everything, ma'am?
Huh?
Oh, oh yes, just the two suitcases.
What are you doing with the trunk, Expressman?
There isn't any trunk, only the two bags.
I'm only going for a short visit.
I was told...
It's my trunk, Miss Emma.
I'm leaving.
Oh, Maggie.
It's all right, Expressman.
You can take the trunk out.
Yes, ma'am.
Maggie, you can't.
I can't help it.
I'm sorry, I really can't.
I'm sorry, Miss Emma.
I've only stayed this long for your sake.
I couldn't bear to leave you alone with her.
Thank you, Maggie.
Now you'll be gone off on your little vacation and she'll have somebody else in the kitchen
maybe before you come back.
Oh dear, Maggie.
What shall we do?
What are we going to do?
I can't stand it, Miss Emma.
I never feel alone in this house.
I'm cleaning about, thinking no evil, and then I get a shiver between my shoulder blades
and I turn around and there she is, perfectly still, just looking at me with that look she's
had since the trial.
More than a body can stand and I'm leaving.
I know, Maggie.
She's always spying.
She knows every move I make.
I know.
No party, no callers, not a friend to drop in of an evening.
It's like a house of death.
It is a house of death.
I can't stand it any more than you can.
That's why I'm going down to Fairhaven.
I can't stand being cooped up with her any longer.
Then you know what I mean, Miss Emma.
Have you told her?
No.
If you want to know the truth, I was afraid to say anything.
I thought I might get my trunk away with your things before she knew.
Where is she?
Upstairs.
Well, you'd better hurry then.
Goodbye, Maggie.
Goodbye, Miss.
I'm sorry.
And don't miss your train.
Oh, I won't.
I have a half hour yet and it isn't as if there wasn't another one soon after, you know.
Well, I know you, Miss Emma.
Don't miss them both.
Goodbye.
Goodbye, Maggie.
Oh, what am I going to do?
Miss Lizzie, Miss Borden is out.
Oh, my God.
I'm so sorry.
Oh, dear.
Why can't they leave us in peace?
Oh, now what did I do with my gloves?
Oh, I wonder what time it is.
Maggie!
Oh, oh, she's gone.
Oh, dear.
Lizzie will be furious.
Oh, who is it?
Who is it?
Miss Borden.
Oh, no, no, no.
You can't come in.
Oh, no.
No, no, you can't come in.
My sister won't see you.
Please take your shoe out of the door.
Oh, dear.
This is the scene of the crime.
Oh, please.
The sword found over there.
Please, my sister.
Blood splattered all over the walls.
Had them re-papered.
Oh.
Nice happy pattern, too.
Oh, this is the picture, isn't it?
The one that had 46 blood spots on it.
You're Miss Lizzie Borden, I presume.
Oh, no.
No.
I am not.
I must say, you're not what I expected.
Out West, where I come from, when a woman's tough, she's tough.
Now, Miss Lizzie, I'm really...
I am not Miss Lizzie. I am Miss Emma.
Oh! Oh, the sister! That accounts for it.
Well, Miss Emma, this is the anniversary of the Second Street murders, isn't it?
It's just a year since Mr. and Mrs. Borden were murdered, but...
Since my father and stepmother died. We don't talk about it.
I missed your sister's trial. Some old girl, I heard.
She was acquitted. We don't talk about it.
No, of course not. But the public is interested, you know.
Now, I'm from Cripple Creek, Colorado, Miss Emma.
Greatest town on earth. Pick up gold right on the streets.
I represent the Cripple Creek record, and I'm here to get some impressions from my paper.
Second Street revisited and all that.
Oh, you're one of those nasty female reporters.
Oh, Lizzie hates reporters. I know she won't listen to you for a minute.
Oh, well. Hey, isn't that a picture of Pike's Peak on the wall?
Oh, yes. It's quite artistic, isn't it?
Uncle Morse brought it back to me from the gold fields.
It's all he brought back. He painted it himself.
Now, isn't that a coincidence? I'm from the Pike's Peak gold fields myself.
Oh. Morse, Morse.
Is your Uncle Morse an old codger, 60ish maybe, with...
A droopy mustache?
That's it. A droopy mustache and a sort of...
Tall and thin. Oh, my goodness. Do you know Uncle Morse?
I should say I do. I knew him well in Cripple Creek.
Who is the old coyote? Put her there, Miss Emma.
Any niece of old man Morse is a friend of mine.
Oh, how do you do? Won't you sit down, Miss...
Nellie Cuts. You just call me Nellie.
Now, as I was saying, I represent the Cripple Creek record,
and I'm on kind of a roving commission to report how things are on this side of the range.
And listen, this Borden story's got everything.
New England old maid, Sunday school teacher and all that.
Just as a story, you know.
Collar? She ups and kills half the family with an axe.
Interview with Miss Lizzie Borden a year after. Great stuff.
They need it up in Cripple Creek.
She won't see you. Lizzie won't see you. I know that.
Well, how about a word from you, the sister?
How does it feel, Miss Emma, to live day in and day out within sight of the very blood stains, as you might say?
How does it feel to take meals with a woman who was tried for the crime?
Oh, I've stood it as long as I can.
That's why I'm going to Fairhaven. I can be alone in Fairhaven.
Must have been pretty tough on the nerves this last year.
I guess Miss Lizzie'd be difficult to live with, huh?
Shh! She hears. She's always listening and spying.
She never leaves me alone.
Oh, dear, I mustn't miss the 3.37. What time is it?
You won't miss it. It's only quarter-a-half.
Oh, my watch says ten o'clock.
No, I set mine at the station just for...
Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 wets.
And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.
Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 wets.
What was that? She gave her father 41.
How did it begin?
He gave her father 41.
This is a classic. Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her...
Oh, please, please, don't.
She hears every word you say down here.
Her room is right up there.
Right up there?
But she wasn't up there when her father was being murdered, was she?
She was in the barn eating pears, she says.
Now, Miss Emma, just sit down a minute, please.
Is it true that on the morning of the murder,
the breakfast consisted of bananas, cookies and cold mutton soup?
I don't know. I wasn't here. I was at Fairhaven.
Cold mutton soup in August. No wonder somebody committed murder.
Well, now, Miss Emma, your stepmother was found upstairs
with her head batted in with an axe.
That's right.
And your father's body was on the sofa here, like this.
Oh, don't!
Miss Lizzie spread the alarm.
The front door was triple-locked
and Miss Lizzie was watching the side door, so she says.
She was watching from the upper barn window,
just standing there, eating a pear and looking out, she says.
How could anyone outside have done it?
How could they escape right under her eyes
if Miss Lizzie wasn't lying?
My sister was acquitted.
It beats me how they acquitted her.
Blood.
Hmm?
Blood.
Whoever did it was covered with blood.
Well, what about it?
Everybody saw Lizzie within ten minutes of the crime
and she hadn't a spot of blood on her.
The biggest professors at Harvard tried to find blood on her clothes.
There wasn't any.
That's why they had to acquit her.
Tell me, Miss Emma, did you look carefully at Miss Lizzie
to see if there was any blood on her, her hair, perhaps, or her shoes?
Certainly not my own sister.
Besides, I didn't see Lizzie till I got back from Fairhaven that night.
Maybe she used an apron, one of those big coveralls.
They never found one.
Easy enough to hide a thing like that in your own house.
They never found the axe either, did they?
No. They never found the axe.
I often wondered where it got to.
They searched the house?
Yes. They searched.
They took up the carpets, didn't they?
Did they search the chimney?
Of course they did.
Did they open the flue?
No. We wouldn't have them tearing up the house.
I'd tear it up.
Loose brick here. Wouldn't be hard.
Oh, Lizzie wouldn't have it.
Everything's Lizzie's now.
Lizzie's and mine.
Miss Emma, excuse me, but is there any insanity in your family?
Certainly not.
That's the first thing they started asking.
Oh, they asked ever so many questions about Uncle Mors.
Good old Uncle Mors.
He arrived for a visit, didn't he?
Just the day before the murders.
Yes. And they were awful about Uncle Mors.
They kept asking people if he was quite right in the head.
Just because he doesn't work steady any place, but sort of drifts around.
Oh, it made me terribly angry.
Uncle Mors is as sane as I am.
Where was he the morning of the murders?
Visiting around. He had a perfect alibi.
It was just humiliating the way they snooped around about everybody.
Where was Uncle Mors? Where was I?
Miss Emma, tell me about the kitten.
Oh, they say the kitten was found down in the cellar.
Dead.
It had been killed with an axe.
Oh, the kitten.
The kitten was the hardest.
I cried for a week.
It brought on my neuralgia.
I like kittens.
Lizzie never cried at all.
It was Lizzie's kitten.
She's a hard woman.
Yes.
Well, now, Miss Emma,
let's get back to the fatal day.
Mrs. Borden is lying in her blood upstairs.
The servant is downstairs.
She hears Mr. Borden at the front door trying to get in.
She goes to let him in.
She finds the door is triple locked.
She lets him in and upstairs on the landing, she hears a horrible gloating laugh.
The murderer is standing up there, Miss Emma.
And as she sees her second victim walk into her trap, she laughs.
It wasn't Lizzie. Lizzie was downstairs.
She changed her story.
First she said she was downstairs.
Then upstairs she was lying then.
Well, in comes Mr. Borden and lies down for a nap right here on the sofa.
The murderer covers herself with something
and creeps up on the old man with an axe from behind,
like this,
and brings down the axe again and again.
No, no, no.
Wasn't it, Miss Lizzie?
Wasn't?
No, no.
No, it wasn't, Lizzie.
It wasn't.
Emma.
You talk too much, Emma.
You are listening to Goodbye, Miss Lizzie Borden.
Tonight's presentation in radio's outstanding theater of thrills,
Suspense.
CBS radio reminds you to do as Sparky the Firefighting Dog says,
don't give fire a place to start.
Be sure all cigarettes are out before discarding them.
Clear your house of old newspapers, damaged furniture and inflammable debris.
Repair electrical wiring as soon as it shows signs of wear.
These simple rules will help keep your valuables safe.
They could even save your life.
Don't gamble with fire.
The odds are against you.
And now, we bring back to our Hollywood soundstage,
Virginia Gregg, Irene Tedrow and Paula Winslow,
starring in tonight's production,
Goodbye, Miss Lizzie Borden,
a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Lizzie, this lady is an old friend of Uncle Mors.
You're going to miss your train, Emma.
Oh, yes, Lizzie.
Oh dear, perhaps I should have called a cab,
but it's only a step from here.
Goodbye, Lizzie.
Goodbye.
Emma?
Yes?
You forgot your gloves.
Oh, oh, so I did.
Thank you, Lizzie.
Goodbye.
Goodbye, Miss.
I represent the Cripple Creek Record, Miss Lizzie.
A friend of Uncle Mors?
What color hair has the old man got?
Gray.
Bald as an egg.
Good day, Miss.
But Miss Borden, my paper wants an interview.
I don't give interviews.
Just one question, Miss Lizzie.
The blood-stained apron, where did it get you?
I have nothing to say.
And the bloody axe.
Why wasn't the chimney back searched?
Good day, Miss.
If you just say a word for my paper.
I suppose I'll have to hide them somewhere else now.
Hi.
I'm Lizzie.
I'm the new
Miss Borden.
I missed the train.
You can catch the next one.
Lizzie, your apron and the axe.
That's where they were all the time.
Lock the door, Emma.
You hid them there after?
Yes.
I was afraid Maggie would come down any minute.
I hid them in the flue.
I always wondered where they got to.
I wondered how they could search and search and never find them.
Father kept money behind that brick.
He never knew I knew.
Once he was dead, nobody knew about it but me.
Why did you do it?
There's a way, isn't it, to tell who's been handling a weapon?
I don't know.
You've always been the clever one.
I don't see any marks.
I don't either, but they say the police can.
A Frenchman wrote a book about it.
Besides, you bought the axe in Fairhaven.
It has the store mark etched on the head.
Why, Lizzie, you knew all the time.
I saw you.
I saw you from the barn window.
You came out the side door and stood looking around.
And I saw your face.
It was all I needed.
You ran to the street and I came in and found Father.
It was my apron and the blood.
You needn't have used my apron, Emma.
It was the handiest, Lizzie.
And you brought the axe from Fairhaven.
I only had a minute.
I hid them in Father's hiding place.
They were safe until that newspaper snooper began to get ideas.
Why did you hide them, Lizzie?
What else could I do?
I hated her too, Emma.
Oh, you don't remember our mother as I do.
You couldn't have hated Mrs. Borden as I did.
But Father, why Father?
After what he did to Mother?
Marrying that woman so soon after?
You were always soft over Father, Lizzie.
It's a relief, I suppose.
Oh, time after time I wanted to ask you about things
when they were asking me questions, cross-examining, keeping after me.
Oh, I wanted so badly to know so I would know what to say,
but I never dared ask you.
They had spies about me all the time.
Oh, I made so many mistakes.
When they asked if I'd seen anybody leave the house,
I was on my guard not to mention you.
I said, no, nobody.
So they decided it couldn't have been a stranger that did it.
It must have been Lizzie.
I ought to have said I saw the murderer leaving.
A big-bearded man with a bloody axe.
But I wasn't used to lying.
And when I went on the stand and told the truth
that I hated her worse than you did,
they were sure I was lying to cover you.
I had to lie about the laugh.
I had to change my story and say I was up there laughing.
Otherwise they would have started asking who was laughing.
Whose laugh sounds like Lizzie's?
Mine.
I haven't laughed since.
Neither have I.
I haven't laughed since I found my kitten dead.
Oh, Lizzie, having to kill the kitten was the hardest.
It brought on my neuralgia.
I cried for a week over the kitten.
I know you did.
I cried because I had to do it, Lizzie.
I should have understood then.
After the kitten, I should have been on guard.
You know, I was afraid at first they'd find out
you'd been away from Fairhaven.
Oh, I prayed for guidance, Lizzie.
All the time I was at Fairhaven,
I stayed in my room and prayed for guidance.
What's that got to do with it?
Why, don't you see?
When the answer came to me, I'd just got the axe
and started for Fall River.
They thought I was still in my room.
What a risk that was.
Oh, no, no risk, Lizzie.
My prayers for guidance were answered, don't you see?
I was protected.
I protected you.
Why? I wonder why.
Oh, I don't know.
Because I've always protected you, I suppose.
Because I enjoyed having the laugh on everybody, maybe.
I never guessed.
You had the laugh on me, didn't you, Lizzie?
No, I knew.
No, of course you didn't.
What would you have done if they'd found you guilty?
Gone through with it, I suppose.
I'd have gone through with it before I'd given in to them.
I guess you would.
You were always a wicked, stubborn thing.
Oh, I used to get sick of it.
The jail reporters, examining, cross-examining.
I'd get sick of it and think I'd had enough.
I'd tell them now the truth.
And then that prosecutor would come along with his pious face like a public statue.
And the very thought of giving in and admitting I'd lie would make me say,
No, I'll face it, they won't break me.
And they didn't.
No, they didn't.
Besides, I would have been giving in for nothing.
They wouldn't have believed me.
I suppose they wouldn't.
I used to wonder, if they found me guilty, what would you have done?
I used to wonder, too.
But I had my guidance.
I didn't let it worry me.
No, it didn't worry you.
Me sitting there in court day after day.
The crowd hating me.
I know, Lizzie.
Oh, how do you know?
How do you know what I went through?
The crowd staring, thinking I did it.
The women who hiss at you at the courtroom door, they hate you.
They want to see you dead.
What do you know about it?
What do you know about it, Lizzie?
You had the easy part.
You didn't have to do it.
I thought it would be like chopping wood.
It isn't.
Wood splits.
The other strikes back.
It stops you.
Wood doesn't bleed, Lizzie.
It doesn't fly.
Jump at you.
The air fills with it.
I saw the walls.
You don't know.
You don't know anything.
You didn't have to do it.
I didn't want to.
Listen, there she is.
Mrs. Borden, going up the stairs.
I'll have to hurry.
Mrs. Borden's gone, Emma.
She's been gone for a year.
No, no, she's upstairs.
Don't stop me.
Put down the axe, Emma, and come with me.
Where?
Just across the street to see Dr. Bowen.
Oh, so you can put me away.
So you can shut me up.
I'll not be shut up, Lizzie.
I wasn't meant to be shut up.
Just come and see Dr. Bowen.
No, no, he'll put me away.
I'll not have it, Lizzie.
I'll die first.
But I don't have to die, do I?
Nobody knows but you.
I'm not the one to die.
Emma, what are you doing?
I'm putting on my apron.
I just explained to you, Lizzie.
Blood spatters.
You don't want me to spoil my best bengalene, do you?
Emma, listen to me.
You have to go to Fairhaven.
You'll miss the train.
Emma, Emma.
It won't take long.
It's over in a minute, Lizzie.
Emma, think what you're doing.
You can't escape twice.
Oh, yes, I can.
I do what I have to do and the rest takes care of itself.
I don't want to.
You must understand that.
Emma, you don't have to.
Oh, yes.
I knew as soon as I saw the axe.
What else did you keep it for?
I knew there was to be another.
But I kept it to protect you.
Oh, Lizzie, don't talk.
It only makes it harder.
Now, Lizzie.
Here, give it to me.
That's better.
Miss Lizzie, can't you change your mind
and give me a statement now Miss Emma's gone?
There you are, Miss Emma.
You missed the train after all.
You don't have to talk through the window, Miss.
Take that thing off, Emma, and open the front door.
Well, good for you, Miss Lizzie.
Give me the apron, quick.
I'll cover the axe with the newspaper.
You be quiet.
Now, open the door.
Oh, this is real nice of you, Miss Lizzie.
Hot day.
I hope we have rain.
What's the weather forecast?
What's the paper say?
Fair and warmer, fair and warmer.
Oh, fair and warmer.
Now then, young woman,
what do you want to know? Quickly, please.
Tell me, Miss Lizzie, the murder weapon,
has it ever found?
What's your opinion?
Where did it get to?
I think the murderer carried it away with him.
That's all, you think?
That's all, thank you very much.
But I'm not through.
I have nothing more to say.
Miss Emma's leaving now.
You can walk with her to the station.
Well, hey, isn't this the Providence Journal?
I hear they put out a scorching editorial
wanting to know why these murders are still unsolved.
Please don't...
Emma, don't miss your train.
Come along.
I'll send for my things, Lizzie.
Very well, Emma.
Goodbye, Lizzie.
Isn't she coming back?
What did you say?
Isn't she coming back?
No, she isn't coming back.
So that's the axe.
Whole thing torn wide open now, huh?
Will you give me a statement?
Certainly not.
Miss Emma thinks now you killed them, doesn't she?
Did you, Miss Lizzie?
No, I didn't kill them.
Come on, you've been acquitted.
You can't be tried again.
I didn't do it.
Then who did it?
Was somebody in the house?
There's the murder weapon.
If you didn't do it, who did?
Maggie, Miss Emma?
Miss Emma, that's it, Miss Emma Borden.
Why didn't I see it before?
Stop talking rubbish, young woman.
I'll make a statement for you.
I did it.
You killed them?
You killed them both with the axe?
Yes.
Why? Why did you?
I don't like cold mutton soup.
What a scoop.
It isn't a scoop.
Why not?
It isn't a scoop if you can't print it,
and I'll sue you if you print it.
I've been acquitted in open court, my girl.
I'm innocent.
And don't you forget it.
You print a word and I'll sue.
I've got a quarter of a million dollars,
and I'll spend every cent of it,
depending on my good name.
Good name?
Everybody in Four River knows you did it.
You just admitted it yourself.
Never mind.
Never mind what I admitted.
Just you keep your tongue between your teeth.
You're not going to print that story,
so you can tear up those notes of yours.
I certainly will not tear it up.
I have a duty to my paper.
I said...
Tear it up.
You wouldn't.
Tear it up.
Of course, Miss Lizzie.
I'm glad to oblige you.
You couldn't put down the axe.
Thank you, Miss Lizzie, for your time.
I'm just going.
Go on.
Open the door.
Go on.
Yes.
Yes, of course.
Thank you again.
No wonder Miss Emma isn't coming back.
Goodbye, Miss Lizzie.
Lizzie bought the chocolate and gave her mother 40 wacks,
and when she saw what she had done,
she gave her father 41.
Suspense.
The film, which Irene Tadrow, Paula Winslow, and Virginia Gregg
starred in tonight's presentation of Goodbye, Miss Lizzie Borden.
Next week, be sure to listen to radio's outstanding theater of thrills,
Suspense.
Suspense is produced and transcribed by Anthony Ellis.
The script is written by Lillian De La Torre.
The music was composed by René Garaghan and conducted by Wilbur Hatch.
Featured in the cast were Helen Klebe, Leonard Weinrib, and Richard Beals.
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