The Hands of Time, A Critical Review

by Glen “Joe” Carlson

First published in February/March, 2004, Volume 1, Issue 1, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.

A Review of The Hands of Time

Muriel Arnold has written a well-documented, easy to read and thought-provoking book. As with other books written about the Borden murder, she covers the inquest, preliminary and trial. But Ms. Arnold has a fresh approach—detailing the day-to-day experiences from newspaper sources and interviews. The book is filled with numerous sketches of key participants in the journey to Lizzie’s acquittal drawn by Ms. Arnold’s niece, Elaine Alves.

The 242 page book is divided into three parts: Book One is the Borden story as presented by the newspaper reporters, Book Two is about the charges against Lizzie, and Book Three “exposes the conspirators and the diverse parts they played in order to escape detection.”

In her introduction, Arnold believes that the Borden case is solvable.

“It contains: Two murders which seem impossible to have been committed; clues which led everywhere and go nowhere; witnesses who fell prey, like the Commonwealth’s star witness, to faulty memories; the dozen witnesses who were not called to testify; murders which led to blackmail and, most importantly, an overly ambitious district attorney who unknowingly turned this simple murder case into a quagmire so deep that the Borden case was deemed unsolvable for all time.”

Arnold also believes she has solved the mystery. By using the detailed timing of events that transpired on August 4, she concludes that Bridget alone was the murderer and killed the Bordens with a meat cleaver that she cleverly dumped into the river. The reasoning behind this theory is logical, she concludes. There was an elapse of time, 45-50 minutes (9:30 to 10:20), when Bridget allegedly had “washed 12 large windows and two narrow ones on each side of the front door” (205). She simply would not have been able to do that, according to Ms. Arnold. Because she did not, in fact, wash all the windows, it allowed Bridget ample time to commit the crime. Bridget had a motive: frustration over the years with Mrs. Borden, that finally turned to anger and murder (230).

Bridget had blackmailed Uncle John Morse, according to Arnold’s theory, because Morse had borrowed money from Andrew to finance his horse deal. He had an argument with Andrew, overheard by Bridget, about payment of the debt.

What I especially like about this book is that Arnold argues against those things taken as “fact” by other writers. For example, she counters Knowlton’s claim that “there had to have been a fire hot enough to iron at 11 o’clock. Officer Harrington proved that.” Arnold’s counterclaim is that “Bridget testified to having built a small fire to cook breakfast that morning. A small fire would not be burning hot some five hours later. It took some 20 to 25 minutes to heat irons in those days, so Lizzie had spoken the truth. She started ironing around 9:30 and quit when the irons were no longer hot enough for her to finish her ironing. The fire was dying down” (188).

Arnold has constructed a “new” speculative time line that includes the “time lapse” of those 45-50 unaccounted for minutes as the time when Bridget killed the Bordens.

Even though I found the book an interesting and thoroughly enjoyable read, I did not become convinced that Muriel Arnold has solved the crime. At one time, when I first joined the Lizzie Borden Society Forum, I was convinced, as Ms. Arnold is, that Bridget did it. After a very short time, and finding several other “solutions,” I dispensed with that thought, although reading this book did cause me to re-examine Bridget as the prime suspect and the killer. 

I was a little disappointed that Arnold did not cover more about John Morse’s mysterious days in Iowa. Although she had been in contact with Beverly Boileau of Henderson, there was only a short paragraph on John Morse (228).

Works Cited

Arnold, Muriel. The Hands of Time. Nashua, NH: Tri-Flag Press, 1999.