half past five o'clock
`` Our duty , '' continued the advocate , `` is , therefore , to manage in a way to escape them ; and this is how I understand the role of this really providential witness , if it is possible to make her undertake it . Since it has occurred to you -- you who wish the acquittal of this poor boy -- that the testimony of Madame Dammauville may be vitiated by the simple fact that it comes from a sick woman , it is incontestable , is it not , that this same idea will occur to those who wish for his conviction ? This testimony should be irrefutable ; it should be presented in such a way that no one could raise anything against it , so that it would compel the acquittal in the same moment that it is presented . It was between a quarter past and half past five o'clock that Caffie was assassinated ; at exactly a quarter past five , a woman of respectable position , and whose intellectual as well as physical faculties render her worthy of being believed , saw in Caffies office a man , with whom it is materially impossible to confound Florentin Cormier , draw the curtains of the window , and thus prepare for the crime . She would make her deposition in these conditions , and in these terms , and the affair would be finished . There would not be a judge , after this confrontation , who would send Florentin Cormier before the assizes , and , assuredly , there would not be two voices in the jury for conviction . But things will not happen like this .