eight o’clock
`` Because only peasants , or the most inexperienced novices deny everything flatly at examinations . If a man is ever so little developed and experienced , he will certainly try to admit all the external facts that ca n't be avoided , but will seek other explanations of them , will introduce some special , unexpected turn , that will give them another significance and put them in another light . Porfiry might well reckon that I should be sure to answer so , and say I had seen them to give an air of truth , and then make some explanation . '' `` But he would have told you at once that the workmen could not have been there two days before , and that therefore you must have been there on the day of the murder at eight o'clock . And so he would have caught you over a detail . '' `` Yes , that is what he was reckoning on , that I should not have time to reflect , and should be in a hurry to make the most likely answer , and so would forget that the workmen could not have been there two days before . '' `` But how could you forget it ? ''