seventeen minutes after eight
With the coming of the last day of the trial Billy found it more and more difficult to adhere to his regard for law , order , and justice . The prosecution had shown conclusively that Billy was a hard customer . The police had brought witnesses who did not hesitate to perjure themselves in their testimony -- testimony which it seemed to Billy the densest of jurymen could plainly see had been framed up and learned by rote until it was letter-perfect . These witnesses could recall with startling accuracy every detail that had occurred between seventeen minutes after eight and twenty-one minutes past nine on the night of September 23 over a year before ; but where they had been and what they had done ten minutes earlier or ten minutes later , or where they were at nine o'clock in the evening last Friday they could n't for the lives of them remember . And Billy was practically without witnesses . The result was a foregone conclusion . Even Billy had to admit it , and when the prosecuting attorney demanded the death penalty the prisoner had an uncanny sensation as of the tightening of a hempen rope about his neck .