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"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 can'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."