Crime and Punishment

were talking my ears off about that Nikolay... of course, I know, I know
very well,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “that the fellow is innocent, but
what is one to do? We had to trouble Dmitri too.... This is the point,
this is all: when you went up the stairs it was past seven, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant sensation at the very
moment he spoke that he need not have said it.

“Then when you went upstairs between seven and eight, didn’t you see in
a flat that stood open on a second storey, do you remember? two workmen
or at least one of them? They were painting there, didn’t you notice
them? It’s very, very important for them.”

“Painters? No, I didn’t see them,” Raskolnikov answered slowly, as
though ransacking his memory, while at the same instant he was racking
every nerve, almost swooning with anxiety to conjecture as quickly as
possible where the trap lay and not to overlook anything. “No, I didn’t
see them, and I don’t think I noticed a flat like that open.... But on
the fourth storey” (he had mastered the trap now and was triumphant)
“I remember now that someone was moving out of the flat opposite Alyona
Ivanovna’s.... I remember... I remember it clearly. Some porters