"I was standing at the gate with them... don't you remember? We have carried on our trade in that house for years past. We cure and prepare hides, we take work home... most of all I was vexed...."

And the whole scene of the day before yesterday in the gateway came clearly before Raskolnikov's mind; he recollected that there had been several people there besides the porters, women among them. He remembered one voice had suggested taking him straight to the police-station. He could not recall the face of the speaker, and even now he did not recognise it, but he remembered that he had turned round and made him some answer....

So this was the solution of yesterday's horror. The most awful thought was that he had been actually almost lost, had almost done for himself on account of such a _trivial_ circumstance. So this man could tell nothing except his asking about the flat and the blood stains. So Porfiry, too, had nothing but that _delirium_, no facts but this _psychology_ which _cuts both ways_, nothing positive. So if no more facts come to light (and they must not, they must not!) then... then what can they do to him? How can they convict him, even if they arrest him? And Porfiry then had only just heard about the flat and had not known about it before.

"Was it you who told Porfiry... that I'd been there?" he cried, struck by a sudden idea.

"What Porfiry?"

"The head of the detective department?"

"Yes. The porters did not go there, but I went."

"To-day?"

"I got there two minutes before you. And I heard, I heard it all, how he worried you."

"Where? What? When?"

"Why, in the next room. I was sitting there all the time."

"What? Why, then you were the surprise? But how could it happen? Upon my word!"