The possibility that not only Schmied forgot (or intentionally “forgot”) but also the maid forgot to set her watch batch is in intriguing possibility. But, although I don’t have the book in front of me, didn’t she immediately call the security and the police when she discovered the body? And I’m sure they arrived shortly. Therefore, it seems very likely that the time reported for her discovery of the body was accurate given these corroborations. But I’ll have to look at the story again.

Here’s my initial convoluted explanation (which is still possible, but Occam’s razor leads me to favor the maid theory): There are two possibilities for the in time between Boheim’s watch and the video camera time:

1) (The story as directly told) Boheim is innocent. The clock on the video camera was not turned back and Boheim had turned back his watch. He left the hotel at 2:26.

2) (The hidden plot twist) Boheim is guilty. He planned the perfect murder. He deliberately turned his watch back *two* hours so that it would bring into doubt the accuracy of the clock on the video camera. He new his lawyer was good and cooly relied on the fact that his lawyer would be smart enough to discover the time discrepancy.

My initial interpretation of the final paragraph was that Schmied had realized that (2) was a possibility. But, as I said, I now think it was just that Schmied realized that the maid’s could have forgotten to set her watch back.

I figured that the time on Boheim’s watch could be explained by the fact that since everybody’s clock had just recently changed he had simply forgotten to change his. But this doesn’t explain or refute the defense attorney’s argument that the time shown on the video camera demonstrated, given the clock change, that he had in fact left the hotel at 2:30 rather than 3:30.

I think the stories are great. But the translation is awful.