Don't you know that all this manoeuverin' o' police an' detectives is started on account o' Bruno? MRS. JOHN How so? Where? What is it? What's been started? JOHN The funeral's been stopped an' two o' the mourners--queer customers they is, too--has been taken prisoner. Yes, sir! That's the pass things has come to, Mr. Hassenreuter. I'm a man, sir, what's tied to a women as has a brother what's bein' pursued by the criminal police an' by detectives because he killed a woman not far from the river under a lilac bush. HASSENREUTER But my dear Mr. John: God forbid that that be true! MRS. JOHN That's a lie! My brother don' do nothin' like that. JOHN Aw, don' he though, Jette? Mr. Hassenreuter, I was sayin' the other day what kind of a brother that is! [_He notices the bunch of lilacs and takes it from the table._] Look at this here! That there monster's been in my home! If he comes back I'll be the first one that'll take him, bound hand an' foot, an' deliver him up to justice! [_He searches through the whole room._ MRS. JOHN You c'n tell dam' fools there's such a thing as justice. There ain't no justice, not even in heaven. There wasn't a soul here. An' that bit o' lilac I brought along from Hangelsberg where a big bush of it grows behind your sister's house. JOHN Jette, you wasn't at my sister's at all. Quaquaro jus' told me that! They proved that at headquarters. You was seen in the park by the river ... MRS. JOHN Lies! JOHN An' 'way out in the suburbs where you passed the night in a arbour! MRS. JOHN What? D'you come into your own house to tear everythin' into bits? JOHN All right! I ain't sorry that things has come to this. There ain't no more secrets between us here. I foretold all that. HASSENREUTER [_Tense with interest._] Did that Polish girl who fought like a lioness for Mrs. Knobbe's baby the other day ever show herself again? JOHN She's the very one. She's the one what they pulled out o' the water this morning. An' I has to say it without bitin' my tongue off: Bruno Mechelke took that girl's life. HASSENREUTER [_Quickly._] Then she was probably his mistress? JOHN Ask mother! I don' know about that! That's what I was scared of; that's the reason I rather didn't come home at all no more, that my own wife was loaded down with a crowd like that an' didn't have the strength to shake it off. HASSENREUTER Come, children! JOHN Why so? You jus' stay! MRS. JOHN You don' has to go an' open the windows an' cry out everythin' for all the world to hear! It's bad enough if fate's brought a misfortune like that on us. Go on! Make a noise about it if you want to. But you won't see me very soon again. HASSENREUTER And you mean to say that that ... JOHN