And
you have those writings here too?
STROEBEL. The diary? [He indicates the desk.] Here it is.
BEERMANN [peeps anxiously over]. Then it is a regular diary?
STROEBEL. Quite correctly kept. Gives date and names. Even little
jesting remarks about the people concerned.
BEERMANN [shouts]. But that is an unheard of insolence!
STROEBEL. Yes.
BEERMANN. Why does she write such things? To what purpose? Can't
she herself realize how dangerous it is? Fancy, a woman whose
whole stock in trade is secrecy, keeping an address hook of her
patrons. Confound her!
STROEBEL. But to us as evidence it is priceless.
BEERMANN. I ask you--why does she record such things?
STROEBEL. We can only be glad of it, Herr Beermann.
BEERMANN. We?
STROEBEL. She'd lie. I tell you she'd deny everything, and that
puts an end to the case. [Holding the diary in the air.] But here
we have the whole bunch.
BEERMANN. As though she wanted to turn State's evidence ...
STROEBEL. Let her just come to court with her confounded fine
talk. [Imitating Hauteville's manners.] "It simply must not have
happened." I will drive her to the wall with what happened. We
will simply bring up those fellows, one after the other.
BEERMANN [dismayed]. To court!
STROEBEL. Certainly, and that means; hand on the Bible and swear.
Then we shall see if "no one compelled anyone to hide in the
wardrobe.
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